Xi Bootis

Medina was a frozen wasteland before the settlers arrived. Here greenhouse gas producing bacteria are starting to take hold near some CFC autofacs

 

The Islamic Federation in 2114AD claimed Xi Bootis as its probe came towards the end of its 23-year journey to the system.

The Islamic world at the late 21st century had gone through something of a renaissance at the time, the religious troubles that had plagued it for centuries beforehand and the horrors of the Second Gulf War and the Bin Laden Jihad had taught the area a strong lesson. After rebuilding their economies had putting aside centuries old disputes over land and ideology the newly formed IF turned its eyes towards the stars with an orbital colony in 2089, followed by outposts on Luna and Mars and Mercury in the subsequent decades.

 

Determined not to be left out of the rush for the stars the IF Space Agency set its sights on the triple star system of Xi Bootis 21 light years from Earth. Most nearby sun like stars (a few not so sun-like) had been revealed to have habitable worlds ripe for colonisation so as the head of the space agency reasoned Xi Bootis must be prime real estate.

 

When a probe reached the system in 2117 it did discover a viable world around Xi Bootis B though it was stuck in an ice age and plagued by vicious 150km winds. Questions where raised about putting all the IFSA`s efforts into colonised the world, though quite used to living in a less than perfect climate many Arabs didn’t fancy living on a windy ice ball despite promises that terraforming the planet would be a piece of cake.

 

But the IF was fiercely independent of the other power blocs of Earth and not wishing to share a planet with anyone else the starship Mohammed’s Hajira blasted off for Xi Bootis in 2124AD.

 

The early days on Medina were harsh, some colonists were killed when they were caught in the powerful “snow devils” that tore across the planet and the cold played havoc with machinery and the spirits of the settlers.

But their faith in Allah kept them going through the long cold nights, praying towards the distant Sol and their spiritual home for strength to make a home of the inhospitable world.

 

Tradition though had to make way for life on Medina. Traditional Arab robes made way for synthetic furs based on the hides of one of the few land animals, strict rules on life where relaxed as well as the freedom of women which although had come a long way since the dark days of the fundamentalists was still some way from widely accepted Earth norms. And the pilgrimage to Mecca back on Earth would cause great problems if taken literally, most settled for a virtual visit to the holy city which was quietly regarded to be far preferable to the swarming crowds and overpriced food of the real thing, though don’t let a cleric hear you say that.

 

After twenty years of struggle the Medinans came to love their adopted world and its ways. Plans to drastically terraform the world even going as so far as to make much of the world a sub-desert environment where cancelled as the colonists had grown comfortable with life on the thin temperate zone around the equator.

 

This harmony was shattered though when a greater influx of settlers arrived in the later half of the century wanting to recreate a perfect version of the motherland down to a re-created version of Mecca and other historic Islamic cities. The new arrivals also felt the original settlers had become sidetracked from the true path of Allah and felt the renegades needed to be brought into line.

 

Tensions rose when militant Medinans began sabotaging auto-factories pumping out super-greenhouse gases on the northern continent. Despite the police’s attempts to catch the eco-guerrillas their knowledge of the land made it impossible to track them as they disappeared back into the frozen wilds.

 

It was around this time that the AC SF-101, which had been created in Riyadh University back on Earth, formulated its revised ideas on how the Islamic faith should tackle the brave new world of alien life, nano-technology, genetic engineering and far off interstellar colonies.

 

It instantly caused a furore with fundamentalists crying out that the soulless machine had no right to criticize their interpretation of the prophet’s words. There were even attempts to silence the AC using violence or have the blaspheming machine torn apart and its nano-circuits stamped on by the righteous.

 

But back on Medina SF-101’s ideas where taken to heart by most who cared, Islam like the other major religions of Earth had to evolve or end up being hopelessly out of date. The authorities on Medina had enough trouble trying to quell the eco-saboteurs without starting a holy war on the planet as well so the “blasphemous” 14 suras of SF-101 where openly discussed and followed.

 

By the late 2190s SF-101 itself decided that life on Earth was getting too dangerous and moved to Xi Bootis. When it arrived in 2217AD it made a deal with the various disaffected groups on the world to rid the world of the problems of the old world and build a new muslin society for the 3^rd millennium.

 

What with the increasing melting of Medina’s ice caps and glaciers the ecoteurs as they became known became more destructive in their protests such as the Battle of Station 45B and the takeover of Medina’s space elevator. Tensions where threatening to explode into a planet wide civil war by the 2230s when a small Blee vessel arrived wishing to settle in the system, study the biosphere of Medina and the effects that the terraforming had on it and hopefully try to put an end to all the division and conflict.

 

Most groups where initially suspicious off these strange alien arrivals but after a month of visits by the Blee to the different factions only the most rabid xenophobe refused to come to the talks in the city of Al Sharif. All the groups, the Traditionalists, the Terraformers, the Ecoteurs, the Clerics and SF-101 and its supporters as well a plethora of smaller groups such as transhumanists, libertarians, socialists and anarchists managed to come to an agreement was finally made.

 

Over time attitudes softened, groups exchanged ideas, even some of the Blee where converted to Islam and a renaissance similar to the one that had transformed the Islamic sphere in the Terran Middle Ages began to blossom.

As the Warp Era took hold Xi Bootis spread its influence to nearby systems. Here the central Mosque of New Kabul dominates to skyline on a terraformed world in the Zavijava system

 

Today Xi Bootis is a quite different place from the Relativistic Age. A thousand different faction manage to co-exist in harmony through-out the system, everything from the habitats of Gohl around the mighty gas giant Xi Bootis B IV who believe in a kind of omegerist religion with Islamic roots to the beautiful classical Blee cities on the tropical island of Avobe.

 

The Ice Mosque on the Great Northernland is a remarkable construction which was constructed by an ecoteur group led by Jehan Ashữh, a resourceful lady with a keen eye for design who had found herself unable to design the buildings that she wanted back on Earth despite softening attitudes to women in work and instead moved to Xi Bootis in the hope her skills could be fully exploited. She fell in with the ecoteurs not having any particular passion for their fight but really wanting to fight the conservatives who had held her back throughout life.

 

Rather than use violence to make her point she and a group of others built a fabulous mosque out of ice and proclaimed to the world that further thawing of Medina would destroy such a remarkable testament to the glory of Allah, using the building as an ecological hostage as much as a place of worship! To this day its survives despite the occasional melting brought about by a particularly hot summer but lovingly repaired by a dedicated group of artisans.