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--- achelia [2019/05/20 21:34]
gm_jack [A History of Achelia]
+++ achelia [2019/06/11 17:29] (current)
gm_tilda
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 ======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."//
+//"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.\\ But this greed was soon elided;\\ Achelia - a world divided."//
   * 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.
+  * The Tungsten Roses allied with Kedalion to change that, executing a swift revolution against Klaycorp.
-  * There some resistance to corporate control, but it is very much a fringe resistance.
+  * Several years after the war, Kedalion exerts some control over Achelian affairs. Roses, among others, are making an effort to resist Kedalion industry.
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 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. At the same time, revolutions broke out across the planet, orchestrated by the Tungsten Roses, pushing back against the greed of the corporations - Klaycorp, in particular.
+After the conference, the Roses really came into their own. A deal made with Kedalion gave them an edge over Klaycorp in exchange for some concessions over industrial rights. Although the revolution was fairly bloody, it was also quick, and peace and prosperity settled over the planet. However, before too long Kedalion began exerting more control. Initially this was just over Achelian industry, but there has also been a push to promote Kedalian culture and values -- and an equal push back from large sections of Achelian society, in part due to the trend of psYber glasses spurring people’s valuation of nature.
 =====Achelia Now=====
+Internally, there has been a great deal of strife over the past 20 years. The Tungsten Roses, formerly just an artistic movement, banded together to make a concerted and organised effort towards resisting corporate control, and after a few years, they even managed to gain majority control of the planet, vastly improving the quality of life for the average Achelian.
-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.
+However, while the Roses had some help from the Kybele Blue Carnation house, their triumph was largely due to Kedalion support, and in exchange Kedalion corporations were allowed to set up shop in all of the former Klaycorp factories. This also led to far greater cultural integration between the two planets, though it is notable that the Kedalian [[kedalion#the_enhanced|Enhanced]] technology did not catch on so much in Achelia, in part due to the common availability of [[achelia#psyber|psYber]] glasses.
-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.
+Tension between the natives of Achelia, in particular the Tungsten Roses, and Kedalion have risen in recent years as Kedalion corporate control grows. While living conditions are significantly better than they were previously, many are concerned about a potential return to Achelia’s corporate past. Even those who trust that Kedalian automation will protect people’s general wellbeing see the mechanisation as stifling creativity and personal freedom.
+====psYber====
+Shortly after defeating Klaycorp, the Tungsten Roses began to distribute psYber branded glasses. These glasses share many qualities with the psYberware that forms part of the [[kedalion#the_enhanced|Enhanced]] technology, with the key difference that it can be switched off simply by removing the glasses.
+The glasses have several effects, but the major one is the application of an artistic ‘filter’ to the way their wearers see the world. This filter shows the world in brighter, almost psychedelic colours, bringing beauty to the ordinary world and, in particular, the natural world. This has led not only to a boom in artistic creativity, but also to an increase in environmental awareness on the planet, with people banding together and uniting to try and find ways to reverse the pollution caused by the heavy industry on the previous centuries.
+The newfound environmental awareness has, however, only led to an increase in tensions as care for the environment does not fall within the Kedalian way of operating. The Tungsten Roses have led a few strikes on Kedalion factories - mostly taking the form of industrial action and suspiciously convenient industrial accidents in the most offending sites.
 =====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.
+Achelia is less divided than it has been in centuries, but that does not mean its people are a unified mass. The division now lies most starkly between those who stick to the Tungsten values of creativity and freedom, and those who prefer the ease and comfort of Kedalian optimisation. A significant proportion of the population work in factories and mines, though generally as overseers to the sea of machines that waves across the planet’s surface. In addition to this, Kedalion has established several 'embassies' and 'security centres' on the surface of Achelia, to encourage co-operation from the general population.
 {{:45476598282_51f6057116_b.jpg?350 |}}
-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.
+That isn’t to say that the Achelians have been subdued, however: industrial skirmishes, always a feature of corporate life, have been growing into a larger movement headed by the Tungsten Roses, who have only grown in power and influence. Many of them are now based in beautifully formed asteroids and moons, away from the watchful eyes of the Optis, from which they send out regular broadcasts and instructions.
+Achelia is also home to a growing community of Kedalian expatriates who wanted to avoid the increasing integration of human and machine happening on their homeworld.

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