Preface: It all started in 2102. In this Alternate History, an abandoned alien colony was found on Earth's moon, and inside of it were technologies that sent humanity into a scientific golden age of discovery and innovation. Of course, conflict came shortly after this. Another aspect of this alternate history was that the USSR were the ones to get to the moon before America, so of course, this technology was used to further the Communist agenda. Soviet Russia used their new tech to create mechs, bio-engineered clones, superweapons of which humanity had never seen before. America, or any other nation that wasn't part of the USSR couldn't stop the spread of the Red Army then. With their new technology and weapons, the United Socialist States had grown to span the entire world. For years after that, all of humanity lived under an oppressive, totalitarian regime. In 2008, China overthrew the Soviets and imposed their own brand of Communism upon the world, one where economic change could happen but with ultimately state-controlled Big Business. For years after that, everything was the same. Political freedom was nonexistent, individual freedoms were ignored in favor of the collective, a "tyranny by majority". But it worked. The Socialist States used their incredibly advanced tech to colonize the solar system. First came Mars, then came Venus, then came the moons of the gas giants, with the planets themselves becoming mining centers and sites for floating cities.
After years of heavy government censorship, a more lenient Chairman became the leader of the People's States of China. With this came the elimination of heavy censorship, and for once, information on the Multi-Planetary Web was free. After a few years, a group of activists found a copy of several UN constitutions, ones that called for Free Speech, private ownership and enterprise, individual rights as well as majority rules, and other aspects that make up Democracy. Of course, due to the high social stigma of Capitalism and private ownership, enforced by years upon years of Stalinist-style propaganda, these Democracy-supporters were silenced harshly. But ideas are bulletproof. Eventually, revolutions have popped up in many states. Communism collapsed, with many nations devolving into anarchy or authoritarian regimes. The solar system was on fire, and massive social change came as a result.
Eventually, things cooled down, and actual nations have come as leadership arose from these revolutions. Kingdoms, Constitutional Monarchies, and Republics formed in the name of democracy, allowing freedom of speech bound by strong central authority. By 2088, all planets had several countries on them, each rising from the ashes of the People's States of China. In 2097, these countries combined into a Federation in order to support each other. Kingdoms, Republics, and Constitutional Monarchies each combined into central authorities with a constitution of set rules and regulations, checks and balances for each branch. The Federal Kingdom of Sol was born.
In 2102, an anomaly happened. World-5 collided with the neighboring World-78, causing wild changes to occur. It was an apocalyptic event, vaporizing entire aspects of reality and replacing them with new ones like some mix and mach jigsaw puzzle. Some people were completely erased from reality, replaced by new, different versions of them. Some people were merged with their alternate-reality variation, creating a completely new, uniform person. Some had their entire reality changed, leading new lives with new skills and new knowledge. The kicker is nobody noticed this happened. After the event happened, there was no evidence of it happening, no memory.
Now, in this new universe, the laws of physics are different in some areas, yet the same in others. Quantum fluctuations occurr all over the new universe appear at random, taking the form of strange, cosmic storms in outer space, or strange rifts in space-time on individual planets. These fluctuations give people strange abilities, abilities that seem to deviate from the universe's known laws of physics. Perhaps they're fragments of the two universes that collided, perhaps they're physics pulled in from other universes. These humans that gain powers are called Phenomena, and while some use their powers to help people or simply make their lives easier, some use them for evil, some to bring back the collectivist ideals of the past, and some to turn things to their own benefits and interests.
Society:[]
Politics:
Each planet has three rulers, three democratically-elected kings that each are in charge of one governmental power: legislative, judicial, and executive powers respectively. Each king has a "Chamber", which are democratically-elected politicians that advise them, that propose new laws from the people, or share and balance power from the King so that they don't have too much power. As per a Federal system, each King has checks and balances against the other. Each of the Big Three populated planets: Mars, Earth, Venus and the smaller dwarf planets in the Solar System have a "Planetary Guard", a small, organized militia for the protection of the people, armed almost as well as the Federal Knights, which protect the Federation as a whole from space pirates and possible interstellar threats.
The Central Kingdom, ruled by three branches, the Chamber of Justice, the Chamber of Law, and the Chamber of the People are the planetary kingdom-style federalism applied to a much larger scale. The Chamber of Justice is full of judges in charge of various legal cases and interpreting laws within the Federal Kingdom, the Chamber of Law is a bicameral house, where the Commonwealth House has representatives from individual provinces within the Federal Kingdom, giving a direct representative connection to the people, and the Elite House having two representatives from each province, dealing with laws on the scale of the kingdom as a whole. The Chamber of the People has one High King with the power to pass or veto the Chamber of Law's bills, and is elected by the Chamber of Law's Commonwealth House, who are in turn elected by the people.
The economy of the Federal Kingdom can largely be described as "Regulated Capitalism". Private businesses exist, each competing in the market as per supply and demand. This creates economic classes like the rich and the poor, but income is distributed extremely evenly leading to only a slight difference between the richest and poorest of citizens. The higher class is charged more tax than the lower class, and many social services are granted to those in need of them. The largest industries would be the Information Technology industry, the Spaceship industry, and the energy industry, bringing the most prosperity to the Federal Kingdom.
A lot of the money in the Federal Kingdom goes to welfare, education, and maintaining the environment, with defense coming close in third due to the frequent attacks from space pirates or small, rogue nations.
The cultural influence of the eastern world still exists to this day. Due to this, major religions in the Federal Kingdom are Hinduism and Buddhism, although emphasis on religion in the 22nd Century are more lax due to secularist beliefs, mostly because of scientific advancement, and complete separation of church and state in the government. In close second, Agnosticism and Athiesm are the religious opinions of the people, with various branches of Christianity and New Age religions being the least common in the Federal Kingdom.
Technology:[]
Bio-Engineering/Augmentation:
Cybernetic Augmentation is an even newer field in transhumanism and, unsurprisingly, the most untrusted field. The most devoted transhumanists willingly undergo surgeries to replace various body parts with superior, cybernetic ones. A cultural transhumanist movement called the "Cybermen" are focused on doing this kind of thing. People with wounds or missing limbs often get robotic implants that allow them the same mobility as before they lost that limb. True extremists are working on mind uploading, replacing various neurons in their brains with nanomachines slowly and moving their brains into other bodies, perhaps moving their consciousness to computers. This is a very dangerous and illegal practice, and is only practiced by the most fanatical transhumanists.
Robotics:
Machines have been sentient for a while now. A.I. with intelligence roughly equal or slightly superior to humans has been used in military and, more recently, civilian technology. Robots themselves are seldom accepted by humans, seen as soulless or simply too inhuman to be equal to them. As a result, robots don't have as many rights as humans and are oppressed on a social level. They're not allowed to take up any jobs in government or any high-paying jobs at all. There have been underground robot collectives that proclaim superiority to humans and, as a result, have conducted terrorist attacks.
A lot of the Federal Kingdom's infrastructure is kept up to date and under control of A.I., which is on a tight leash by the Central Kingdom. As a result, technology is improved rather quickly, but not too quickly as to administer massive social changes or changes in the human condition. Non-sentient machines are often used in the military as drones, allowing for surrogate-style combat for human members of the armed forces.
Virtual Reality and Inter-Planetary Web:
Space Technology:
Space ships are available to all who can afford them, capable of travelling to other planets in minutes with relativistic-speed rocket thrusters. Those in space ships are often put into cryosleep or simply spend their time in virtural reality if their chosen destination isn't that far. Military space ships use Alcubierre Drives. Most civilians go to other planets on Space Carriers, massive, cruise-style space ships that are relatively cheap to board. The average space ship is about the size of a large building. Each space ship is nuclear powered, but some of the most advanced space ships are powered by antimatter.
Terraforming and Geo-Engineering:
The ability to control the weather is a relatively new technology created by a booming industry predominantly on Mars. Massive machines have been created to change the climate and overall environment of entire planets at a time. Furthermore, various machines have been built to control an already hospital environment, allowing for human control of the weather, earthquakes, or volcanoes. Volcanic eruptions are often stopped by cracking open volcanoes, releasing pressure, and allowing the heat to warm nearby cities. Weather has been used for agriculture or simply keeping the weather nice in cities. The Geo-Engineering industry is partially state-controlled, but many corproate interests have projects of their own.
Outer Flood Technology:
The capabilities of the Outer Flood are godly to humans, so when they were able to steal some of their technology from Pluto, the chance to reverse-engineer was too great to pass up. Applications of Outer Flood Technology are almost impossible to comprehend, with technology going to a quadrillionth of a meter, the ability to control and fabricate stars larger than the sun, the ability to manipulate gravity and space, and create constructs out of hard-light, bending and twisting mathematical principles to alter reality, and using scientific principles that are completely undescovered. Outer Flood technology is largely kept secret from the public, and teams of government scientists are working on figuring out possible applications and using this technology, which could possibly turn the tides in the war against the Outer Flood. The problem is that most scientific breakthroughs are often met with insanity...
The Evas are one of the first breakthroughs in the field of Xenoscience. The practice takes the bodies of the Outer Flood or the beings they "summon" and use their cybernetic bodies as mechs, psionically linking hosts with them. This special program, the Eva Initiative, is a military program with the elite undergoing rigorous psychological tests so that they could undergo the pressure of being bonded to an eldritch abomination for the rest of their lives. Those with psionic talent already are easier to train and have a more natural resistence to the mental power of Outer Flood "corpses". In order to pilot an Eva, a pilot must undergo special brain surgery. This surgery manually re-works the neural pathways in the brain (safely done via nanotechnology) and connects important centers of the brain like the pre-frontal lobe to cybernetic implants that allow the pilot to literally plug into the Eva. Through this pathway, the mind is shared with the Eva's.
Numeroturgy is another breakthrough in figuring out Outer Flood technology. After decoding Outer Flood runes, scientists and mathematicians have figured out the difficult mathematical concepts that allow the Outer Flood to manipulate reality. As a result, many agents of the Federal Kingdom Intelligence Agency (F.K.I.A. or Codename: IVORY MESA) or Black Chamber are taught in this art, but many of the truths as a result of this lead them to contract Felix Syndrome (named after Agent Hardison Felix who first contracted this disorder), who's many symptoms include delirium, intense synathesia, or schyzophrenia. As a result, any practictioner of this art is going to get Felix Syndrome. To understand neumeroturgy, you must understand that World-5 is still colliding with another universe, and as these universes are colliding, so are the dimension. Solving any math problem in the universe sends echoes to a "higher dimension", one of abstract geometries, numbers, and "unborn" concepts. Solving certain problems in certain ways, or proving fundamentally untrue theorems lures these "concepts", beings, or geometries into the material universe, allowing the caster to summon beings or perform feats that would normally not be allowed in World-5.
The Outer Flood[]
In the beginning, there were the Farseekers. These beings were advanced and powerful, so much so that they could influence the evolution of organisms on a galactic level. In an experiment, these Farseekers created two species: Humans and the Outer Flood. These two races were advanced to nearly the Farseekers' level of technology and left to their own devices. Conflict boomed between the two races, either over resources, energy, or simple ideological differences. This war set the galaxy alight, destroying entire star clusters and planets in their wake.
But then, the Outer Flood constructed the Sovereign, a race of powerful machines designed to destroy the Humans. The humans were exponentially killed off, human colonies were destroyed, but the Outer Flood suffered many casualties too due to the Sovereign turning against them. This destructive war finally came to the attention of the Farseekers, and with a powerful device, they wiped out all but a few of the Outer Flood and the Humans. The Humans were no longer advanced, but mere unintelligent apes living on a blue rock called Earth. The Outer Flood was confined to the outer solar system, their technologies and knowledge in tact, but their numbers lower than the humans, making their situation dire.
To survive, the Outer Flood made peace with the Sovereign and, eventually, merged with them to preserve the power of both races. After this, they went into a deep slumber, for Pluto was a cold planet and the Outer Flood had to hibernate to survive. As the humans evolved, gained back civilization and, eventually, the Federal Kingdom of Sol appeared, humans went to Pluto and Charon in hopes of colonizing, but they only activated the Outer Beacon. The Outer Flood was awake once again.
Now the newly awakened abominations, half machine and half organism, seek to enslave and destroy humanity, to take back and harvest the dormant Farseeker gene within the human genome. They want to reclaim their birthright, and nothing will stand in their way.
Now humanity is at war with the Outer Flood, and the situation is desperate. The Outer Flood is more advanced than humanity, and it forces humanity to steal technology from the Outer Flood, to research the Phenomenon Genome and replicate powers within soldiers. All travel beyond Jupiter has been banned, and technology from the Outer Flood uses sciences that humanity couldn't begin to comprehend, esoteric truths that warp the minds of the scientists who come to understand them...
First Arc: The Security Acts, The Black Chamber, Fall of Titan, and the Lazarus Corporation[]
The Security Acts:
In 2130, the High King, under a very liberal interpretation of article 7, section 3 of the Writ of Sol ("The High King is the protector of the people of the Solarian people, and shall have the powers to protect and serve them, and has dominion over all others who do..."), the Security Acts were passed as a Royal Order. Due to these acts, the Federal Kingdom of Sol has effectively turned into a police state. Though the sacred rights of civilians aren't violated, there is a strict curfew that is enforced throughout the Kingdom by the police, who are roughly as armed and trained as the Federal Kingdom's own military. The idea of the Security Acts is to prevent the spread of eldritch cultists, who have been appearing since 2121. These cults have, in time, gained the comraderie of corporate interests and minor government officials. It is the duty of the Security Acts to ensure the safety and prosperity of the people...at all costs.
The Cultist Elimination Act was the first of the Royal Orders to take effect. The Cultist Elimination Act, or the Nationalist Act, upgraded police forces to recieve para-military training and military equipment. Furthermore, the Nationalist Act enforced a curfew on all of the Federal Kingdom's people (8:00 PM Universal Time) to counteract the chances of eldritch cults kidnapping or recruiting anyone at night. Citizens caught outside after curfew will be immediately taken into police custody and viewed with suspicion. Those who are confirmed or caught doing eldritch activity are killed on sight.
The Eagle Eye Act was the second of the Royal Orders to take effect. The premise of this law is simple: 24/7 surveillance of every single citizen in the Federal Kingdom. Cameras are on every street corner, footage is watched at all hours, citizens' homes are surveyed without their knowledge, phone connections are tapped, internet connections are monitored by the Black Chamber. The purpose of this act is to know potential cultists and rid society of them before they have the chance to move. Those confirmed doing eldritch activity are immediately detained by the nearest police force.
The Metahuman Registration Act the third and final of the Security Acts issued by the High King. This act takes any Phenomena or otherwise gifted humans and forces them to register to the Central Kingdom, where they are trained in their powers in assorted government-controlled schools, marked with a barcode on the back of their hands, and, if they're particularly gifted, made to join the government's armed forces or sometimes Black Chamber. Metahumans with powers deemed "invasive" are subject to intensive surveillance and immediate detainment if their abilities become a harm to anyone.
The Jaegar are the elite spies of the Black Chamber. Their training involves immense psychological torture from psychics in the Black Chamber, almost to the point of insanity, so that their minds won't be too warped by the bonding. To become a Jaegar, an agent of the Black Chamber must undergo a three day ritual where they are not allowed to eat or sleep. During this ritual, a Cthonian from the Planes Beyond is summoned, and this cthonian bonds with the Jaegar, turning him or her into a shapeshifting agent with powers depending on the Cthonian's type. The downside is...bonding with a Cthonian slowly eats away at the agent's mind the more he/she uses its power. Due to this, killswitches are surgically implanted into the Jaegar's brains. It immediately kills them if there is any sudden radical change in brain activity (like, say, becoming schizophrenic).
The psichologists are psychic agents of the Black Chamber. They mostly deal with surveillance or, if their gifts are powerful enough, they're full-fledged field agents. Psichologists are phenomena that have been astrally projected across the Planes Beyond, where they encountered beings beyond the comprehension of humans and the true psychic presence of the Outer Flood and the Farseekers themselves. As a result, the psichologists are mad, but not hopelessly so. However, due to their innate connection to the Planes Beyond, they are always vulnerable to becoming insane wrecks of human beings, as a result, the Mahogany Way (the higher-ups of Black Chamber) keep a close eye on them.
The Adept are agents that have undergone advanced cybernetic enhancements to become useful to the Black Chamber. Agents of the Black Chamber, if not psichologists or Jaegar, then they're Adept. Adepts are outfitted with incredible cybernetic augmentations, from eyes that can see the entire electromagnetic spectrum, super strong arms and legs, to brain implants that allow them to interface with the internet and control machines or upload their minds into different bodies entirely. Due to the multiple cybernetic enhancements, the Adept often suffer identity crises and lose touch of their humanity. The Mahogany Way keep close eyes on the Adept as well.
The Computational Demonologists are the experts of ritual magic, game theory, and everything in-between in the Black Chamber. Oftentimes they push papers or keep the bureaucracy of the Black Chamber going, doing every necessary computation or creating Bal-eth Spacetime Curves on will with their computers to summon eldritch abominations to perform assassinations for the Black Chamber. Computational Demonologists also make the gadgets for the Black Chamber, complex computer programs to protect Black Chamber servers, and handle espionage for the Black Chamber. Due to the nature of their expertise and their jobs, they're as susceptible to insanity as the psichologists.
The Mahogany Way (codename: INVISIBLE MASTERS) are the leading unit of the Black Chamber and the least seen of this already shadow organization. They keep 24/7 surveillance on the members of the Black Chamber and are sometimes rumored to even control their minds. Mahogany Way is made up of the scientists that originally found Outer Flood artifacts and weaponized their sciences; due to their encounter with the eldritch mysteries, they are fundamentally changed -- into what, nobody knows, they're just not human anymore. Members of the Black Chamber only visit the Mahogany Way when they're in immense trouble or are going to get promoted...oftentimes, those two points converge with each other.
The CEO of the Lazarus Corporation is actually an avatar Nyarlathotep, a Farseeker -- or rather a manifestation of their will -- who is preparing humanity for another experiment. The Lazarus Corporation has been made to advance the evolution of humanity, to nudge them into eldritch mysteries and putting dormant femtotech in the food that the Lazarus Corporation has controlled food companies make.
Out of the ships came beings too alien to be anything remotely close to human. They looked to be insectoids, with elongated bodies and six legs that straddled the line between leg and tendril. Their necks were gaping holes, and out of them came an appendage that looked like a spore or a bud. Out of this bud came millions of fleshy, purple tentacles, and these tentacles whipped around and felt for the area around them. On their backs were wings partially covered in a sticky membrane that looked like black moss. Four of its legs had claws on them, three pronged and sharp, and two had crabclaws on them, except elongated and larger. This was the Outer Flood...or at least, fleshy avatars constructed by them to rid Titan of humans.
They made quick work of the humans. The Federal Kingdom's police forces and military were no match for Outer Flood flesh constructs. Buildings were destroyed, structures vaporized and thousands of people were killed. The freezing planet of Titan was theirs...and that was just the way they wanted it. Now the Outer Flood occupy Titan and soon all of Saturn. The humans have lost this battle, and things look very bleak. The Outer Flood were able to destroy humans in mere hours, render an entire moon without humans.
Aftermath: With the Security Acts making the Federal Kingdom slightly more totalitarian, many rebel groups have sprung up to protest the Security Acts, and the personal freedom to protest has been held sacred...however, groups large enough have been deemed "dangerous" by IVORY MESA tend to disappear into the rumored black prisons where threats to the Kingdom are held. The Black Chamber often call them out on this, but they have no formal power to police other governmental offices (due to them not officially existing, they had no "official" power). IVORY MESA had bought to their attention that the Black Chamber commits many transgressions against the people too, and this has bought further tension between the two intelligence agencies, increasing their bitter rivalry.
The fall of Titan has made the populace fearful. Due to this, many xenophobic and Neo-Fascist leaders have rose to prominance among the people, preeching the greatness of the human race and how they must get rid of the xeno scum to make the Solar System truly theirs. Many of these Neo-Fascist leaders are a subtle manipulation by IVORY MESA to get the people more involved on the war against the Outer Flood, and thus more willing to destroy them and, more importantly, fund the war. Of course, in response to the gradual rise of Neo-Fascism, many far-leftists and collectivists rise from the working class, preaching a different brand of authoritarianism from the right-wing fascist philosophy.
The Lazarus Corporation has been engineering society for a while now. Their CEO gives loyal employees the ability to move through time, and they have been manipulating the history of the human race subtly, using very small changes and creating effects akin to the Butterfly Effect. Due to their subtle manipulations, a new cult has arrived, one that will further the agenda of the Farseekers, one that will rival the Black Chamber in resources and power...
-Witnessers of the Yellow King
Second Arc: Cloud Infinite, The Striga[]
The Cloud Infinite:
The actions of Cloud Infinite are strange to say the least. Their actions go from liberating androids to destroying important government infastructure. They all work to serve some large, unknowable game that, as they claim, will awaken Cthulhu. Computational Demonologists in the Black Chamber claim that seemingly small, unrelated, and insignificant actions in reality can send ripples throughout the Planes Beyond and can affect quantum fluctuations, creating wild and strange things. Theoretically, this is how the many horrors in the universe came to be in the first place, and it seems to be how they aim to awaken Cthulhu.
Due to these horrifingly powerful abilities, the Striga are hunted down by animals. When the Central Kingdom first got a whif of their existence, they started a genocidal campaign against them, killing most of them off due to their abilities and natures being much too dangerous. Now there are a few of them, and they're in hiding. Some of them have formed underground cults to worship and do the bidding of the god they're connected to. Some of them try their best to reject their nature and live normal lives, and others join the Black Chamber to get rid of the former two.
In reality, the Striga are the next step in human evolution. The Farseekers have created humanity with a biological time switch that'll open them up to the power of the Alien Gods beyond and let them use it like other powerful races, and due to genetic mutations, Striga have appeared in earlier generations. However, more and more people are gradually being born as Striga, and regular humanity is starting to die off.