Cybertron: History and Government Part One
Cybertron, is known as a seat of incredible technological might and one of the foremost Forgeworld of Imperium. It was formed during one of the earliest attempts of the Martian Mechanicum to reach out into the darkness during Old Night. While many such missions resulted in failure and many of the Mechanicum Sleeper-Arks were sundered or lost without trace, doomed before the Emperor's intervention to create the Navis Nobilite, the Martian expedition to Cybertron met with great success. However, taming the hostile world of Cybertron was not easy or quick, it took Martian expedition Centuries to solidify their control over Cybertron.
When the first exploratory probes arrived in its star system, the planet was a deceptive, calm green orb when scrutinized from orbit, but when the first colony ships crash-landed on the jungle planet and the colonists had no way to escape, they discovered themselves to have arrived on one of the harshest and most dangerous planetary ecosystems in the galaxy. The colonists only barely survived, holed up in their spacecraft against a living, besieging jungle, a battle for survival in which undoubtedly many of them died before they finally managed to learn enough about their new homeworld to survive, if not thrive, beneath its jungle canopies.
Five hundred years after colonist's arrival, eight nations were forged. At first, those cities had been cobbled together collections of scrap and scavenged parts. But they slowly expanded their reach and each became a continent-spanning superstate under the Leadership of its Founder. Currently, All of the Eight Nations regarded their Legendary Founders as holy avatars of Machine God's power. This esteem did not, unfortunately, promote international religious orthodoxy. The Founders were strongly passionate and opinionated and frequently disagreed on how best to serve the Great Maker or interpret the commandments of Machine Cult. As a result, the middle period of Cybertron's history was marked by episodes of violent religious conflict. Eventually, both Estasia and Gulak were almost destroyed in the fighting. Saboteurs even managed to damage the core of the metropolis of Lux.
At this point, the rulers of several of the nations feared that religious conflict would continue to worsen and might eventually endanger their survival in Cybertron. Diplomats from Assyria, Khotan, and Babylon worked to assemble representatives from every nation, and in 26M, a general conclave was held in Assyria. It lasted three years and saw wide-scale codification of Cybertron's cultural structure. The general Khotan model was adopted, with refinements. The bevy of various national Elevated equivalents, including Babylon's Administrate, were reorganized into the Tripartite. A few oddities, such as the Militate, remained, but for the most part, Cybertron was much more orthodox than it had previously been. Near-uniformity of social structure did not lead to uniformity of religious doctrine, but it did create enough of a common core of religious belief that divergence between the faith of different nations could be the subject for heated debate more often than outright conflict. While the following centuries were not peaceful, neither were they as tumultuous as those that had preceded them.
Cybertronians are assigned a social caste shortly after birth. Without exception, caste assignment is permanent; though there is substantial mobility within the ranks of a caste. Once, each of the Eight Nations used different social classifications, but after a series of devastating wars and international incidents, the social strata of the nations were standardized at the Grand Conclave. Though there are some slight deviations even in the modern day, the following social castes exist across the Octet.
The Workers makes up 90 percent of the Eight Nations' population. These workers carry the fate of the Octet upon their backs; by the sweat of their brows and breath of their prayers, the Machine God lives on. Cybertron's culture is ultimately oriented around efficiently harnessing and directing the vast labor force of the Workers. Most members of this caste are laborers, the backbone of Cybertron: the skilled and semi-skilled workers who toil in the factories and furnaces of the Eight Nations, from the lowliest lever-puller to the most exactingly trained Archmagos.
Most of the industrial output in Cybertron flows from laborer's hands. They create the many tools and items necessary for basic Cybertronian life—wrenches, hammers, clothing, homes. Those incapable of the strenuous work required of laborers are made aides. Aides hand out tools at the beginning of shifts and collect them when the shifts are done. They count stock, clean factories, and carry messages. A worker is usually made an aide due to age, injury, or pregnancy, and so the position is not generally stigmatized. An aide who appears outwardly young and healthy will raise questions and suspicions, however. The other major role of aides is to work in the crèches of Cybertron, to raise and educate the young. Standard dress for the Workers consists of color-coded tops, slacks and sometimes caps made of artificial textiles; the color arrangement indicates an individual's job and rank. Clothing is mass-produced and generally discarded to be cleaned and reused; individuals rarely own personal clothing. More specialized gear is distributed and collected as needed.
Laborers who display excellence or organizational skill may become shift chiefs, tasked with overseeing and harnessing the labor of entire factory shifts. Depending on the job in question, a shift chief may oversee anywhere from 20 to 200 workers. Shift chiefs must not only have a keen eye for the work going on in their factory but an even stronger understanding of the people working for them. A shift chief is ultimately held responsible for his shift meeting quota and behaving responsibly, and so the best dedicate much of their time to increase productivity and morale among their workers. Thunderous work-songs often echo forth from the depths of Cybertronian factories, timed and toned to turn the ringing of hammers and the pumping of bellows into a kind of music.
Above a factory's shift chiefs stands its foreman, the man in charge of the overall productivity and well-being of a factory. Foremen usually leave the running of shift crews and personnel issues to their shift chiefs, instead of concerning themselves with the state of the factory itself. A foreman's job is to make sure that all shifts perform satisfactorily, that tools are not disappearing, that the entire factory is meeting quota, that the factory's machinery is well-maintained, and that their factory is coordinating with other elements of a city's industry—a factory that turns out brass tubing must, after all, be sure that it produces no more nor less than the other factories of the city need, and must communicate how much stock it requires to do its own work.
Supervisors work with foremen to oversee an entire sector of local industry, such as "tool production," "public sanitation," or "construction." Small towns may have as few as three supervisors, while the enormous metropolis of Thutot has 42. Most cities have about eight. Above all local supervisors, each town and city has a single director, responsible for all of the industry within that municipality. Directors live lives of luxury comparable to mid-ranked members of the Tripartite, but have little free time to enjoy their station; they work three shifts a day, almost every day. A sub-director works the two shifts the director is off-duty and is responsible for summoning the director in the case of an emergency. Directors are given a certain number of weeks of vacation time each year; while on vacation, a director is only obligated to work two shifts a day, ceding his usual third shift to the sub-director.