Neo-Okinawa
- Location
- Germany
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=} Clouded Dreams {=
IC Thread
Discord Link
=} Neo-Okinawa {=
Heat, thin air and spores that get into lungs and mechanical systems.
=} Clouded Dreams {=
IC Thread
Discord Link
=} Neo-Okinawa {=
Heat, thin air and spores that get into lungs and mechanical systems.
In many ways Neo-Okinawa is the kind of planet that would be nothing more than a navigational note in the steady expansion of humanity and its both political and corporate overlords across known space. Set in the Outer Veil, the region of space that separates the Core Systems from the Outer Rim, its system was both distant from the more populated sectors of the region and the American Corridor that connects the Core Systems with the UA sectors on the Outer Rim. Indeed the planet might never have been anything more than another low priority terraforming candidate for the decades to come, if it wasn't for its most dangerous - and profitable feature: its thick and heavy atmosphere. Deadly to humans and corrosive to its technology, it is filled with chemicals and trace particles that find use in the most sought after product on the frontier: terraforming. As soon as the prospectors returned the colonization and exploitation rights of the planet were claimed by Chigusa Corporate, to fuel its projects along the Outer Rim.
When the first colonists in 2123 arrived, they found a world where height - not wide - was the decisive factor for human colonization. The atmosphere they ventured into was thick and while it can be breathed in with the aid of a filter mask, the deeper one heads below the tallest of mountain peaks, the quicker a mix of biological and chemical contaminants render any such protection toxic to its user. While the mountain peaks that hold the few human settlements are downright pleasant, the thick atmosphere turns the lower mountain rangers semi-opaque, while the deep banks are shrouded in eternal fog that makes human vision near useless. Technical tools light sophisticated ultraviolet or infrared viewing equipment help, but sometimes there are pockets of even more impenetrable gasses forcing humans into complete darkness.
Visibility and breathing aren't the only problems: the deeper one descends towards the surface of Neo-Okinawa, the greater the heat and pressure placed upon anything that travels through the fog. While the lower mountain ranges are still habitable, as long as a human wears protective equipment outside and isn't exposed to the atmosphere and heat for more than a few short moments, living in this eternally dawn is a miserable existence reserved for prisoners if necessary at all. Still, some of the largest and complex flora and fauna call this place their home and these plains are covered in large active fungi fields, who prosper and die in the sweltering heat and fill the air with all sorts of interesting biological remnants.
The colonists stuck to the largest mountain range they could find, using or creating plateaus to found the five settlement sites that made up the human habitation and exploitation of Neo-Okinawa: Motobu-Terminal; Naha-Spire; Onna-Pump; Izena-Industries and what would later become the Doya.
For the first generation of the colonists the work was hard, but worth it. They could see their new home coming into existence around them and the high demand for the refined gasses of the planet were making sure that Chiguas Corporate was more than happy to take a gentle approach to the settlements, never squeezing far too much. This only started to change in the late 2140s. With Weyland-Yutani strengthening its position in the region in its conflict with Biodyne and Chigusa, the exports of Neo-Okinawa found themselves both beset by pirates and Weyland-Yutani worlds undercutting the prizes to flip customers across the Veil.
The decrease in profits were at first gradual, but by the midst of the 2140s they were downright plummeting with a whole generation of workers and colonists seeing their lives work and savings crumbling away in face of inter-corporate rivalry. Things might have continued like that if not for the Core conflict breaking out in 2147 with the Revolt of Alexandria. While New-Okinawa was far removed from the Core, news of rebellious colonies sparked a restlessness that proved to be the tinder for the spark that was flight #56A on the 1st December of 2149.
Facing the descent of the colony into unprofitability the corporation had decided to replace large parts of its human work shift with Working Joes, with the intention of staffing the more protected factory and cargo jobs with synths, while the human workers would find themselves in the more exposed areas of the colony, working where machinery would need to be replaced too often. Without a warning nearly half of the colony's staff were laid off and lost their company provided shelter, leading to a mass exodus towards the southern plateau that had so far only served as scrapyard and waste deposit. The shock that had allowed this did not hold for long and on New Years Eve of 2050 an improvised explosive took out the board meeting of the colonial administration at the spaceport, paving the way for nothing less than open revolt. While the immediate targets were the synths, much of the colony's upper management was unable to escape reprisals, with angry colonists storming offices and shuttles before they could take off. Later investigations by Weyland-Yutani Authorities would find no proof of off-world support, but would deport quite a few of the original instigators on charges of smuggling.
For the next years the colony attempted to organize itself without Chigusa Corporate Authority and would repel two attempts to pacify the plateaus by PMC forces. By the midst of the 2150s conflict was widespread between the superpowers - and the corporations backing them - leading to further attempts from various powers to bring the wayward colony under their sway. In the end it was the threat of hunger - and a generous offer by Weyland-Yutani, that saw the status of the colony restored after both the local representatives and negotiators of Chigusa Corporate agreed to an offer by Weyland-Yutani in 2161.
Today, eighteen years later, the settlements of Neo-Okinawa exist in a careful balance between continued autonomous self-representation and the Weyland-Yutani corporate council. The negotiations of 2161 did lead to a takeover of the main colonial infrastructure by Weyland-Yutani, while the settlements themselves continue to enjoy autonomous status under the aegis of the corporation. Whereas all colonists were automatically employees under Chigusa, today only around a quarter of the population are actually Weyland-Yutani employees, with standard issued IDs and corporate positions. The remainder of the population is working for smaller subcontractors, plying their own trades or just taking whatever job is coming their way. This hasn't allowed the colony to return to its old glory, but is a stark improvement over the situation prior to the revolt. Still, there are those who see the return under a corporate oversight as a mistake; those who still dream of the olden days or haven't forgotten that Weyland-Yutani profited the most from the woes that hit the colony in the 2140s.
The planet is hostile, it degrades and denies - who is to say that its inhabitants didn't take on some of these traits themselves over the last generations?
=} The Plateaus {=
The five plateaus that serve as the basis for the five permanent settlements on New-Okinawa were found by the first prospectors and served as base camps from which a few expeditions descended into the lower heights - with limited success. Still, with the atmosphere being thin enough to allow for limited habitability, as long as safety procedures and filter masks were used, they formed the prime spot for colonization. On the backs of these towering mountains, the crown of the world, did Chigusa Corporate build their settlements, using natural plateaus or flattening mountain tops to make space for heavy machinery and buildings. Crucial was the height of the installations, with higher plateaus offering safety from the gasses and spores below, while lower lying plateaus offered the ability to tap into the planet's rich gasses more easily.
At the highest point of the planet rests the Motobu-Terminal, the main spaceport of the planet. Renovated and expanded under Weyland Yutani, the octagonal spaceport is the beating heart of the settlement, surrounded by warehouses, officers and apartment buildings for the dockworkers. With a population of 200 it is not the smallest settlement, but widespread automatization - even if Synths are still a no-go for the older colonists - have made large parts of the dockworkers superfluous, leading to their exodus into the Doya-warrens. Being further removed from the other settlements, but connected to them over a tram line and two cableways, the Terminal is also home of the Weyland Yutani security forces, whose transports are stored next to the spaceport and whose members have their barracks a bit removed from the local colonists.
The Naha Plateau is only set a little lower than the Motobus plateau, but Weyland-Yutanis new Spire has made sure that no one will forget its premier importance on the planet. Home to the administration, the bureaucracy and the Weyland-Yutani Colonial Council, the Naha-Plateau is the smallest of all settlements with barely 220 permanent inhabitants. On the other side these are nearly completely made up of Weyland-Yutani employees, whose ID chips allow for tracking and control more encompassing than anywhere else. They also enjoy the highest living standard on the planet, with many local shops and services being employee-only. Single acts of terrorism in the past decades have made it necessary to establish a surveillance network across the plateau, allowing security services to keep an eye on anyone entering over the bridge or the cableways.
The Izena-Industries are maybe not the main export of the colony, but they are its beating heart. The two vast factories are new constructions by Weyland Yutani, built over older constructions. Their smelters and production lines are serviced by thousands of local workers, with the products mostly including replacement parts and pre-fabs for the expansion of the colony. Their output has remained consistently high enough that off-world imports are restricted to smaller and harder to make parts. With most of the plateau covered in industry, only a small staff of around 200 people are permanently living between the warehouses, mostly including custodians and local overseers that have to be ever present and able to reach the factory lines if something goes wrong.
The Onna-Pump is the main extraction facility around the rest of the colony. Its vast pipe network stretches down into the lower regions of the planet, large enough that whole vehicles can move through them for maintenance to scrub out the fungi creeping into them. With vast fusion powered chemical processes, the gasses of the planet get filtered and turned into valuable resources for terraforming projects or industrial production. With the pumps running without stop, the staff necessary to keep the facility running despite the gasses and the fungi is large, with more than 600 people calling the plateau their home. While many of the workers are Weyland Yutani employees, others are self organized subcontractors, offering to take care of specialized tasks. This has led to a small but noticeable sense of inequality between full workers and subcontractors, with the former enjoying many perks offered by Weyland Yutani. Still, in the fight against rust and growth, both sides are ever working together to keep the Pump pumping and the air in their houses clean from both natural and industrial pollution.
While life around the Grand Pump can be hard, those who have found their place on the Doya-Plateau are the worst. These are the people who have lost their livelihoods, who have been kicked out or have been unable to find employment in the grand industries. In many ways this has led to a disconnect between the local settlements and those under more corporate sway with both Weyland-Yutani control and promises having less pull in these parts of the colonies. With nearly 1200 inhabitants, the Doya has formed a parallel society, which offers cheap labor to the better off plateaus and has taken over the waste management, recycling parts and growing foodstuff from the leftovers of the other Plateaus. Resting at a lower height, the air is often sweltering, with the occasional storm blowing fungal spores into the streets and covering them in a rust-like red sea of quickly growing and dying fungi fields. Still, for the people who live in the Doya, this is their home and among them are many veterans of the revolt who have been blacklisted - unofficially - by the new Corporation or have rejected a return to working for a Company. Militant Groups like the Oshyun-Uprising have their hideouts in the warrens beneath the Doya, underground tunnels that are partly natural occurring and partly the result of mining or waste disposal attempts. Many of them get flooded with fungi or deadly gasses when the winds turn, deterring any but the most persistent of pursuers.
=} The People {=
Weyland-Yutani Employees are as varied as the positions they fill: From the janitorial staff in the Spire, to the very rooms of power at its top. While some truly believe in the company's promise of building better worlds and see their post here as an integral part to it, many more are simply in it for the money, with wages and services that give them an outstanding position among their peers in their settlements. In return for such an privileged position, Weyland Yutani employees are beholden to company directives (or face pay cuts), are implanted with ID chips and expected to adhere to a higher standard than other colonists. Still, for all the attempts of the company to create an esprit de corps, informers and backstabbing are prevalent at the higher and lower levels of the company.
Independent Subcontractors are not really independent. They belong to local corporations that are led by former and current members of the autonomous administration of the settlements. Their influence and power in their local communities are guaranteed by the payment Weyland Yutani offers for their services - without looking too closely at how they are performed. This state of co-dependency has allowed the subcontractors to expand their power base over those without access to Weyland Yutani credit lines, while in turn supporting the actions of the corporations colonial council.
The Doya are outcasts from the networks of credits and power, belonging neither to the Employees of Weyland Yutani nor to the Subcontractors that have access to offworld wealth over jobs for the megacorporation. If anything small and dangerous jobs are available to them, like cleaning the pipework of the great pump or working in the thick gas of the lower heights to install new pumps for it. In turn they are also the most independent from corporate control, their numbers meaning that they can choose and pick when to engage with corporate society - or at least that would be the case if all production and replacement parts on the planet weren't in Weyland Yutani hands.
The Oshyun are the remnants of the dreams of the 2150s, dreaming of a world beyond the grasp of the corporation, where the wealth and work of the colonists would improve their own lives and not just the ledgers of far away corporate masters. Their numbers and activities have waxed and waned in the last decade, ranging from political activism to bombings and attacks on Weyland Yutani Security Forces. While they recruit mostly from the Doya on the southern plateau, they have members about everywhere and there are talks of secret bases and tunnels in the lower regions and among the old non-functional pumps and pipings of the Onna.
=} Issues {=
The vital importance of Neo-Okinawa to the supply of the terraforming stations of the Outer Veil, have led to increased worries about the possibilities of hostile corporate action. The higher ranks among Weyland Yutani have not forgotten just how the colony had come into their hands and there are ever steady warnings about corporate espionage and sabotage, with some rumors about corporate sponsored raiders in the Veil picking up old feuds once again. As a result but surveillance and corporate security have been stepped up, hoping to make sure that any overt action turns too costly and blatant for the taste of the company's rivals. Who knew if the Chigusa Corporate was plotting a return, or Jĭngtì Lóng was eying the gas supplies for its own terraforming projects.
But danger does not merely lurk among the stars, there are issues in the colonies themselves that are worrying. The position of the InSubs is growing more and more insecure, as those who work for them demand a larger slice of the income and those who are unable to find work with them assail the fact that the whole profitable market is firmly partitioned between those managers that had helped Weyland-Yutani establish itself on the planet. This has led to conflicts and strike-like behavior among the subcontractors, as well as to pressure from the Doya, who are getting organized by the Oshyun in both a local political arm - and a more militant cell structure that has ni the past attempted to waylay shipments of supplies and weaponry for corporate security.
But humanity is not the sole issue facing a smooth running of the refinery and pump-facilities. There is the very planet itself, with its heat, its gasses and its fungal spores. Sudden storms and heavy winds can carry them into habitats and machinery and without hundreds of the most desperate descending into the depths around the plateaus with tools and vehicles to clean them, they would fail, all clogged up by growth and weakened by erosion. Heavy convoys have to clean the tram system between the Naha, Izena and Doya Plateaus with a few deaths every few months being a low number as fungal colonies grow in the breathing system, the lungs or any other opening they find. Even more dangerous is the work on the cable car system, with maintenance crews having to visit the towers holding them suspended above the deepest and hottest parts of the mountain range, where nothing human can survive in anything but the heaviest of vehicles.
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