Kedalion

Welcome to Kedalion. The Corporate Council invites you to visit the Grand Showcase, and see what services we are able to provide. Visitors are reminded that they are responsible for their own personal and data security while on planet, and no liability is accepted by the corporations for the unsanctioned actions of any person. I am an Opti configured to help guide you through your visit - in the event of a question requiring human intelligence, I will be able to pass you on to a human operator.
- Introductory recording for the Gamma standard visitor assistant, provided to visiting diplomats and businesspeople.

• The Kedalion system has one inhabited planet, with three (uninhabited) moons. The other planets in the system are unremarkable gas giants.
• Before the war, Kedalion was a centre of industry - with particular specialisms in manufacturing, automation, and cybernetics.
• The system was also infamous for a tangled culture of corporate espionage, both within Kedalian society and against foreign businesses.
• During the war, the manufacturing facilities spread with little thought to the quality of life for normal citizens.
• Now, Kedalion is scarred both from planetary bombardment and from the waste produced by those facilities.
• The corporate leaders from before the war have not been seen for some time, and the planet’s day-to-day management is controlled by a series of optimisation programmes which keep the cities running according to schedule.

From the start, Kedalion was pure business - settled close to both the resource-rich Achelia, and the (at the time) wealthy Eunomia, Myriad Manufacturing Corp and their partners aimed to create an industrial and engineering powerhouse. Free from excessive regulation. Free from the constraints of an already settled planet. Free from anyone else's taxes. With some generous trade deals set up in the early days (already accompanied by allegations of corruption and espionage), Kedalion grew quickly. The executives of the corporations made more and more money, the workers kept a good enough life that it wasn't worth leaving, and the corporate espionage operatives were kept busy acquiring or destroying secrets, technology, prototypes, and people.

By the time of The Ananke Conference, Kedalion was ruled over by a council formed of representatives from the various corporations with an interest there - their representation proportional to their contribution to the economy. The three big players were Myriad Manufacturing (the founders of the settlement, and still the largest corporate interest there), Opti Automation Solutions (a close second) and NewYou (a distant third, specialising in cybernetic enhancement). Much of the day to day running of operations was handled by “optis” (or “optimisation engines”), not true artificial intelligences, but programs which could optimise towards a preprogrammed set of goals and priorities, taking into account all the data available and any preset limits. The leap to a true AI - which could change its goals in response to a changing situation - was never made.

Following the conference, Kedalion announced a new corporate strategy and the development of a new set of optimisation processes to improve Kedalion’s strategic position. This move showed remarkable foresight: the optimisation was geared particularly towards war, meaning that when Eunomia invaded Selas, Kedalion were able to get involved with terrifying speed and efficiency. The corporate espionage operatives quickly found that their skills were equally applicable in sabotaging enemy production, or stealing plans, so long as they could get in system. Kedalion began the war allied with Eunomia, and Achelia. This three-way alliance did not last long, as Achelia turned on Kedalion in the early stages of the war, as Kedalion was preparing to invade Cheimeros. The wrath of both Eunomia and Kedalion was quickly turned on Achelia in retaliation, although many have argued that, as Achelia had no reason to turn on Kedalion at the time, the incident was more likely an accident than an act of aggression.

Kedalion was drawn into a war on two fronts and, while their efficient war strategy optimisation certainly helped, the drawn out conflict lost them the edge gained in the first few years of the war. Although they were eventually able to annexe both Cheimeros and Briareos, this was only after a long fight with heavy losses.

Factories cover huge swathes of the planet, some still pumping out drones and other autonomous fighters for the ongoing war, a scant few providing necessities for the remaining people, and most glitched out and filled with wildly flailing machines as a result of constant cyberattacks. Most of the remaining space is useless - either bare craters, or zones too filled with radiation, toxins, or other hazards for anyone to survive. While much of this is from planetary bombardments and other attacks by Kedalion's enemies, a large proportion is self inflicted, as the need to produce more and more weaponry outstripped minor concerns like environmental pollution, or careful testing of new designs.

The people live squashed into one of a few cities - cramped hovels stacked wall to wall and floor to ceiling, where supplies are scarce and crime is rampant. Even the executives of major corporations have not escaped this fate, and live packed in with everyone else. The only exception is the senior executives of the council, who have not been seen in years. Even video appearances have tailed off over the past decade. Rumours abound that the whole planet has been taken over by an Opti with one goal: win the war, no matter the cost.

While there may be rumours, there doesn’t seem to be any way to change the situation. The closest that anyone has come has been a rebellion by a number of unaffiliated gangs, led by the Menagerie. Working with a group known as the Galactics, said to be the remains of a GSP intelligence unit, they attempted to overthrow the council and institute another form of government, but were quickly defeated. Anyone involved in the rebellion was deemed detrimental to the war effort, and executed.

The general population of Kedalion lives in tightly cramped cities, and most eat the nutrient mush rations which are supplied from automated farms outside the cities and on the annexed Briareos, made from crops carefully engineered to be nutritionally complete. The joke is that these are enough for you to survive on, calculated down to the calorie, by some Opti which has been told to keep everyone alive at the lowest cost possible. Black market farms and food smuggling were rife for a while, but anything deemed detrimental to the war effort has been suppressed. Anyone who wants to venture out of their home has to either be tough and armed, or have useful skills they can trade for protection.

Life is no different for the executives of smaller corporations, except that they might get a room at the top of a tower block, rather than a few designated square feet at the bottom. Most of their time is spent reassuring the public at large that they are still in charge, and this is all for their own good in the long run, but their assurances fall mostly on deaf ears. The Executives of the larger corporations have not been seen in years, and while information public information suggests that they are still controlling the Optis which work for the betterment of Kedalion, some wonder whether it is in fact the other way around…