>>> This is kind of a special post. I’ve convinced myself that no one got the whole Vanguard twist thing, so… I wrote this! This is probably as neutral as I can get… its kind of a compiled ‘history of the Onion this far’. Enjoy! ty, DD <<<<
By David C. Daoust
The Ark Age was a time in which all of humanity lived among the stars on four massive ‘Ark Ships’. Spaceships built to move the population from their home solar system, to a new Sun, A younger sun, a sun that was not threatening to swallow its entire solar system whole, thus the centuries long journey to mankind’s ‘Second Sun’ began.
Due to an early conflict, which resulted in the loss of an entire Ark Ship (and the population within), drastic measures were taken. All rights were stripped from the humans by the ships Artificial Intelligence. The AI’s themselves seized control of all power throughout the remaining population. All nations and cultures were intermingled and stripped from the people. An act they did not fight against, due to the resulting horror of the loss of almost a fourth of mankind.
The leaders that supported the AI, and helped to ease the population into this change, were appointed ‘Royalty’ during the Ark Age. These Royals built great media houses to speak to the population as a whole, a body of people known as the ‘Democratic Assembly’.
The Democratic Assembly was a Pure Democracy, where all people voted on all the issues; pretty much mob rule. The Royals of the Ark Age were the news casters of the time. The only thing they ‘decreed’ was how the world was depicted to the Assembly. This lasted all the way to the end of the Ark Age.
The Time of Dispersion heralded that end, and with it, the Democratic Assembly as it was once known. This was the beginning of the ‘Age of the Second Sun’, where the Ark ships had terriformed enough of the moons, that the people could disembark from their celestial homes, and return to the surface, to colonize said moons.
The thirteen Royal families, which over the centuries, had grown into a large population all their own, had their eyes set on the two Inner planets within the ‘Goldilocks Zone’, Aertholm and Delphine. These two planets position is what made this distant star, so appealing to the ancient humans that built the Arks, and sent mankind on their way. The Royals paid to have great Domes built on these planets, as the terrforming process took much longer on these large celestial bodies than the same processes took on the moons.
Obviously, the Democratic Assembly would slowly be disassembled thanks to the inevitable changes that would take place among the people and the culture. Not only had the AIs kept their promise to return the Rights to the people, they’d also returned their freedom of choice.
It became a discussion of what would replace the Assembly. This discussion created a divide among the Royals, two separate factions, which would ultimately split the people; Factions that became known as the ‘Royal Vanguard’ and the ‘Royal Alliance’.
The Vanguard put forth their ‘Solid Foundation’ plan. They wanted to build a central Federal government, a Representative Democracy. The hope was that this would force inclusiveness. Those that favored socialist ideas would have to deal with those that favored capitalist ideas, thus they would be forced to hammer out the inevitable issues as they arose. So, a healthy amount of social-minded and a healthy amount of capital-minded would go forth and build a society under a common standard.
The Alliance put forth their ‘Freedom’ plan. They proposed a Confederation, Where all the people were free to go and build what governments they saw fit. That meant the early socialists went one way, and the early capitalists went another way, to build separate societies under their own standard. The plan only tethered them together at a judicial level, No real hierarchy over their legislation, economy, or how a leader came into power…
These were the two plans put to the Assembly to vote on. Each side pulled hard for their plan, they depicted the worlds as they could be, or should be. Each side had doom and gloom as a promise, if the opposition won.
Notably, the Vanguard ran a series of ad campaigns that depicted the Solar System being split into an onion if the Alliance got their way. The ‘Freedom plan’ proved most appealing to the culture of the time, which meant that Onion sounded pretty good, and the slang name for the solar system took root, thus the Solar System was referred to as the ‘Onion’ by the population as a whole. (At least they agreed on that.)
The Alliance won the vote.
The Confederation was formed, supporting Early Capitalist Movements and Early Socialist Movements alike. The ‘Judicial Colleges’ were formed, pooling Judges from each newly formed government. During this time Royals were still very much a part of the Alliance. The Trade Consortium formed and began building trade routes throughout the Onion.
After more than a decade of political tensions- The Vanguard decided to go against the Final Will of the Assembly, against the burgeoning Trade Consortium, against the Confederation as a whole.
The Vanguard started the Factions War. The Alliance stood against them, defending all the burgeoning governments; all the new ways of life and new cultures.
The Factions War fed the Trade Consortium’s bank, directly from the Royal Banks. The Royal Banks floundered.
The practice of buying and selling moons became common place; practiced primarily to feed the war machines. The colonials, that had built their homes on the surface, were forced to sign taxes over to new owners with no say in who they supported, or what these taxes were used for.
The war petered out when the funds did.
The Vanguard was absorbed into the Confederation. Their Royals were remembered only as power hungry tyrants, whose followers were crazed zealots that worshiped them as supreme rulers.
Ultimately, the Confederation won.
The Trade Consortium came out on top though, having profited so much in the war. The early capitalist movement was seized by these big corporations, crushing anyone or anything that did not feed their central bank. As the years went by, those that got stuck underneath the great rolling rock known as the Crag, created a new mindset among the once capital minded citizens. The desire to fix what they once supported, created a ‘Left-leaning’ faction, a faction that had no real voice within the Consortium.
The Royals, which had moved to their domes, all but abandoning the rest of the Solar System, became Isolationists; they had no desire to mix with the rest of the Onion, let alone lead them in any way. Yet as those on the City-stations, threatened to be crushed under the titanic Consortium and thrust into poverty, the Royals began to support ‘Viceroy Parties’ from afar. The Royals took it upon themselves to appoint a new voice for those old media houses and their City-stations.
Viceroys took over the Royals’ jobs as media newscasters. One major difference between the Assembly of old, and the new- while the Royals of the Ark Age painted the world to favor the Arks will, the Viceroys painted the world to favor their own aims. This left those, outside of those aims, with very little recourse. They were marginalized and forced to hide their private business endeavors within the shadowy corridors of the City-stations, known as the ‘Narrows’. This created a ‘Right-leaning’ faction, with no real voice within the once fully social-minded Alliance. A faction trying to follow aspirations for free enterprise, which ultimately led to an influx of laws, which just created more criminals, and then stricter laws. This led to an overworked Justice System and pressured Constables into dealing with an oppressed society, which questioned their very authority. This created a culture of criminals, working in secret among the population, which would ultimately lead to the youthful Corridor Crews and eventual Gangsters that now ruled the districts.
The Viceroys, themselves, focused more upon their competition with the Trade Consortium than the will of the Assembly. They implemented the business tactics of the Trade Consortium, just to compete with the super rich that ruled the Consortium’s Board. These tactics did not support the working classes.
The jaded workers of both the Trade Consortium and the Royal Alliance formed the Red Faction.
The Red Faction was a Communist Movement burgeoning among the industrial hubs, acquiring more and more control over corporate entities, and forcing out those they did not control. Thus far they have worked within the structure given by the Confederation; staying clear of any entanglement by the Judicial Colleges, that could intercede if people’s rights were being abused. Yet, despite their clean reputation, more and more rumors spread of the Red Faction’s militant underbelly. More and more feared an Imperial Uprising, leading to the Solar System as a whole being held within a Red Iron Grip.
Yet, on the ground, the Moons continued to be passed around by the big governments. Bought and sold with no say in the business practices, in the laws, or in the use of the taxes collected from the Colonies that formed on these moons.
More and more these Colonials began to grumble all the louder. Rumors of a united front, uniting the Colonies, began to reach the Confederations’ ears.
A movement known as the ‘United Moons’ formed, threatening to stand against the Confederation as a whole; Depending on who owned the moon, to stand against the Consortiums’ factory farms that found legal ways to push them off their lands, to strip the newly formed life out from under them, or to stand against the Royal Alliance laws that forbid them from selling their produce to anyone but the Royal Alliance, but most of all, to stand against the taxation without representation, which had been rampant since the Factions War.
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