Lib-Arc Write up, the UP.

[frigidmagi]

United Protectorates:

Astrographic position: The United Protectorates sits on the western edge of known space with a barren span of lifeless systems stretching out further west. While there have been efforts to map out this zone, the other side has yet to be found. To the north lies a void area that separates it from the Confederation of Logos sphere of influence. Both the barren and void area curve to create a wide wedge shaped territory of space that the UP occupies. The southeast border of the UP is the only border that actually touches on inhabited space without any barriers. Due to these quarks and the sheer amount of void between it and the rest of human space, the people went for a long time before reestablishing contact with the wider galaxy.

Breif History: The United Protectorates was founded by colonist from the North American continent of Earth occurring to their own historical traditions. The colonial ship named the Hopeful Venture was attack by forces unknown and made a Hyper jump under fire to escape. This does little to explain how excaltly a colony ship from the original Earth ended up on the Western edge of currently known space almost 1,000 years ahead of normal documented human settlement. Several theories have been advanced, from wormholes, to active conspiracy. None have been proven.

The Hopeful Venture crash landed on the planet that would be named by the surviving crew and colonists, LastPort. It should be noted that the people of the United Protectorates are not without a type of dark humor. LastPort is an average sized Earth planet, with a gravity of 1.09 g's, it lies futher out from it's sun then is the normal average for human worlds because of this the year is longer then standard being roughly 26 months, the day of LastPort is 25 hours and 20 minutes long. LastPort has only a single continental mass and no major island chains, 45% of its surface is dry land and it is very mountainous. It is also a planet locked into a Ice Age, one of the effects of it is a literally man killing winter, a human without high tech aids would die in under 30 minutes if on the surface of the planet during its 8 month long “winter.â€

[frigidmagi]

Crypts: Every city has crypts built into the outer sectors, it is possible to buy space in these crypts to store the bodies of the dead, this is fairly popular among the nobility and most of the rich and middle class, the body is marched by human bearers to the crypt (in some cases it's a relay as the distances can get a bit long) and interred. The survivors eat a meal and drink at the crypt after the service, usually a drink is left at the crypt.

Cremation: Preferred by Hindus and lower class citizens, although a number of middle class families do this in combination with the crypt burial (some store the ashes of several family members in the same space within a crypt that is usually used for a single body). The body is burned to ashes at a facility at the city crypts and can be taken home by the family or interred there.

Martial Arts: Given it's history as one may expect a number of Martial Arts have evolved in the United Protectorates. A number of the more enduring and popular ones will be covered here.

Tortuga Machacador: Or Turtle Crushing was invented by Izek Mendoza of House Mendoza, it is meant for used while in powered armor and fighting others in powered armor to disable the suit itself or cause enough damage to impair the user. Machacador for short concentrates on strong heavy blows to weak points in the armor and holds that stresses the joints as well as some rather nasty head shots. Lord Protector's Marines get some instruction in this art as to do some Army units. It is of very limited use outside of a suit of powered armor.

Hill Style: Invented by the members and followers of House Andersen. House Andersen was at the time a fairly poor House and could not afford to create or maintain a lot of powered armored suits for it's troops. The hills they set themselves in were metal and fissionable poor as well as lousy farmland. The rifles and motors they created to make up the lack proved to be terrifying enough, however there were times when enemy troops could close through the brutal steel rain to hand to hand distances. Hill Style uses a shorter vibro-blade then that carried by powered armored troops (this is due frankly to the fact that powered armor troops were stronger thanks to the suits) mainly for defensive purposes. There are a number of strikes within Hill Style however and it is known for being a ruthless, vicious style without scruple.

Primier Sang: A dueling art invented by a Knight of House Godfrey named Adrian Christian. He chose a name from a language passed down to him by his mother. Adrian is known for winning 151 duels to first blood without killing or crippling any of his opponents. The tool for this art is the light saber, while more or less useless in a real melee by the creators own admission, it is a handy art for dueling or one on one affairs.

Art in the United Protectorates tend to be performance or in heavy substance. Chain mail tapersties, stone carving, engraving and so on shows that there is a great amount of work in heavy solid elements. There are few if any painters in the UP art tradition. These works tend to capture persons or historical events, although these works do not capture their subjects in perfect realistic way. A layer of unreality lays on the work. For example, despite numerous photos of Lord Protector Nathan also called The Warrior, he is always show in carvings, tasperties and engravings as wearing heavy armor and holding a naked two handed vibro blade, no matter what the setting. Also despite dying at the age of 68, he is always shown as a young man. This creates an element of the surreal within the art, where as the artist tend to argue that they are showing the soul of the subject, his inner most elements. Otherwise the subject is captured faithfully, with all imperfections and features copied utterly. For example no UP artist would think to edit the scarred face of Lord Marcus Sulas Berry the terrible. Or the plague wounds suffered by soldiers during the siege of Burning Gulf.

On the other side of the coin is the performance art. Singing and dancing are the two most popular forms of expression in this arena. Unlike the material arts which seek to capture persons or historical moments in imperishable stone or slightly more perishable metal, the songs and dances in the UP are meant to express emotional states or mental stances. Perishable, tranisent but powerful moments in time.

There are several forms of singing within the UP. The solo is a single person singing, with or without instrumental back up. There is also the call and response, where a solo lead singer sings the call (usually a song verse) and a chorus sings the response (the answering verse, sometimes the chorus). The duet is almost always song by a male-female group, although this does not mean that is it mostly romantic, duets take the form of two singers expressing and reacting to each other in musical verse and can cover a range of subjects. The group song is sung by a group together. Lastly the group duet is two groups singing at each other.

Psioinics: Since the Wanderers split off from humanity the level and amount of Psionic talent has dropped significantly. Like most nations the United Protectorate devotes a good amount of effort to identifying and training psionic talents. Telepaths the most famous of the psionics talents are actually very rare in the UP. Some theorize that telepathy wasn't as big of an advantage in the underground holds of Lastport and was somehow selected against, likewise the empaths of the usual spectrum of psionics. Or that mutation from the environmental stresses lead to a mutation of the genes that created a number of other talents. Under law the possession of a psionic talent is a private matter and the person in question has all the rights of an average citizen. It should be noted that the government reserves the right of “first callâ€

[Charon]

Question time!

Maybe this was explained in the other thread, but what's with the huge span of lifeless planets? Is it just one of those weird things that happen or was it something else?

I'd really like to know how a colony ship managed to land where it did a thousand years before any other humans. Even if they don't know.

In the history you say that the days on LastPort are 25 hours and 20 minutes long. I assume that's in Earth hours? Have they adopted a new time system based on the orbit of Lastport? If so what is it broken up into? Also, what is the tilt of the planet? This would determine how drastic season shifts are.

You mention in the history that it was a good thing they built into the mountain because of how cold the winter got as though Mattews was lucky or good. But couldn't they just realize "Man, it's cold already and the days are getting shorter. It's gonna be really freaking cold." Ignoring all the scientific equipment they could use to gauge how cold the winter would be.

Military

When the UP first showed up, why was the Void navy kicking so much ass? Yes they'd gone under a series of wars, but from what I could tell so had the other nations that they encountered, and having been cloistered away from everyone else for so long and having had to practically start from scratch since it took hundreds of years just to get back out into space, how did they have at least on-par tech?

Don't the other nations in the coalition kind of resent having to look to the UP for their protection? What really is the difference between them being in an alliance and them being vassals?

What are the details on the light sabers? You mention they're not very good but leave it at that, more on those please.

Politics

What happens if the next Lord Protector in line is batshit crazy or just an all around incompetent ruler? Is there anyway to remove him from power or make certain he doesn't get it in the first place? Since I assume the Lord Protector has plenty of kids, do these kids kill each other to get the job of Lord Protector?

Culture

The fact that the people of the UP find their privacy extremely important but don't slightly balk at constantly watched public places seems kind of contradictory. Yes I know technically public places aren't meant to be private, but the U.S. is a society which appreciates privacy as well and still balks at the idea of public surveillance.

How is there almost no Islamic population in the UP?

A note on the funerals. You mentioned burials are used by the more "traditional" folks. But they started on a colony ship where you can't bury people. How long were they on that ship? If it was a long time then I'm not sure it would be the "traditionalists" who would be doing burials. If it wasn't a long time, ignore this.

[General Havoc]

Few points:

Might want to scan this thing for spelling and flow purposes. "Judaical branch" and "Judicial branch" for example mean two very different things. I was reading about your government and suddenly thought that this was an empire of militant feudal Space-Jews. (Which would be awesome).

Regarding the history: The war between the UP and the UA and its allies does not strike me as a likely outcome. Smaller, more professional military organizations can occasionally overcome larger entities, but the larger the scale of the conflict in question, the less likely that is. I just don't see what gave the UP the capacity to carve up an empire five times their size like that. It's like Japan fighting the US in the Pacific War.

Regarding the politics: While I tend to agree that most socialists are naive, I'm surprised that you're claiming the Socialist party has little support given the sheer scale of the MIC you have going on here. It strikes me that they would be more of a force to be reckoned with in politics on most of the lower-income, lower-representation planets, particularly ones with large industrial sectors (of which there have to be many, if only to support the military structure of this empire).

Regarding Land Ownership: That's a fairly extreme move to make. Total government land ownership completely eliminates much of the bedrock of the financial industry, as you cannot capitalize on homes, factories, or other structures, as there exists no concept of private equity. It eliminates much of the incentive for capitalization improvements, apartment buildings for example, or office buildings could not exist unless government funded and constructed. There would be no such thing as a "rental" market, nor a "housing" market, but instead a government-subsidized price-fixed, quasi-socialist structure of "allotment" for housing. The bureaucracy would be elephantine, by necessity. I'm of course not saying you CAN'T have it set up that way, but you need to bear in mind the financial implications of that sort of a system. It means credit of any sort is next-to-impossible to obtain (by our standards), that mortgages do not exist, that it is very very difficult for private industry to actually "build" things and therefore that most buildings are either relatively simple structures, or are government financed.

Also, what happened to the lands of the nations and empires conquered by the UP? Was it all expropriated? Were the deeds of ownership declared void and all property nationalized? What happened to outstanding mortgages and debts? Were people's homes seized and people expected suddenly to sign leases on property they formerly owned? Was compensation paid? If so, where did the money originate from? If the government TRULY owns all the land, then I think the UP is going to have to deal with a major amount of rabid anti-government sentiment on their more recent conquests (which I think would be the case anyway).

Regarding Religion: Interesting concepts mostly, though I find it odd that the largest faith in your empire would be apocalyptics. Surely this would result in effects on the UP's foreign policy, if they view themselves as God's warriors preparing for judgment day. Perhaps it does...

Hellenistic Judaism is an odd one. I was going to cry foul when you claimed 18% of the populace was Jewish, but I suppose proselytizing Jews would generate a bit of a group. Quick question though: Traditional Jews would not consider Hellenistic Judaism (an anachronism if you consider what Hellenism and Judaism's relationship was back in the day) to be Jewish, but yet another splinter sect that has fallen away from what it is to be Jewish. I presume that these Jews would also still exist within the UP, albeit of course at the usual low numbers.

Regarding Martial Arts: When you say "Light Sabre", do you mean a Jedi weapon, or a metal sabre which is not very heavy?

[frigidmagi]

Let me first thank everyone for the feedback and the questions and corrections. They are quiet helpful.

In the history you say that the days on LastPort are 25 hours and 20 minutes long. I assume that's in Earth hours? Have they adopted a new time system based on the orbit of Lastport? If so what is it broken up into? Also, what is the tilt of the planet? This would determine how drastic season shift

Yes it's in Earth Hours. The extra 20 minutes are lumped into an short "hour." I'm debating whether or not have superstitions around that hour or not. If I do it'll be added into any additional write ups I make.

You mention in the history that it was a good thing they built into the mountain because of how cold the winter got as though Mattews was lucky or good. But couldn't they just realize "Man, it's cold already and the days are getting shorter. It's gonna be really freaking cold." Ignoring all the scientific equipment they could use to gauge how cold the winter would be.

Keep in mind their spaceship did just crash, they weren't exactly at a full equipment load.

When the UP first showed up, why was the Void navy kicking so much ass? Yes they'd gone under a series of wars, but from what I could tell so had the other nations that they encountered, and having been cloistered away from everyone else for so long and having had to practically start from scratch since it took hundreds of years just to get back out into space, how did they have at least on-par tech?

Well, it helps that the guys they were fighting were small nations on the out in a backwards sector of space and the UP had a better resource base then all of it's opponents, at least until the War of Alliance. Before then they were kicking around the equivalents of 3rd world nations. The United Alliance was a different horse altogether but they had help on that one. Also they didn't lose all that much tech or knowledge from their starting point. At Nathan's time they were fighting with power armor and uranium depleted rifle rounds for example. The biggest slow down was the constant warfare (which can be as much a drain on scientific advance as a boast) and the fact it took generations to build up the population and infrastructure to put alot of the knowledge to use.

Don't the other nations in the coalition kind of resent having to look to the UP for their protection? What really is the difference between them being in an alliance and them being vassals?

It depends on the nation in question doesn't it? Also the League of Humanity is more then a coalition. It's stronger then NATO in it's control over member states but not as strong as a federal government. It kinda stands in an uneasy middle ground really. Also the Hispanic Union and the Logos Confederation are pretty much as strong as the UP is, but don't concenrate as much on military power for reasons that their creators (Hotfoot and Marcoa) will have to cover whenever they get around to actually writing something(looks at them).

It is fair to say some nations do and others don't.

What happens if the next Lord Protector in line is batshit crazy or just an all around incompetent ruler? Is there anyway to remove him from power or make certain he doesn't get it in the first place?

I must have edited out the answer to these by mistake. Apologies. Basically Congress can Impeach the Lord Protector although it's very difficult to so, requiring 75% in the House and 65% in the Senate. To become Lord or Lady Protector one has to pass a battery of tests as well to ensure a basic level of sanity and ability. The Mattew's family itself is rather focused on making sure whoever get's in the bird dog seat is going to do a decent job, as they're fully aware of what tends to happen to deposed ruling families.

Since I assume the Lord Protector has plenty of kids, do these kids kill each other to get the job of Lord Protector?

No, it goes to the oldest heir who passes the tests. Killing him is going to get a mountain of investigations and such drawn to you. Being a Mattews even if you don't get to be LP does ensure you a life of power and privilege so most see little reason to kill the heir. It has happened in the past during the civil wars however. If I tried to do an indepth history of that though it would suck enough space for it's own web page so I'm not planning on it anytime soon.

The fact that the people of the UP find their privacy extremely important but don't slightly balk at constantly watched public places seems kind of contradictory. Yes I know technically public places aren't meant to be private, but the U.S. is a society which appreciates privacy as well and still balks at the idea of public surveillance.

I stole directly from modern day Japan here and just twisted it around really. Basically the reason their privacy is so important to them is because they don't really have all that much. When you think about it, it makes sense.

How is there almost no Islamic population in the UP?

Well the colonist came mainly from North America, bluntly I kinda doubt there's ever going to be a huge amount of Muslims here, so there's that against them. Some of the conqeared areas were Muslim but they were also considered fair game for conversion by the native religions of the UP and having your shrines leveled by Kafir's is a bit of blow to the faith.

Also I wasn't interested in writing them at the moment. That may change, as the Muslims do deserve their own presence in this universe.

A note on the funerals. You mentioned burials are used by the more "traditional" folks. But they started on a colony ship where you can't bury people. How long were they on that ship? If it was a long time then I'm not sure it would be the "traditionalists" who would be doing burials. If it wasn't a long time, ignore this.

It wasn't a long time, Lt Mattews and Lt. Sharp both were old enough to have served in the military on Earth for example. Also the colony ship was FTL.

The computer center closes in 5 minutes so I'll get to Havoc tommorrow, sorry Hav.

[frigidmagi]

Has I now has stablish internets it is being Havoc's turn! (For Extra Points Kids, find all the grammar and spelling mistakes I have crammed the sentence that declares it's Havoc's turn).

="Havoc" The war between the UP and the UA and its allies does not strike me as a likely outcome. Smaller, more professional military organizations can occasionally overcome larger entities, but the larger the scale of the conflict in question, the less likely that is. I just don't see what gave the UP the capacity to carve up an empire five times their size like that. It's like Japan fighting the US in the Pacific War.

Several things to consider, the UP didn't fight alone, The Confederation of Logos and the Hispanic Union along with other nations joined in on the war against the UA. The arstographic arrangement of that set up was

LC


UP UA HU


Which means that the UA was fighting a 3 front war against major powers. This is more like the Japanese, the Brazilians and England teaming up against the US. Even then consider the UA was more like a really centralized EU then anything else. The only service that was really under the central government was the Navy and it wasn't anywhere near ready for large scale warfare like that. Even then if the UP had fought the war alone it would have lost, only after inflicting extreme damage but it still would have lost.

I tend to agree that most socialists are naive, I'm surprised that you're claiming the Socialist party has little support given the sheer scale of the MIC you have going on here. It strikes me that they would be more of a force to be reckoned with in politics on most of the lower-income, lower-representation planets, particularly ones with large industrial sectors (of which there have to be many, if only to support the military structure of this empire).

Part of the reason is sheer proganada that is part of growing up in the UP. Much like how Americans are spoon fed the idea that we are special and deserve to be the bird dog seat from birth, the UP are fed their own brand of that. The vast majority of them honestly believe that it's their duty to be the sword and shield of the League of Humanity and the UP and the League represent the last best hope of the species.

Another reason is that the socialists have been undercut by the government (Bismark in Imperial Germany did much the same) with most of their needs taken care of. Yes, taxes are high, but if you don't have to pay rent or medical bills or a host of other things it's not much of a difference is it?

Total government land ownership completely eliminates much of the bedrock of the financial industry, as you cannot capitalize on homes, factories, or other structures, as there exists no concept of private equity. It eliminates much of the incentive for capitalization improvements, apartment buildings for example, or office buildings could not exist unless government funded and constructed.

Yes that's very true. Keep in mind these guys live underground. This means the power lines, water lines, Air, everything has to be planned out to the last centimeter and drilled out, along with the living quarters and other rooms. Add in the fact that there's an element of fortress living in a UP city and you tend towards a city and planet government that quiet bluntly doesn't want people drilling out their own apartments and wrecking the city plans.

Yes the Civil Services as they are called are rather large in comparison to ours.

Regarding Religion: Interesting concepts mostly, though I find it odd that the largest faith in your empire would be apocalyptics. Surely this would result in effects on the UP's foreign policy, if they view themselves as God's warriors preparing for judgment day. Perhaps it does...

You mean perhaps a militant foreign policy that tends towards black and white thinking and seeing policies that don't measure up as fair game for meddling in and even outright conquest? Could be...

Hellenistic Judaism is an odd one. I was going to cry foul when you claimed 18% of the populace was Jewish, but I suppose proselytizing Jews would generate a bit of a group. Quick question though: Traditional Jews would not consider Hellenistic Judaism (an anachronism if you consider what Hellenism and Judaism's relationship was back in the day) to be Jewish, but yet another splinter sect that has fallen away from what it is to be Jewish. I presume that these Jews would also still exist within the UP, albeit of course at the usual low numbers.

I'm not happy with the name honestly, because it roughly translate to Greek Jews at best and has nothing to do with the sect. I'm hoping someone will read this and be able to suggest a better one.

Yes Orthodox Jews don't care for them at all and won't even recognize their Rabbis. Liberal Reform are a bit more tolerant but vastly uncomfortable. The Conservative Jews will speak to their Rabbis but refuse to recognize their laymen as "real" Jews or their synagogues. However the law is rather clear cut on this case and the Hellenistic Jews are the majority of the Jewish population at any point.