Alternates:GC-History

History

"Handwavium," the mysterious and near-magical black box technology, was [ discovered | invented | dropped off by aliens | created by Nikola Tesla and then forgotten until | recovered from the sunken wreckage of Atlantis | none of the above | all of the above ] in the 2006-10 period as in the mainline. It went open-source and generally spread like usual, and the Fen were the earliest of early adopters. Most of the non-space applications of the tech were pioneered by 'Danelaw governments and corporations, which means the stuff starts to penetrate the public consciousness a little earlier than in mainline. The Fen tended to see the space applications ahead of everything else (one-track minds) and began building spaceships in their backyards.

By 2009 the Fen had achieved orbit, a few crude-but-functional space stations and a lunar return mission. This came at a bit of a cost. Well, more than a bit of a cost. From the first lightsci suborbital boost to the first boots on the Moon since 1972, attrition rates among Fen cosmonauts ran around 25-30%. But they were successful, and by bringing blackboxes with them they bootstrapped dirt-covered shacks into actual lunar cities.

It's about this point that, having proved that wavetech spaceflight wasn't just a flamboyant method of suicide, that nation-state and corporate interests started getting involved in matters orbital. With far more material and human resources at their command, the 'Danelaw began expanding into cislunar. A lot of early Fen stations, habitats and settlements are nationalized or bought out by one interest or another. (It should be noted that in almost all cases this was a voluntary thing; Noah Anderson leveraged the buyout of his original high orbit truck stop station into Stella Via Trading.) Meanwhile, national interests - mainly Japan, India and Canada of all places - began a comprehensive plan of lunar settlement. As civilization slowly filled into the cislunar area, Fen and Dane alike started looking towards the next target - Mars.

The crimson crown jewel of interplanetary colonization, it was inevitable that everybody was going to scramble for Mars. The Fen managed an all-out assault on the planet a few weeks ahead of the American-Russian and Chinese colony expeditions - the Fen managed to get the history books, but the 'Danelaw still had numbers and gear. But more people were willing to push back for Mars than they would for cislunar; Fen flocked to the Red Planet and swelled the colonies even as the Space Powers tried to maintain parity.

While all of this was happening the Fen kept riding the ragged edge of the frontier. Fen made the first landings on Mercury, Venus (which proved that even darksci can't quite beat the surface conditions yet, as the one unfortunate who tried found out), the Galilean moons, Titan, Triton and Pluto. Out in the darkness of the outer system, a collection of Fen who wanted more autonomy from Earth staked claims on the gas giants and their systems. Calling themselves the Fenspace Convention, these outer-system Fen very effectively curtailed 'Danelaw expansion. The 'Danelaw for their part were happy enough trying to digest Mars, and asteroid mining took care of immediate resource needs and as such let the situation stand with only a little huffing and puffing.

Current Events

This brings us to "today," the tail end of 2039.

The 'Danelaw remains in control of Earth (naturally), Luna and the cislunar volume. The motherworld's not in the best shape as climate change and rising inequality cause friction economic, political and sometimes military. The introduction of clean wavetech has inspired a level of optimism in the body public, but something has to give sooner or later and it may be civilization-as-we-know-it. The cislunar volume is filled with space stations, the mighty Bernal spheres and O'Neill cylinders at the Lagrange points anchoring constellations of smaller habitats. The cities of Serenitatis and New Old York (don't ask) are the major Fen settlements in Luna, mostly tourist traps but excellent places to enter the Fen demimonde.

Venus is a lightly-settled world of floating aerostats. There are plans afoot to aeroform the atmosphere by creating a band of breathable atmosphere at the 50 kilometer level, but those are for the future. As it stands, Venus is the heart of the Fen entertainment industry; if you can make it on Earhart, you can make it anywhere they say.

Mars is the main point where Fen and Dane intersect, to the point where the population is around 50:50. The 'Danelaw colonies are where the population is most concentrated, but Fen are everywhere and get into everything. Life on Mars (cue Bowie) is centered around three things: resource extraction, terraforming engineering and political unrest. Not only the omnipresent Convention presence, a sizable number of second-generation Martians are looking towards independence and autonomy for their home colonies. The Barsoomian movement grows with every day and it's mostly not the Fen's fault too.

The asteroid belt is... well, it's the asteroid belt. Lots of space for people who don't want to be bothered.

The outer system belongs to the Fen proper. Most Convention citizens live on Callisto, since it's the only large moon that isn't heavily irradiated by Jupiter's magnetosphere. Titan is the next largest population center, and does a brisk trade in carbon compounds with various places in the system. Oberon is the most distant outpost of the Convention so far, and it's held mainly because this is where the Fen discovered the Oberon Gate, a wormhole link to the greater galaxy.

The big event of the time period is the near-simultaneous announcement of the Oberon Gate's existence and the announcement of the stutterwarp drive. Stutterwarp is a faster-than-light engine that promises to unlock the nearer stars for exploration and colonization. So far the 'Danelaw has invested huge amounts of time and resources into the colonization of the Alpha Centauri system. The budding colony of Chiron stands at 25,000 people and sees a supply or colony ship from home every 50 days. Interstellar colonization is the next big thing, and the race is on again. Will the 'Danelaw's slow-but-sure stutterwarp allow them to establish viable colonies before the smaller but more widespread Oberon Gates let the Fen take over the galaxy?