Environmental collapse: by the end of the twenty-first century these two words held the doom of the Human race as increasing catastrophe and decreasing resources dealt body blow after body blow to the increasingly fragile governments of Humanity. Even the increasing growth of orbital technologies couldn't save a rapidly collapsing human economy from its own appetites.
Then a miracle: The Korolov-Chandrasekhar gate, a revolutionary technology for creating artificial wormholes that gave humanity access to the stars. Within a decade dozens of extra-solar colonies were funneling raw materials back to Sol which sat at the heart of the new Solarian Compact.
Earth's new lifeblood was conducted to Sol via the auspices of a dozen newly created corporations, the first of the Stellar Charters; privately owned entities of vast scope and nearly unlimited remit in their territories.
Under these dynamic new entities Earth was rejuvenated nearly overnight into the beating heart of a vital and thriving interstellar civilization, the words environmental collapse all but forgotten.
That was two centuries ago, since then, the Stellar Charters have only grown more powerful, and while the Compact is strong enough to bring any single Charter into line it cannot hope to corral all of them.
Each Stellar Charter hypercorporation is a nation unto itself, possessing worlds, fleets, armies, and populations in pursuit of ever growing profits.
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It is now 2251 and until this past week the might of the Charters had never been seriously tested.
Your world is, in your unbiased opinion, the queen of the colonies, and most beautiful of all of Humanity's worlds. Founded by one of the Stellar Charters that provide the resources that keep Earth alive, your world is:
[ ] Gaia, in the Cornucopia System: A world where every inch of land is covered in green, Gaia was discovered on the trailing edge of a volcanically-induced ice age. The prodigious amounts of ash turned this world into an instant breadbasket. There are even a few indigenous species of plant which are human-edible and have turned into Heartland delicacies.
Settled by the Cernunnos Charter, Gaia is the breadbasket for huge swaths of Compact space and home to labs on the cutting edge of medical and biological sciences, but sadly lacking in heavy industries and military might.
[ ] Pacifica, Crucible System: The cool archipelago world of Pacifica forms the center of Rhodes Mining's HR efforts, filled with family housing for workers, retirement homes for former workers, and the ever-expanding resource extraction machine.
Crucible forms part of the support infrastructure for Rhodes operations and is directly adjacent to the highly industrialized Foundry system that forms the heart of Humanity's industries outside Sol giving Crucible a dangerous location for a fledgling rebellion.
[ ] Athene, Alexander System: The source of much of Ares Conflict Systems' recent product development, the mysterious world of Athene is jealously guarded from prying eyes. Much of the system also serves as a convenient training and firing range for Ares' own military arm. It's an unusual contradiction—nearly all Ares spaceborne contractors have been through Alexander at some point in their careers, but few have set foot on the habitable jewel in the inner system.
While the mysterious system has its own industries and military facilities, it is not self-sufficient and cut off from Ares logistics may be unable to feed and supply itself off of its own resources.
[ ] Intelligence and Wisdom, Ascension System: Only recently settled, this incredibly rare dual-terrestrial system was only revealed by Omoikane Innovations Group after a spate of buying and corporate conflict had depleted much of the other Charter's liquid reserves, and was thus auctioned to them with little conflict. It's not hard to see why, between the two near-virgin planets and the total of 4 jump points.
Though the most distant habitable worlds that Humanity has ever settled, and lightly settled at that, Omoikane has made Ascension home to Charter space's most cutting edge laboratories, and built the infrastructure and light shipyards necessary to support another round of energetic exploration and survey in frontier space.
[ ] Elysium, Radiant System: The preeminent communications hub of an entire region of settled space, Radiant hosts no less than 6 jump points—the theoretical maximum according to current models. A large number of far-flung mining and agricultural worlds all meet here—and with that funnelling comes trade and prosperity. All roads might not lead to Rome today, but most hyperlanes lead to Radiant.
Settled by the Hermes-Ishtar corporation, Elysium features not only high end resorts and bountiful food supplies but is home to some of the most influential studios and creators in Compact space. Though the system has little in the way of military might or industrial power it is home to a heavy concentration of high end courier manufacturing and maintenance yards, Hermes-Ishtar supplemental laboratories, and the storage servers for a quarter of Human space.
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Despite your world's wealth, your world was not your own. The Charters' monopoly on power has seen you system squeezed, your working class population living impoverished in sprawling shanty-towns, your middle classes precariously employed in the uncertainty of the gig economy and your upper class composed near entirely of the earthborn children of last generation's earthborn Stellar Charter rulers.
Opposition to the Charters' and their Earth Compact lackeys came from many corners; the underground labour unions, the suppressed intellectuals and students, from the dispossessed and downtrodden of all types. But for generations the opposition wasn't powerful enough to do anything but struggle in hidden futility.
But last month that all changed. No one quite knows where it started or when. You just know that the regular food riots and student protests spread beyond the capacity of the corporations and their mercenaries to control. That orbital labour strikes paralyzed the corporate fleets. That the factory workers seized their workplaces, that the students took control of the universities, that the underpaid and overworked spacers turned the white hot engines of their cargo haulers and freighters against the surprised corporate warships in their docks.
This month democracy flowers on your home. For the first time your world is holding elections to build a new new constitution and a new government. You are the new representatives of a new System Legislature. Much hope is being placed in you because you not only have to realise the dreams of the masses of newly free citizens, but preserve that newly found freedom against the attempts by the Charters, and possibly the Compact itself, to re-enslave you.
A/N: What is For The Tyrant's Fear Your Might?
You know in Cyberpunk Dystopias when they talk about offworld colonies, and the universe beyond Earth? Well, in this case you *are* one of the offworld colonies and you've just gone into revolt against your corporate masters.
In a world where Humanity lies under the thumb of Big Mammon, as the democratic legislature of a newly independent frontier colony, you will use vigorous diplomacy, military might, clever espionage, subtle stratagems and a can do spacer's spirit to make that independence stick and make the universe a much brighter place. Or you can be smothered under the heavy hand of the imperial core's repression...
This quest is also a team effort, @Cyanblackstone and @Amorous Intent are also contributing to this, and and assisting my dumb non-STEM ass as technical advisors, as aside from a single handwave, for mechanical simplification, (you try plotting out astronomical relations between dozens of stars across hundreds of light years!) all the technology in the quest has a basis in proposed real world science and technology that is backed up by sources.
The Core Region:
UNDER RADIANT CONTROL OR ALLIED:
