THE FRONTIER, ETERNAL

[ACT I – RABBLE-ROUSERS]

[THE STORY FOREVER, THUS FAR]

1ST ARC OF STORY IS THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHARACTERS’ PERSONALITY.

INITIALLY, THIS IS SET AS THE WORKING QUARTERS OF THE INTERNS ON A LARGE
HABITAT SHIP, THE ‘ANURINATIAMAT’ (a portmanteau of Sumerian words
indicating “the celestial horizon within the abyss)’. OPERATED BY AN
INDEPENDENT SCIENTIFIC AND INTELLIGENCE GATHERING POLITICAL ENTITY
“ASTARTE DATA SERVICES”, WHO OVER THE COURSE OF THE SERIES ARE FOUND OUT
TO BE BOTH ARBITRARY AND EVIL BY MEANS OF WILLFUL IGNORANCE AND
SUPPRESSION OF ECOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE WROUGHT UPON PREVIOUSLY UNTOUCHED
WORLDS BY THEIR FIELD CREWS.
ALL OPERATIONS PERSONNEL ARE DELIBERATELY KEPT OUT OF REACH FROM
SOCIETY AT LARGE, BY REQUIRING CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION TO FOLLOW
DIRECTIVE NEEDS FOR CLIENT/CONSUMER PURCHASES OR ON PERSONAL REQUEST BY
MEMBER OF ADMINISTRATION. UPON AGREEING TO SUCH CONTRACTS, CATALOGEERS
ARE KEPT SPENDING VAST MAJORITIES OF THEIR LIFETIME ON COMPANY OWNED
SHIPS COMPLETING MISSIONS WHICH OVER THE PAST 50 – 100 YEARS HAVE BECOME
INCREASINGLY MORE CONVOLUTED AND KAFKAESQUE, DUE TO ASTARTE’S PREVIOUS
STANDING AS MERELY A REGIONALLY GALACTIC INFORMATION BROKER, AT THE EVER
EXPANDING EDGES OF HUMAN COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT, NOW CALCULABLY AT A POINT
OF CALCULABLE DIMINISHING TO A POINT WHERE NO LATERAL EXPANSION
THROUGHOUT THE GALAXY IS POSSIBLE.
ASTARTE WAS ORIGINALLY CONFINED TO THE SYNTHETIC GRAVITATIONAL
SUPERHIGHWAYS BUILT IN THE EARLY STAGES OF POST-STELLAR TRAVEL. SEVERAL
SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGHS IN GRAVITATIONAL FIELD THEORY LED HUMANS TO
DEVELOP NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN INFRASTRUCTURAL IMPROVEMENTS FOR SAFE TRAVEL
BETWEEN STARS. INFRASTRUCTURE ALONE WOULD NOT WIN THE GALAXY FOR HUMANS—
THE UNQUENCHABLE HUMAN DESIRE TO EXPAND AND CREATE ANEW, FOREVER…
largely exists only in humans.

AS HUMANS SPREAD THROUGHOUT OUR NEIGHBORING STARS, MANY OTHER

SENTIENT SPECIES WERE DISCOVERED, WHO WERE QUICK TO LAY OUT SOME GROUND
STANDARDS FOR THE NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK. HUMAN DISCOVERY OF PRACTICALLY
APPLIED FTL GRAV-TRANSIT TECHNOLOGY MADE EARLY INTERACTION QUITE
DIFFICULT. WHEN FACED WITH SUCH INNOVATIONS, PREEMINENT GALACTIC POWERS
TOOK GREAT STRIDES TO WIELD INFLUENCE WITHIN THE GROWING COLONIES.
THE MECHANISMS BY WHICH OTHER GALACTIC POWERS HAD CODIFIED AS
GALACTIC STANDARDS WERE BUILT IN TIMEFRAMES WHICH HUMANITY HAD LITTLE
EXPERIENCE TO RECONCILE. GALACTIC CODE HAD EXISTED ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
THE FRONTIER, ETERNAL
II

FOR HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS. WHILE MOST OF THE ALIEN DOCTRINE WAS
NOT ENFORCED UPON INDIVIDUAL SOCIETIES, IT WAS EXPECTED TO BE FOLLOWED
IN STANDARD DIPLOMATIC PRACTICE OR WHEN ADDRESSING THE LARGELY FORMAL
AND NEUTERED COUNCIL OF SPECIES. THESE EXTERNAL PRESSURES CREATED
THE MORE ERUDITE AND CREATIVE OF HUMAN SOCIETY FOUNDED AND
POPULATED OUTWARDLY UTOPIAN “BACS À SABLE”, WORLD-STATIONS DEDICATED TO
THE PURSUANCE OF ART AND CREATION. CENTERED IN THE CENTAURI STAR
CLUSTER, CLOSE TO NATIVE SOL, THESE ALL-IN-ONE COMMUNITIES COULD OPERATE
AT SUSTAINABLE LEVELS FOR INDEFINITE PERIODS OF TIME, BUILT AROUND
EARTHBORNE VISIONS OF COLLECTIVE UTOPIA THROUGH ACTUALIZED COOPERATION.
DURING THIS INITIAL PERIOD OF FOUNDATION, THOSE OPPOSING
HUMANITY’S EXPANSION WERE QUITE NUMEROUS, WITH HUMAN CIVILIZATION STILL
REELING FROM A HISTORY NOT KNOWN FOR DIPLOMATIC CONSISTENCY. MANY FEARED
RETALIATION BY THE POWER AND ATTENTION COMING FROM NEW XENO-COMS
ESTABLISHED BY THE ESTABLISHMENT GALACTIC, VIEWING THEIR PERSONAL
PILGRIMAGES TO THESE IDYLLIC COMMUNITY WITH ZEALOUS ENTHUSIASM.
WITHIN A CENTURY, MANY OF THESE STATIONS COLLAPSED INTO COMPLETE
CHAOS AND ANARCHY, AS THEIR HOMEOSTATIC SUPPORT SYSTEMS FAILED TO MEET
EXPECTATIONS OF ITS INHABITANTS. IN THIS TIME, NEARLY THE ENTIRE
POPULATION OF THE OVEREXTENDED ART COMMUNES ONCE AGAIN WENT IN EXODUS TO
THE NOW ESTABLISHED AND DEVELOPING COLONIES.
FIRST TO ARRIVE FROM THE COLLAPSE WERE MANY CORE COUNCIL MEMBERS
FROM INDIVIDUAL BACS À SABLE COMMUNITIES, NOW LEFT CYNICAL BY THE RAPID
CONFLAGRATION OF THEIR FOUNDATIONS. THESE FORMER ARTISTS STAYED ON THE
FRONTIERS, OPERATING AS SOCIAL COMMENTATORS AND REVIVALISTS OF
PHILOSOPHY, STUDYING AND TEACHING EXISTENTIAL SCHOOLS OF PRE-SINGULARITY
METAPHYSICS, WHICH LARGELY WERE DISREGARDED BY MODERNISTS OF THE TIME.
AS TIME PROGRESSED, THEY FELL INTO A STRATIFIED CASTE SYSTEM OF
THEIR OWN DESIGN. COMBINING THEIR NATURAL CREATIVITY AND NEWFOUND
RESONANCE WITH MANY 19TH CENTURY EXISTENTIAL THINKERS TO FORM LOOSELY
KNIT BANDS OF WANDERING MYSTICS/TEACHERS, GIVING NEW LIFE TO MANY OLD
WAYS OF THINKING. DESCENDANTS OF THESE WIDELY DIASPORIC GROUPS ARE NOW
KNOWN THROUGHOUT THE GALAXY AS “LES MARGES” AS A GROUP OF PEOPLE OR
“L'HOMME DE MARGES” WHEN INDIVIDUALLY REFERENCED. THEY OFTEN PROVIDE
SPIRITUAL OR INWARDLY UNDERSTOOD KNOWLEDGE TO THOSE THEY FEEL HAVE
REACHED A POINT OF READINESS. THEY ARE ONE OF THE ONLY UNIFIED SOCIAL
HIERARCHIES TO HAVE SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE GALAXY’S ENTIRETY—HOWEVER THINLY.
THE SUBSEQUENT ARRIVAL OF FLEEING REFUGEES PROVED QUITE USEFUL IN
FRONTIER DEVELOPMENT, AS THEIR GREATEST SHORTAGE AT THE EDGES OF CURRENT
CIVILIZATION WAS MANPOWER. THE COLONIES, AT THIS POINT, HAD ENOUGH TIME
TO GROW ON A COMMUNAL LEVEL INSOMUCH AS THEIR OWN SOCIAL, ETHICAL, AND
CULTURAL EXPECTATIONS WERE UNDERSTOOD ON A LARGELY HOMOGENOUS BASIS.
THESE ‘FIRST-WORLDERS’ (those who traced lineage to prominent pioneers
for their individual worlds or have purified themselves by taking vows
THE FRONTIER, ETERNAL
III

to uphold the ways of life endeared through autobiographical accounts

from early settlers) OFTEN FOUND THEMSELVES AT ODDS WITH THE XENOPHOBIC
AND IRRATIONAL CULTURES OF FEAR WHICH DEFINED THE REFUGEES.
AS TIME PROGRESSED, FIRST-WORLDERS BEGAN WRITING THEMSELVES TO
POSITIONS OF OWNERSHIP OVER THE NEWFOUND RESOURCES ACQUIRED BY COLONIAL
DEVELOPMENT. THIS ASSIMILATION INTO LORDSHIP ROLES SET IN MOTION
FEUDALISTIC SOCIAL ORGANIZATION THAT LASTS EVEN TODAY WITHIN FIRST-
FRONTIER PLANETS’ GOVERNMENTS. DUE TO PRESIDING ANCESTOR WORSHIP AND
SPIRALING WEALTH/PROPERTY STRATIFICATION, FIRST-FRONTIER PLANETS EXIST
TODAY LARGELY AS A NETWORK OF LOOSELY RELATED DESPOTIC MONARCHIES.
THE CHAOS CREATED BY GROWING INFIGHTING ON THE FRONTIER RIPPLED
WITHIN HUMANITY’S COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS IN SEVERAL DECIDED WAYS. OVER
CENTURIES OF DERIVATION, MISINTERPRETATION, AND MANIPULATION,
CONTEMPORARY HUMAN INFLUENCE EXISTS AS DISTINCTLY ORGANIZED REGIONAL OR
SYSTEM-LEVEL GOVERNMENTS OPERATING INDEPENDENTLY.
BEYOND THE PRACTICAL INFLUENCE OF HUMAN SETTLEMENT, VESTIGES OF
THEIR FORMER UNITY STILL EXIST AS FIGUREHEADS FOR GALACTIC SENTIMENT OF
MANKIND. WHILE SHEER NUMBERS OF REPRESENTATIVE HUMAN INTERESTS LED TO
THE DISESTABLISHMENT OF FORMER PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION, BEING
REPLACED BY THE ‘ALMIGHTY ELECTORATE’, A BODY-POLITIC PROPAGATED FOR ITS
INCORRUPTION AND INFALLIBILITY. THE ELECTORATE ARE UNKNOWN TO NEARLY ALL
HUMANS, THEIR PRACTICAL APPLICATION OFTEN IN OPPOSITION OF THE WILL OF
THE BODY-POPULUS.
MOST INDEPENDENT HUMAN POWERS OPERATE UNDER ASSUMPTIONS THAT THE
GALACTIC UNION MERELY EXISTS AS A FORMAL POWER, BUT IN PRACTICE THE
ALMIGHTY ELECTORATE FUNCTIONALLY EXISTS AS A CONFLUENCE OF UNFATHOMABLY
WEALTHY INDIVIDUALS AND INCONCEIVABLY POWERFUL & EXTENSIVE CORPORATE
TRADE MONOPOLIES. FASTIDIOUSLY BYZANTINE RECORDKEEPING HAS LED TO UNION
SUZERAINTY EXISTING IN PRACTICE AS A MEDIUM FOR BROKERAGE OF MARKETING
INFORMATION FOR INDIVIDUAL CLIENT-STATES AND MINING/DEVELOPMENT CHARTERS
WITHIN A LARGELY UNSTOPPABLE HUMAN EXPANSION THROUGHOUT THE COSMOS.
THE BUYING/SELLING OF THESE RIGHTS OF PRODUCTION AND MECHANISMS OF
EXPLOITATION GOES PRACTICALLY UNNOTICED BY MOST HUMANS, THEIR THOUGHTS
AND CONCERNS GENERALLY LIMITED TO ISSUES WITHIN THEIR INDIVIDUAL
LEADERSHIPS. TO KEEP THE OPPOSITIONAL HUMAN SOCIOPOLITICAL STRUCTURES
FROM RISING AGAINST THE UNION AND THIS SHADOW-ECONOMY IT CONTINUOUSLY
PARTICIPATES IN, PAYMENT TO THE UNION CONSISTS BY AND LARGE VIA LARGE
SCALE SOCIAL MANIPULATION OF FACTORS WITHIN THE INDIVIDUAL VASSALS
THEMSELVES.
OCCUPIED WITH THESE INSTABILITIES, THE THREAT OF REBELLION IS KEPT
FAR FROM STATE-OWNED UNION TERRITORY.