Iota Persei
Shangri-La`s varied
biosphere caused great conflict between its Gaian and
Technocrat colonists amongst
others. Here a environmentalist flyer
studies a lizard-ant foraging in the wake of a passing forest of tumble-trees.
The world of Shangri-La, named after a mythical mountain kingdom in terran fable was first found to have an extensive biosphere by terran astronomers using spectroscopic measurements in 2045AD.
When the Salvador Dali a, neumann probe arrived in the vicinity of the main sequence G0 type star a flyby revealed a world covered with a thriving ecosphere, the most visible example of which were the vast forests which covered many continents on the world.
The Dali retreated to the first asteroid belt in the system to manufacture an army of lander probes to analyse Shangri-La’s flora and fauna while back home a number of groups vested interest in colonising the distant world.
When the Dali returned to Shangri-La it was amazed (or as close to any emotion it limit parameters would allow) to find that the forests on the world had moved across the world. Further investigation found that rather than being tree-analogues the spherical tumble-trees of the world wandered across the terrain of the world gathering nutrients, water and finding potential mates. Though it used it the sun for its primary source of energy by the tried and tested method of photosynthesis it also used its strong leaves to push it along the ground when the wind was too weak.
Sharing both plant and animals features forests of tumble-trees would roam across the planet devouring any plant and animal, which hadn’t successfully evolved a way to avoid being trapped by its sticky thorns and digested.
Though to say that the tumble-trees (or git-weeds as some later colonists named them) had a destructive impact on the diversity on the world is to severely underestimate the processes of natural world. A menagerie of life forms would follow the forests and feed on the remains left by the tumble-trees. Life forms would use the roving forests to spread their spores or hide their offspring amongst the tangled branches. The tumble-trees where an integral part of the planet’s biosphere, some species even managed to drift across the shallow seas of Shangri-La and again a menagerie of sea-creatures depended on them for their survival.
A large collection of environmental and Gaianist groups expressed great interest in colonising the world but needed to find allies to fund a colony vessel to travel the 34 light years from Sol to Iota Persei. All sorts of backers stumped up the cash, from technocratic transhumanist cyborgs of a number of Lunar cities to disposed neophiles, trapped in humdrum lives in Earth’s crowded cities or stuck on an orbital or rock, indentured to the multi-national or government that got them their in the first place.
In 2149AD the Lovelock left Sol on its one-way journey to a new and exotic world. Thankfully most of the passengers where in stasis so the obvious rifts and conflicts that were to develop later were yet to surface.
Tensions rose however when the Lunarians wanted to use the Dali to begin manufacturing the infrastructure for a forward base on Shangri-La (it had already shunted an asteroid into the world’s L4 point using a mass driver to be used as a space-station / possible elevator terminal)
The environmentalists where worried of the impact nano-industry would have on the local fauna, the Gaianists wanted the world to be free of industry altogether, instead wanting to set a planet wide example of the low impact settlements of Altair or Ti`Thal colonies and the neophiles just wanted to set to have their plot of land and start a new life.
As the Lovelock entered the system and more colonists where revived the squabbling grew fuelled by severe personality clashes and ideological conflicts. On quite a few occasions silent tranquilly of the vast cryogenic halls of the ship would be shattered by heated arguments coming to physical blows, in which the Lunarians had the upper hand due to the 1/3 gravity of the ship!
The dream of a unified colony as each group set off in their own dropships to different regions of the planet or system vowing to keep out of each other’s way if possible.
Co-operation only occurred when one group desperately needed the resources or expertise of another, though due to the stubborn nature of the Perseians it was always seen as a last resort!
For nearly a hundred years this state of affairs continued, fuelled by further waves of colonists who exploited the Perseians lack of unity to set up their own little colonies. Everything from religious cults (the Church of Elvis and Scientologists) to nationalistic ex-pats (French and Mexican groups where the most vocal) made a home throughout the system each carrying on in their own way refusing to interact with others.
When the system had a population of 2 million in 2200AD this sort of isolationism could carry on, the vast untouched areas between colonies acting as a buffer zone and only issues that affected a whole world (such as the construction of the space elevator at Digby Point) caused any real conflict between the factions.
A Gaianist low impact settlement in the Rapheal
Canyons
But by the start of the 24th century the population had risen to 500 million and conflicts between the factions of Iota Persei rose as their respective domains started to rub up against each other. When Gaianist guerrillas destroyed a neophile (who now preferred to be called homesteaders as they pointed out they where no longer afraid of new things) dam project that would have split the territory of a large herd of Mega-Lemurs in two in 2305AD most could see where things were going.
In a bid to stop a system wide civil war ensuing similar to the ones that had struck Epsilon Indi or Zeta Tucanae and more importantly avoid the intervention of some outside force (if their was one thing the balkanised Iota Perseians hated more than each others opinions it was outsiders poking their nose in) a system wide council was hurriedly set up (it was widely known that the nation of French nationals and the city states of Scientologists where threatening to declare war on each other over President Leboufé’s unfortunate remarks on the scientologist faith!)
A chairperson had to be elected to co-ordinate the well-mannered discussions (or playground squabbles) that would take place in the newly constructed chambers in Digby City. In the end it came down to two individuals, Donald Pearson from the Scottish ethnic city of Connery and Saskia Singh from the habitats of Shangri-La’s moon, More.
Despite Saskia having the support of both the Gaian and Lunarian factions who both supported her anarchic view of governing the system the two groups animosity towards each other’s beliefs led to Pearson winning the vote by a narrow margin.
Pearson, who was more noted for his charisma than his diplomacy immediately pushed through a number of laws and acts creating a security force to monitor the peace and collect all weapons, an institution of judges to arbitrate local disputes and a complicated system of law designed by the AC L. Hutz which only a post-singularity mind could devise and an anal and bureaucratic artificial personality could consider a good idea.
For the first few years of the council things appeared to be fine. For example, the Franco-Scientologist war was averted and Leboufé made a public announcement that though everyone was entitled to her opinion a lady in her position should be more diplomatic!
By 2315AD however things in the Iota Perseian Council had become far more Byzantine as factions clogged the court system with claims, counterclaims, appeals, lawsuits etc. With every matter of any consequence being argued by opposing legal representatives and not politicians, influential people or organisations the system was threatening to become controlled by lawyers!
Horrified at such a possibility and tired of the constant bickering the Judges took matters into their own hand, throwing out many cases on grounds of “wasting time” and “being counter-productive to the Perseian cause.” The Judges got more authoritarian, in some cases proclaiming curfews in areas where different factions shared the same neighbourhood.
It appeared that “peace at any cost” was the belief of First Speaker Donald Pearson and in a rare bout of co-operation between most of the nations he was voted out of office ain 2319AD. The judges for the most part disappeared into the background (except for the orbital of Hershey where the Judges where to keep hold of power until well into the 25th century)
Now was the time for Saskia Singh to have a go at bringing some kind of stability to the system and ending all the constant bickering. Realising that keeping everybody happy in a diverse system such as hers would be impossible without creating some kind of group mind (which until contact was established with the Sagre Houses was nothing more than a pipe dream)
She used the old judicial AI network of the system to monitor the infrastructure and keep an eye on anyone who was stockpiling weapons to attack their neighbour instead of enforce convoluted laws. Leaving the security of the system in the hands of a sub-sentient network meant no-one could accuse the system of being prejudiced against them as the network had no opinions or beliefs only programmes to be run keeping everything running like clockwork.
Singh introduced a notion of responsible self-rule for each citizen. They could live their life in the way they wanted to, believe what they wanted to believe as long as those beliefs didn’t infringe on the lives of others, and respected other people’s opinions and space.
So for example homesteaders could not plough a vac-tube across the surface of an environmentally sensitive area as that would infringe on Gaianist/Green space (the Greens had set up low impact settlements in such areas to protect the local biosphere.) Also, instead of attacking anyone who stopped tumble-trees roaming through their property the Greens (begrudgingly) accepted the locals right to move the trees away using humane methods (it was discovered that the life-form’s rudimentary nervous system was capable of feeling some degree of pain to Gaianist’s chagrin)
The transition from a balkanised collection of bickering colonies to an anarchic collection of communities respecting each others rights and beliefs took almost fifty years, the older generations being the hardest to win over but in the long run everyone could see that this was the only reasonable way forward.
By the start of the Warp era Iota Persei was held up as an example of co-operation between varied cultures and acceptance of others that the Community especially was fond of using as an example of how things should be run. Iota Persei’s government was inspiration for many later colonies including Alnair, Regulus and many of the new enterprises on the rim.
