Asterion
New Toronto on Chara. Most
of the mega-cities on Chara follow
in the Western Millennial
tradition
Asterion or Beta Canum
Venaticorum was colonised around the same time as nearby Beta Comae in the
first half of the 22nd century. The USA, Californian and Canadian
governments under pressure from its citizens to have a world they could call
their own funded the project and from the mega-corps who saw a world run along
the cultural lines of North America would provide an excellent market.
By 2150 the first few thousand colonists who had fought hard to be
chosen for this brave endeavour had established a number of settlements on the
A class world of Chara (one of the alternate names for the Asterion star in
ancient astronomy.)
With one of Chara’s three asteroidal moons, the carbon and metal
rich rock of New Manhattan, being converted into an orbital tower and starport
the second wave of colonials started to leave Sol.
By that time parts of America
where descending into chaos as local economies collapsed and environmental
stress laid waste to whole states. By then Congress was tired of the drain that
these dispossessed where placing on the taxpayer and figured that it would be
cheaper in the long run to stick a few million of them in an asteroid starship
for the long voyage to Asterion rather than spend billions paying out to
ungrateful rednecks and distrustful slummers for the next 150 years. People
whom thanks to the 345th Amendment where entitled to life extension
genetics after violent protests at the turn of the 22nd century.
Thanks to a slick advertising campaign and some arm twisting
(benefits cut, housing privileges revoked health plans downgraded etc) three
million gathered in the pre-stasis halls of the F.D. Roosevelt asteroid-ship at
the L4
orbital cluster.
When the “huddled masses
yearning to be free” arrived at Asterion some 30 years later the first Charans
where little prepared for the massive influx being unloaded on them. In a
similar circumstance to the impending “Liberation” fleet that was soon to
disembark for Beta Comae the Charans knew what was coming there way and tried
their very best to prepare, rushing the construction of the New Manhattan
Tower, clearing vast tracts of land for the new cities and infrastructure that
had to built (much to the anger of the environmentalists among the colony) and
pooling every available resource into the reception of the dispossessed.
Thought the influx of refugees/colonists was not as bad as say, Epsilon Indi
or the Hyades
sector during the Zarquon
War the pressure and trepidation felt by the Charans was acute. Some of the
more militant in the fledging Asterion Congress wanted to turn the FDR around
when it arrived, using force if necessary (though what a small fleet of
shuttles, mining craft and transports could to do to a 15km long asteroid-ship was
debatable!)
In 2198AD the fateful day
arrived when the FDR arrived at New Manhattan to a half-hearted fanfare from
their brothers and sisters across the stars. It was noted that many of the first
Charans left Earth to get away from the very people and the chaos that now
lumbered into their system and when the new arrivals where awakened from their
long sleep the reception they got from the immigration teams was less than
promising.
The barely prepared colonists with their month long government
sponsored training and frugal development kits soon found that though they
where on an alien world some thing never changed. They found themselves in
nano-constructed cities where only the bare minimum was provided (water, power
and net access) and architectural flare and design was the first to go in the budget.
Some of the more romantically inclined likened the cuboid
districts of the new arrivals to New York at the turn of the 20th
century and found some comfort in following in the footsteps of their distant
ancestors (though they never had to deal with network disruptions erasing a
whole days work or gangs of monkey-birds foraging in the recycling bins and
frightening children with their shrieks!)
Due to the expense of the FDR, North America didn’t send another
colonial fleet for some time and Asterion was given an interval to assimilate
the new arrivals. As the infrastructure and organisation grew to accommodate
those living in the “nano-slums” and those wishing to take advantage of the
opportunity moved out to found new cities and businesses on the northern
continent of New Virginia along the western coastline.
But for every citizen who tried to make it on this new world there
where those who were resentful of being kicked off Earth, the right wing cranks
who quickly retreated into the great forests of northern New Virginia plotting
to take revenge on the “Feds” or target some racial or cultural minority with
hate crimes ,and the slummers who continued in there lives of gang violence and
organised crime.
By the early 23rd century Asterion had quite a thriving
civilisation with the resources of the rest of the system starting to be
utilised notably in the rich asteroid system beyond Chara and terraforming
outposts on early Venusian like world of Asterion 3 or New America as it was
renamed.
With the boom in space industry Asterion started to trade with
nearby colonies notably Beta
Comae and 61 Virginis. The support for Beta Comae’s stand against mega-corp
and Terran influence was mixed amongst the Asterion community. Most didn’t want
to have forces from Sol descend on their worlds (except the militias and more
idealistic slum-gangs who would love a fight) but quietly disapproved of having
a fair percentage of their GNP being used to pay back loans and tariffs.
Some more extremist Asterions did manage to travel over to Beta
Comae to support the New Australians including the charismatic leader of the
Charan Panthers Malcolm Ali Jr. a black separatist who was transported off
Earth after the LA riots of 2123AD and had held a large grudge against “The
Man” ever since. Quite how he justified to himself helping out a group of
people who were mainly European and Oriental in ethnic origin and share a
cramped ship with some right wing cranks for the 5-year relativistic trip is a mystery
but as his later biographers noted he was a very complex individual.
With the advent of FTL travel
more people emigrated to Asterion inspired by the success of those from the
FDR. People believed that if a bunch of rednecks and terminally unemployed
dropouts from the ghetto could make it on an alien world then anybody could.
Charan cities grew in size
again; the settlements on New Virginia started to coalesce into one giant
conurbation and Charans started to experiment with new styles of architecture.
Gotham City for example was inspired by 20th century comic fiction
and developed into a high-tech gothic fairytale of a city, at first
controversial but then its whimsical designs endeared it to the more liberal
citizens of Asterion.
The terraforming of New
America was a success, partly thanks to a visiting group of Ti’ Thals from the
Indiron Institute of Planet Engineering in the Keteir system and
partly to the grit, determination and frontiersman attitude of the New
Americans. The Charans liken the exploration and colonization of the world to
the “Wild West” of early industrial age Earth. Indeed there was a certain sense
of lawlessness on the world, in one incident in 2389AD a task force colloquially
known as the “Marshals” was sent in to break up a protection scam in and around
the city of Chloe High Point. 12 people where killed in the ensuing gunfight
but the gangsters where chased out of town and spent 20 years on the prison
station of Alcatraz.
Taking a stand against the criminal element that was beginning to
give Asterion a certain notoriety in the Core by the start of 25th
century was not only confined to the wild west of New America. True to its
comic-book inspiration Gotham City billionaire-shipping magnate Cornelius Cain
took to the role of crime fighting superhero after a messy end to a marriage
contract and subsequent nervous breakdown in his early nineties. Using a
combination of advanced nano-weapons to disable his prey and state-of-the art
body armour with built in anti-G harness that he designed himself he brought
many to justice and inspired a generation of kids to either stay away from
crime or dream of a superhero lifestyle.
Some commentaries at the time saw the whole episode as a high
profile example of the personal crisis that some men get when they reach their
first century but he did manage to “clean up the streets” in many daring
adventures. But Cain’s flamboyant behaviour came to an end in 2453 when in the
process of defeating a similarly equipped “super-villain” who went by the name
of Dr. Apocalypse ended in tragedy. Cornelius was in the process of stopping
his foe from using an insanity virus on New Manhattan’s benevolent AC Big Apple
when in the subsequent battle Cain’s ex-wife who was being held hostage by Dr.
Apocalypse was killed.
After the battle Cain hung up his cape as it were, a broken man.
He retreated into his estate for many years writing his memoirs and thoughts on
life as a self-styled superhero and whether such a career move is a sensible
choice for an adult.
By the 26th
century and Asterion’s problems with militia compounds in the wilds of New
America, Chara and the Belt, organised crime and stylised gang violence where
decreasing as attitudes changed and the known galaxy became a vast and exotic
place. Despite this though Asterion’s media fed the supra-net with shows on its
delinquent underworld.
Asterion Cities have become synonymous with a glamorous underworld though criminals these days are more concerned with fashion than crime
Supposedly “reality” spools followed the antics of mafia families
in bitter power struggles on asteroid habitats and orbitals where the
autonomous governments could be bribed. Cameras followed the lives of ostentatious
“gangstas” as they went around in their gaudy hovercars looking for trouble and
comparing fashions. Media-terrorists played pranks on the increasingly
irrelevant groups of redneck militias and fundamentalist communities for the
entertainment of the Community as a whole.
This practice continues to this day despite codes of conduct being
introduced in the early 26th century and everybody aware that the
spools have little to do with reality anymore but it seems that in Asterion
there is a never-ending supply of people who want to famous!
