======Achelia======

//"They say that from the wind's first sigh\\ Achelia glistered in the sky,\\ But as greed grew and business flourished\\ Its natural riches were malnourished.\\ The brutal planet went to battle\\ For promises of wealth and chattel.\\ It lived; and with its spoils of war\\ That place bled coin from every pore."//
 
  * Achelia consisted of a solar system with one settled planet and an assortment of surrounding planetoids, asteroids and other celestial bodies not fit for long-term habitation.
  * Before the war, Achelia was a corporate hellhole filled with sweatshops and greedy businesses.
  * After the war, Achelia is even more of a corporate hellhole. Most of its people work in sweatshops, and most of the rest are in the corporation-controlled military. 
  * There some resistance to corporate control, but it is very much a fringe resistance. 

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=====A History of Achelia=====

It often comes as a surprise that Achelia didn't begin as a simple business venture; most people assume that the planet famed for its mineral wealth has always been a production base for the raw materials that power the Seven Systems. Originally, however, people settled for the planet's natural beauty and the captivating manner in which surface crystals shone in the darkness, making Achelia appear as a giant gemstone in the sky. It was only later, when the first settlements grew into a phase of heavy industry, that Achelia gained its reputation as a harsh, greedy planet. Once people realised that their planet's mineral wealth could be traded away for a profit, all bets were off - in a cutthroat dash to pick the world clean, corporations sprang up practically overnight. The successful stayed in power for centuries, whilst those who failed were destined to become Achelia's lower classes, toiling away in sweatshops for their former competitors.

By the time [[the_ananke_conference | the Ananke Conference]] was held, Achelia was under the control of its moguls. A nominal government had been put in place; the so-called 'Regulators' acted as a diplomatic organisation and a trade watchdog, supposedly ensuring that Achelia's businesses would be protected whilst also giving its working class a tolerable living standard. To no-one's surprise, the group was corrupted. People soon stopped asking if government officials were on a corporate payroll, and instead started wondering which corporate payroll they were on. With vast wealth disparity now the planetary norm, the downtrodden needed someone to turn to - and that salvation came in the form of the Tungsten Roses. Initially a grassroots artistic movement, young sculptors, architects and metalworkers banded together to try and bring creativity back to Achelia, by combining the brutalist style of the planet's mass accommodations with the vibrant colours of idealised planets like [[Kybele]]. For the Roses, the Ananke Conference was an opportunity to show to the Seven Systems that Achelia was no longer merely one vast factory.

This progress came to a halt when war was declared. The corporations gave their greed a gloss of patriotism, pushing people to invade Cheimeros for the glory of Achelia, even when it was obvious that they were simply following Kedalion around. Conditions on Achelia only worsened as the war dragged on. Although Cheimeros, due to its oceanic core, was not the rich pickings it had initially seemed, the executives of the corporations - in particular, Klaycorp - were able to grow ever more wealthy while plunging the rest of the people further into poverty.

=====Achelia Now=====


Being allied with two of the strongest military nations left Achelia in a relatively good position throughout the war, even as Eunomia descended ever deeper into violence. However, this good position did not translate to a good quality of life for the residents of the planet. Klaycorp,, already one of the more prominent companies at the outbreak of the war, were able to acquire a monopoly on industries relating to the war and, from there, expand into virtually all corners of Achelian life, performing merger after merger. 

Rumour has it that Klaycorp itself has been taken over by a Kedalian company -- particularly following a series of talks between Klaycorp and Kedalion executives -- but the official position remains that they are independent entities working closely together. That said though, the official state of the Achelian corporate entities doesn’t matter for the majority of people, who work endlessly in the factories, the recycling plants and the mines that now cover much of Achelia’s once-beautiful surface. 


=====The People of Achelia=====

Achelia now is a divided planet. Corporate executives live cushy lives in private space vessels equipped with every luxury. Klaycorp, and the few other companies that have been allowed to survive as ‘official subsidiaries’, control private armies to put down any rebellion from the rest of the population. That isn’t to say that the Achelians have successfully been subdued, however: small sweatshop skirmishes, always a feature of corporate life, have been growing into a larger movement headed by the remnants of the Tungsten Roses.

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The surviving Tungsten Roses, formerly just a cultural curiosity, began to turn their good standing with downtrodden and weary Achelians into organisation, and potential salvation. Whilst they are currently little more than optimistic pirates, leading small runs against corporate vessels, the Tungsten Roses are beginning to offer to the Achelian people something they've lacked for the past two decades of war. Hope; hope that the brutality and horror of war may yet be bent and wrought into something beautiful, and that the resilience of the Achelians will bear them out into a new dawn.