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Solsys
solsys
Image from Steve Bowers

Solsys (The Old Solar System): The original system of Humanity and the origin of Terragen Civilisation

CommentsA diverse but politically irrelevant old core system, distinguished as the home system of all Terragen life. Much of the system is locked up as planetary parks and is not available for material exploitation, but this is more than compensated for financially by the massive influx of tourists, researchers, and pilgrims. Planet Earth is under the jurisdiction of the archailect GAIA, the rest of system is governed by the Solar Organisation or is nominally independent.
GalactographySystem: Solsys

Primary: Sol

Stellar Type: G2 V

Companion: none

Region: Sol Sector, Inner Sphere
Planets, Moons, and Other BodiesHelios A, B, and C: Intra-Mercury Orbital bands. Population 450 million; mostly ais and virtuals, with a small number of vecs, cyborgs, animants, sun miners.

Mercury: Small, rocky history-rich world, non-terraformed. Population 20 million, mostly ais, vecs, cyborgs, Sun Miners. Orbitals population about 50 million, mostly ais and virtuals.

Venus: Recently terraformed and with a surface population now at several billion, it is currently the most populated world in the inner system. Orbital population about 1 million, mostly ais, cyborgs, vecs, To'ul'h, and To'u'lhuman.

Earth: The domain of the Archailect GAIA, and the original world of Terragens.

Luna: The oldest permanent colony in the Terragen Civilisation.
Cis-Lunar Space: The Earth-Moon system is a major tourist
attraction and also the administrative center, home to 2 billion bionts.
Here are the major orbital habitats such as the ancient Roddenberry and
even a reconstruction of Island One, the pilgrimage sites among the Lunar
cities, and various Earth-orbit hotels where the curious can watch the
origin of mankind. The Solar Organisation and Institute of Human
Archaeology is housed at New Academeion.
Mars: The current Mars Republic is the oldest continuous government in the Solar System. However it is much more decentralised than the original Republic, and most regions and habitat-states are fairly autonomous. Present population is approximately 900 million sophonts.

The Asteroid Belt: A diverse, well populated, and history-rich part of SolSys, with an overall population about 160 billion, belonging to every conceivable race, species, and clade.
Ceres: The largest asteroid in the Belt, now paraterraformed.
Jupiter: Like the Belt, the Jupiter system, with its myriad of moons, trojans, orbitals and bubblehabs is quite populous and often visited by tourists, mainly ancestry-interested tweaks looking for the history of the Gengineering Republic and the early Genetekker Culture.
Io: Currently no permanent presence on the surface. About 250,000 scientists, artisans, and tourism workers in the four orbitals.

Europa: Long believed to be a habitable home for life, Europa excited great interest during the Information and early Interplanetary Age. The predicted inner ocean was found to exist under the massive ice sheets, but turned out to be quite lifeless until the engineering of the Europans and their supporting ecosystem.

Ganymede: The moon is home to half a dozen fairly large tweak polities, and a number of smaller states.

Callisto: The huge crowds and crush of populace are now long gone, and the major arcologies and habitats on and beneath the surface now are given to a flourishing tourist trade, entertainment, the arts, virchistorical tours and totalrecalls, a Genetekker revivalist colony and, in some areas, a rather flourishing red light industry.
Saturn: The glorious rings of Saturn were gradually removed by miners and momentum generation systems; recently several small moons have been artificially pulverized in an effort to replace them for the tourist industry. The bubblehabs in its atmosphere, some dating back to before the Technocalypse, are of particular historical interest, as Saturn was the recipient of many human refugees during the Great Expulsion and was a rich centre of development in the late Dark Ages and early Federation times.
Titan: A major tourist destination for Cishps and Titan derived clades as well as the Muuh, who inhabited the moon millions of years in the past. The large cities and impressive ecology of the subsurface of ocean are major attractions too.

Enceladus: Site of the first experiment in Geoflex Computing.
Uranus: Currently the inhabitants are affiliated to a greater or lesser degree with the Solar Organization.

Neptune: Currently Neptune and its many atmospheric and orbital settlements are integrated to one degree or another with the Solar Organization.

Kuiper Belt: Currently the Kuiper Belt and its many settlements are integrated to one degree or another with the Solar Organization.
Pluto: In the Current Era, an increasing number of Plutonians have expressed interest in expanding the role of the OSDA or possibly leaving the Solar Organization altogether but no concrete actions have been taken to date.

Mary: Kuiper Belt object. Home to the ancient Marian clade.
Oort Cloud: Currently the Oort Cloud and its many settlements are only nominally and occasionally integrated with the Solar Organization.
AIAI Overseers:
The Solsys Council - Solsys in general, and protectorates
GAIA - mostly Earth, but also some distributed presence elsewhere

AI's Ethos:
The Solsys Council - Protectivist, Mild Interventionist
GAIA - Caretaker God
PolityName: The Solar Organisation

Symbol: stylised map of the sun and eight traditional planets set against an indigo background

Capital: New Academeion (CisLunar L5)

Closest Affiliation: Fomalhaut Acquisition Society
Psyche, Art, CultureReligion/Ideology: no predominant official religion or ideology. However various omegist, cosmist, bioist, pantheist, aiist, neotantrist, astrotheist, and other such religions are widely and diversely followed.

Culture and Art: Solsys Culture is an unsystematic amalgamation of various ancient, middle-era, and more current fads and influences, with the central memeticities going back to the First Federation, the Dark Ages, the Interplanetary Era, and even to Old Earth herself. Though one can indeed speak of a general Solsys Culture, this only applies to the major orbitals and capitals, and associated territories and suburbs. Elsewhere, especially in the more isolated belter, haloist, and outer system micromoon cultures, Solsys Culture provides only a background flavour to the local memeticity; in some polities there is no Solsys influence at all, or Solsys culture and memeticities are restricted or discouraged. There are even a few isolated polities and local populations where things have hardly changed in six thousand years.

Languages:
Official: Cislunese Anglic
Unofficial: many local dialects are found; sometimes entire distinct language families on each asteroid or habitat
Territory and PopulationTotal: about 190 billion
planet / large moon - about 1 billion
planetoid, asteroid-habitats, comet, small moon - about 180 billion
orbitals - about 10 billion
Population breakdown: almost every imaginable race and clade (barring some extreme tweaks and jovics), including some local populations of hu baselines barely changed since the pre-Singularity era
Government and AdministrationGovernment Type: loose federation, administered by the Solar Organisation, which also coordinates the massive tourism and pilgrimage influx, engages in historical research, and several outsystem protectorates. Most component states have a high degree of autonomy. Several moons and a number of habitats remain completely independent, or have only nominal membership in the federation. Most local and federal governments are democratic (direct or via elected proxy), at least nominally, if not actually.

Administrative divisions: According to planet, moon, or Lagrange point

National holidays: See individual member-polity

Constitution: The Solar Organisation Charter

Legal system: See individual member-polity
Economics, Local InfrastructureEconomy: See individual member-polity

Currency:
System-wide: SolOrg Currency Unit, SolOrg Dollar, FAS Exchange Unit.
Local: mostly e-currency, but some metallic alloy, rare earth, info-currency and bio-currency depending on the polities in question

Major Industries: Archaeology, Heritage Preservation, Tourism, Totalrecalls, Historical Recreations, Personoid Clionics.

Angelnetting : varies from non-existent to full

Major Orbitals: many space habitats of all kinds, some of which are extremely old
TravelStargates:
Einstein Gate to Tau Ceti (originally 450 meter diameter, later upgraded to 5000 meter gauge)
Sothis Bridge to Sirius

Major Spaceports: -

Hazard Rating: 0.0 to 1.5 (depending on member-polity or world)

Visa Restrictions: See individual member-polity

Freedom of Movement: See individual member-polity. Earth is off-limits without a special permit

Environmental Requirements: See individual member-polity

Sites of Interest: Old Earth admits no more than a few tens of thousands of tourists and worshippers each year; however tourist sites can be found on every world and major body of the Old Solar System, especially Mars and Luna

Jupiter
Image from Steve Bowers

 
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Appears in Topics
Inner SphereSolar OrganisationSystems & Worlds S - T
 
Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Initially published on 25 September 2000.

Significant revisions 17 October 2008
 
 
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