[really, really Infinities] strange things are afoot

[M Fnord]

Hokay, so. This one needs some explanation before we get started.

I've been kicking around ideas for a total reboot of Fenspace as a setting. Among other things, this is part of the output. It's not really meant to replace the current version of Fenspace - despite my meanderings I'm not interested in scrapping six years of work just for the hell of it - but I feel compelled to share it, because if I inflict it on you then maybe I can get back to more canonical work.

Anyway, this isn't the Fenspace you're familiar with. It's not quite as blatantly magical, a little punkier, bigger in some ways and smaller in others. The 'Danelaw rules cislunar, there aren't any Fen factions like you know them, it takes a week or more to travel between Earth and Mars and the big new thing is the FTL engine that takes a mind-breaking two months to reach Alpha Centauri. Unless you're Fen, where the settlers of the outer system found an alien wormhole device out on a moon of Uranus, and crazy people go out and have adventures. Some of them even come back...

Transcript of gatecrash debrief, December 12 20XX.
Interviewer: O. Simpson, Convention Security (Gate Division)
Interviewee: M. Fnord, team leader crasher group 023 (Order of St. Grimace)
Location: Grand Central FOB

Q: Okay, it's 0900 hours December 12 20XX. Everything from here on out is on the record.

A: Once more unto the breach, eh Liv?

Q: Something like that. You and your team always seem to be on the point when something strange happens.

A: What can I say? It's our wyrd. Honestly though I wouldn't mind if somebody else took up the banner for once.

Q: Law of averages, Mal. Now, your team was first-in through gate address PKX-18901, right?

A: Yeah. The first-link didn't show anything particularly promising locally, just another Selenian type rockball. But the camera picked up what looked like reflected light from a habitable planet, so they sent us to check it out.

Q: What was the ROE?

A: Stay near the gate; Selenians are dangerous but the dangers are pretty well documented so far. The gate was emplaced in a lava tube, so less chance of getting death-from-above via stray meteorite. We were to check out the habitable world remotely, telescope observations only, see if we could pick up any transmissions, and then return to Grand Central. Once we got the paydata, people who weren't us would take it from there.

~***~

"Okay, we're in. Starting logging. Ahem. This is the Order of St. Grimace travelogue of PKX-18901, Mal Fnord recording. So far, as you can see, we've got... rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. No atmosphere, gravity's about one-sixth standard so that matches the first-link report. We're going to set up base camp just over here to the side and then. Well, I guess then we'll take a look around outside."

~***~

A: Base camp went up pretty quickly, not our first time at the rodeo after all. So about a hour into the mission we were ready to head out and get a better look at the target.

Q: And that's when you saw it?

A: Yeah. The camera must picked up planetshine from a chimney in the tube. We got out of the cave and it was in the sky not quite at zenith, probably close to thirty-forty degrees.

~***~

The gatecrashers stepped out of the cave into glorious desolation. "Okay," the leader said, "So if the camera saw planetshine, and if it's not right in the entrance then it must be close to overhead..." he trailed off as he saw the Earth hanging full in the sky.

"Oh, you've got to be fucking KIDDING me!"

~***~

Q: What were your first impressions?

A: Honestly? I thought we might've come full circle and found a gate on Luna. I mean, that makes sense, Luna's not particularly well-explored outside of the settled areas and it's possible that a gate could be hiding in a nook somewhere if it's off the trade routes. So we radioed for a comm check and got nada. Once we got the telescopes set up we could see that all the orbitals weren't there, so obviously we weren't in Kansas anymore.

Q: And the next hypothesis?

A: Alternate universe.

Q: You're kidding.

A: Not really. Yes, it's really damned weird that 'alternate universe' is considered the sane and rational alternative to pure irrationality, but who the hell knows how the gates work? It was always a possibility that the wormholes weren't sending us around the galaxy but to other dimensions. Of course, we managed to put some data together that disproves that.

Q: How so?

A: The going theory is that if we end up in an alternate universe, the stars should be roughly the same as they are in ours. Only something really alternate, like one where the sun exploded a billion years before like evolved, should be one where the stars change. Or at least that's how I understood it. Anyway, the star patterns weren't the same as at home. They're similar, but all the regular suspects aren't visible. C-Sec's got the astrographic data?

Q: Yes. We've got people working on it as we're talking. Anyway, what happened next?

A: Honestly, not much more. Once we'd gotten our jaws back in place we spent the 36 hours doing the planned observations. Based on that, the place - Earth, Jesus I can't believe I'm taking this so calmly - is inhabited. We saw signs of large population centers, city lights and such, most of it round the Indian Ocean basin. Spectroscope analysis of the atmosphere indicates an industrial society, lots of coal burning, place'll have a nasty greenhouse problem in a hundred years or so. No radio transmissions, or at least nothing we could pick up from our spot.

Q: Do you think that the planet might have suffered through a nuclear war, like the one on Strangelove?

A: Not like the one on Strangelove, there's too much shit alive down there. We didn't see any signs of a nuclear war, but from that distance we might've missed it. It did look like somebody did something nasty to Europe and North America, might've been nukes. I guess we'll need to get a team closer for a better idea.

Q: So in your opinion this planet can't be the source of the Strangelove civilization?

A: Be nice if we could wrap that up with a neat bow, wouldn't it? No, the Strangelovians are too old, too technically advanced and they left their toys around. Even if these people were the Strangelovians only... regressed, we'd have seen debris in the high orbitals if nothing else. Here? Nada.

Q: Quite. So after you completed the observations you returned to Grand Central?

A: Couldn't do much of anything else, really. And people really needed to know about this nonsense.

Q: Mm. Well, Mal, I think that'll do for a supplementary. Anything you'd like to add for the record?

A: Only this. If C-Sec doesn't just wipe the address and pretend it never happened, my team wants in on the followup.

Q: Obviously I can't promise anything, but we'll see what we can do.

Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[robkelk]

Mal gave me a head's-up on this, so I've had time to think about it...

It's not really meant to replace the current version of Fenspace - despite my meanderings I'm not interested in scrapping six years of work just for the hell of it

Likewise. I happen to like our crazy blend of space-opera and science-fantasy... but I like this one, too. I'm tempted to propose doing both, but I don't know whether we have the resources to do two projects in parallel. (Heck, we're having enough trouble writing up all of the Big Six factions in original-recipe Fenspace.)

Some characters in both versions of Fenspace would be close to the same. Some would be different - maybe very different. And a few wouldn't have analogues in the other universe.

If we do go with this, here's a mood-setting quote from one of extra-techy Fenspace's better-known citizens, Noah S. Anderson:

"Sometimes I worry about Sora. Eimi and I double-checked her personality profile before we coded her, and neither of us put any Patty Hearst into the mix... but there she is."
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Foxboy]

Peshawar.

You went for a Stirling Crossover this time, hm?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[M Fnord]

"Dad... maybe it's you."

"No, no I don't think so..."

- Gil and Klaus Wulfenbach Kohran and Noah Anderson, in conversation, 20XX.

[quote="Foxboy]Peshawar.

Good eye. Always had a fondness for that one, despite Steveo's peculiarities. Anyway, it's not the only one.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Bob Schroeck]

Frederik Pohl's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_(novel)]"Gateway" books, too. Parts of the background all but scream it.

I'm very interested in this, too. Not sure I can contribute -- I hardly contribute to Mainline!Fenspace as it is -- but I certainly want to see more.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[robkelk]

"Dad... maybe it's you."

"No, no I don't think so..."

- Gil and Klaus Wulfenbach Kohran and Noah Anderson, in conversation, 20XX.

Yeah, yeah... some things change, some things stay the same.

Characters - some of this is Mal's, some of it is mine:

Noah Scott Anderson: First businessman to successfully gain a presence in space, by using the expedient of hiring experts instead of trying to do the work himself. His holding company owns the L5 Bernal Sphere Stella Via, where he makes his residence. (Wild rumors say that he's considering building and moving into a private space station, but nobody's that rich.) Also owns Stella Via Trading Company, which does big money with the Convention. Dabbles in AI design, created a half-dozen infomorphs which he then gave morphs and adopted as his children. Currently worried about his eldest AI girl, who’s vanished into the Convention. Never married.

Jake Hansen: Noah Anderson's right-hand-man, "CEO" to Noah's "President." Very busy, but not so busy that he doesn't have a social life. Known to sponsor zero-g gynmastics teams and zero-g ballet companies. Married to Miyuri Fujiwara, a cyberneticist who he met at one of the Anderson family get-togethers.

Megan Anderson: Not-particularly-famous, Megan is the owner and head chef of a successful high-class restaurant in Luna City. On good terms with her genius daughter Eimi and wealthy brother Noah, but their schedules give them few opportunities to get together.

Eimi Anderson: Daughter of Megan Anderson and the late Shinichi Yamaguchi (and niece of famed businessman Noah Anderson), Eimi holds a graduate degree in cybernetics from MIT. She and her uncle were the first to successfully use the "handwavium" technology to create a cybernetic intelligence. Lives with her mother in Luna City, where she's out from under the shadow of her uncle (and casting a pretty big shadow of her own in the infomorph community). Divorced, no children, not currently in a relationship. Introduced her classmate Miyuri to Jake Hansen.

Sora Anderson: The aforementioned first CI, designed by Eimi with personality coding by Noah (including personality components of the anime characters Sora Naegino and Sora Hasegawa). Competent space engineer; developed a bunch of open-source improvements to standard spacecraft designs. Decided that her talents were going to waste working inside the inner system & has joined the "rebel alliance" - currently working on the other side of the Gate with a group of technical pacifist Fen terrorists.

Kohran Anderson: Probably the most famous infomorph/handwavium specialist in the system. One of Noah's children, coded as a technical genius. Developed the stutterwarp FTL engine which has been put into use colonizing Alpha Centauri.

Amelia Anderson: The first known infomorph to completely reject both the "net-connected cyberspace" and "humaniform morph" infomorph lifestyles, Amelia's hardware is one with her spacecraft body... whichever spacecraft that happens to be at the time. Sometimes calls herself "The Ship Who Seeks," but never tells anyone just what she's seeking. Currently earning the purchase price of her own spacecraft by working as a shuttle pilot on the Benjamin Franklin / Stella Via "milk run." (For those scoring at home, Amelia is Yayoi's counterpart in extra-techy Fenspace, sort of.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Dartz]

I thought it was more Eclipse Phase when I saw it...

But then different reference pools. Or more separated from the same source. The overall setting feels very much like Eclipse Phase, only at a very early stage and without the near extinction of humanity.

It's the Ronald D. Moore reboot. Darker, frackier, with complaints from the fanbase about popular and iconic characters from the original being gunned or changed completely and everything.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[M Fnord]

In implementation the idea stems from Eclipse Phase, but in inspiration the "alien whatsit offering travel to the stars" has a long pedigree which goes back at least to Gateway (where I first saw it) and probably further.

It's the Ronald D. Moore reboot.

Owtch. You're a cruel but fair man, Dartz.

Meanwhile...

The Order of St. Grimace: A well-known and successful team of gatecrashers led by Mal Fnord. Best-known for their discoveries of Strangelove and Tellus Secundus, and also for successfully bringing everybody back alive no matter how weird the job. When on downtime, the Order amuses themselves by committing acts of criminal mischief and economic/memetic terrorism against various cislunar governments and corporate authorities they don't particularly like. The Order prides itself on a policy of sans armes ni haine ni violence in their antics, and to date hasn't killed nor seriously injured their targets or bystanders. Currently the Order is waiting on a go-order on a penetration mission to Secundus, and is contemplating the very interesting paydata new recruit Sora Anderson brought with her when she left Stella Via...
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[HRogge]

The scenario you scribe will definitely more "compact", both because of the high travel times and the single wormhole-gate that allows the 'Fen' to leave the system. This can be both good and bad...

Still, I wonder if the Fen could stay relevant in the Solar System unless Earth decides "the area is not worth the effort".

[M Fnord]

Still, I wonder if the Fen could stay relevant in the Solar System unless Earth decides "the area is not worth the effort".

It really depends on how you define relevance. Will the Fen ever be like they are in the mainline, commanding the heights of the solar system? Probably not. There's not quite enough of them (though more on average than in the mainline) to offset the advantage Earth's population and economy offer, even with miracle technology.

But that doesn't mean they're not relevant. The Convention operates out on the ragged edge of the frontier, which gives them a certain frontier mystique. People join the Fen on a pretty regular basis - especially people who'd like something better in their lives but don't want to live under the Space Powers' collective thumb. Also, the Fen aren't simply lurking in holes in the outer system, they're actively involved in shaping things. They may not be the political force that they are in the mainline but they're much more of a cultural force, which may turn out for the better.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Proginoskes]

I contribute even less than Bob, but I'd be happy to see more of anything: this, Candle in the Dark (other CitD writers, consider this a prod), even The South is Rising (Someone Get a Hammer) (whatever happened to this one, anyway?).
So how does this version's Supertechnology/Handwavium work? Is it basically what "we" have, but subtler? Or is it something else entirely?

[M Fnord]

So how does this version's Supertechnology/Handwavium work? Is it basically what "we" have, but subtler? Or is it something else entirely?

Working from my notes...

This particular version of handwavium isn't the magic material from the mainline: there's no 'apply wave, get stuff' mechanics to it. Still working out the hows and the wherefores, but it's more of a black-box nanotech of sorts (again, very preliminary). However it's presented the stuff basically works as a tool to build the tools to build super-empowering technology.

There's four main gradients of the technology handwavium can produce: lightsci, graysci, darksci and madsci. This isn't a moral division, it's a how-much-do-we-understand-it division. Lightsci tech are things that obey the laws of physics in general but we just can't reproduce, like for example carbon nanotubes of arbitrary length. Greysci tends to bend the laws of physics a little bit more, or go into things that we know work but still don't understand: artificial intelligence, brain-machine interfaces and things of that nature would be good examples of greysci. Darksci is where we get into the openly 'yeah, we must have something wrong in the models' stuff like artificial gravity, inertial control, reactionless drives, FTL and so forth. Madsci... madsci is probably closest to mainline wavetech in how it works; it's all bespoke, generally can only be reproduced by the person who made it and tends to treat the laws of reality as vague guidelines. As you can guess, it's the rarest and most worried-about part of the whole thing.

[size=smaller](As for Candle, we're working on it I swear to Xenu. Please don't kill us, we have too many bills to pay to die!)[/size]
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[robkelk]

Madsci... madsci is probably closest to mainline wavetech in how it works; it's all bespoke, generally can only be reproduced by the person who made it and tends to treat the laws of reality as vague guidelines. As you can guess, it's the rarest and most worried-about part of the whole thing.

And it's the stuff that Sora copied from Kohran's notes before she left Stella Via, which is why Fnord's group is so fascinated by it.

Losing the data is not why Noah's worried - it was "copied," not "moved." He's worried that his first child might not have thought things through before she left. (She has, but he hasn't had a lot of experience in being a parent.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Proginoskes]

I was going to post this earlier, but I went to Wikipedia to brush up on photovoltaics and found myself reading about the Omega particle.

Hmm... 999 nines of purity (that is, impurities are no more than one part in 10^999). Lenses and mirrors that bend/reflect every incident photon, absorbing none. Materials with impossible properties, like semiconductors with exactly-tuned bandgaps and high-efficiency fluorescent materials with matching emission spectra (this combination, especially if the semiconductor has high carrier mobility, would allow for solar cells many times more efficient than current state of the art).

Interestingly, one of my many never-fleshed-out ideas for mainline Fenspace is a character for whom Handwavium acts pretty much like this. His sole exception – a black-box crystalline-'Wave powerplant – cut its output to levels sufficient for station-keeping and life-support only once he reached L5 and dissolved into a puddle of goo once he hooked up his solar panels and other power systems.
(And really, I'm only slightly impatient for more Candle. I'm more curious about what happened to The South is Rising.)

[HRogge]

It really depends on how you define relevance. Will the Fen ever be like they are in the mainline, commanding the heights of the solar system? Probably not. There's not quite enough of them (though more on average than in the mainline) to offset the advantage Earth's population and economy offer, even with miracle technology.

If the Fen manage to keep a (slight?) edge on handwavium based tech it could work...

But that doesn't mean they're not relevant. The Convention operates out on the ragged edge of the frontier, which gives them a certain frontier mystique. People join the Fen on a pretty regular basis - especially people who'd like something better in their lives but don't want to live under the Space Powers' collective thumb. Also, the Fen aren't simply lurking in holes in the outer system, they're actively involved in shaping things. They may not be the political force that they are in the mainline but they're much more of a cultural force, which may turn out for the better.

Being far away from Earth (because of the slower space drives) certainly helps... because as long as its not economic to use the area the Fen are inhabiting, they will not be rushed that quickly. ^^

[M Fnord]

Hmm... 999 nines of purity (that is, impurities are no more than one part in 10^999). Lenses and mirrors that bend/reflect every incident photon, absorbing none. Materials with impossible properties, like semiconductors with exactly-tuned bandgaps and high-efficiency fluorescent materials with matching emission spectra (this combination, especially if the semiconductor has high carrier mobility, would allow for solar cells many times more efficient than current state of the art).

Yeah, something like that would be light/graysci material under this particular regime. Super-high-efficiency photovoltaics were one of the things I was thinking of as an example of lightsci.

(As for South Is Rising, that one's pretty much kaput. I impulse-posted without having a good idea of where I was going aside from "hilarity ensues," and while you can get away with that in worldbuilding... not so much in an actual story. So it withered from lack of direction. Sic transit gloria mundi.)

If the Fen manage to keep a (slight?) edge on handwavium based tech it could work...

You seem to be a little hung up on political/economic dominance, like the Fen must be kings of the solar system or else it's all for nothing. Things are different here.

In the mainline the Fen control the solar system, but they're largely considered irrelevant on Earth, at best tabloid fodder and at worst a nebulous boogeyman for the paranoid. Here, the Fen don't control the solar system (they've got claims on big chunks, but actual control is limited to places like Callisto, Titan, Oberon and Triton) but they are very relevant on Earth. Fen 'culture' is a big thing downstairs, it's not some shunned subculture that exists to be poked at on an episode of CSI, it's trendy. There are scenesters who wear "authentic" gatecrasher jackets with patches and insignia. Nerdy kids have posters of Stella Via or the Port Lowell domes on their walls and dream of being the next Callie MacDonald. Japanese fashion districts look to Luna and the sky-habitats of Venus for inspiration. Martian punk folk is the next big thing on Billboard. These things are important, they matter more than how many ships or guns or lines drawn on a map there are.

Here, the Fen are pretty obviously on the political edge, and that probably won't change until the TITANs wake and eat Earth. But they've got one huge advantage that the mainline Fen don't have: the respect and interest of the 'Danelaw.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[HRogge]

You seem to be a little hung up on political/economic dominance, like the Fen must be kings of the solar system or else it's all for nothing.

No, I don't.

Things are different here.

In the mainline the Fen control the solar system, but they're largely considered irrelevant on Earth, at best tabloid fodder and at worst a nebulous boogeyman for the paranoid. Here, the Fen don't control the solar system (they've got claims on big chunks, but actual control is limited to places like Callisto, Titan, Oberon and Triton) but they are very relevant on Earth. Fen 'culture' is a big thing downstairs, it's not some shunned subculture that exists to be poked at on an episode of CSI, it's trendy. There are scenesters who wear "authentic" gatecrasher jackets with patches and insignia. Nerdy kids have posters of Stella Via or the Port Lowell domes on their walls and dream of being the next Callie MacDonald. Japanese fashion districts look to Luna and the sky-habitats of Venus for inspiration. Martian punk folk is the next big thing on Billboard. These things are important, they matter more than how many ships or guns or lines drawn on a map there are.

Here, the Fen are pretty obviously on the political edge, and that probably won't change until the TITANs wake and eat Earth. But they've got one huge advantage that the mainline Fen don't have: the respect and interest of the 'Danelaw.

Yes, that would work too... *nod*

Because if they would neither have some interesting tech, large enough numbers nor cultural influence, they would quickly become a sidetracked minority.

Having a more open relationship with the rest of Humanity also helps to create story plots in "mixed environments".

[Foxboy]

"Is everything all right, sir?"

Eljay started from his latest project.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Amalthea, I was just a little focused on my new sleeve for the Con." He turned his middle-aged, chubby face to the companion/housekeeper CI he'd rescued from the metaphorical trash heap. She was currently sleeved in one of his first puppets, based on the human form of her namesake in Rankin-Bass' version of the Last Unicorn.

She tilted her head just so. "Sir you should get up and eat something and perhaps get some sleep if you're going to insist on keeping your original sleeve in working order."

He stretched. "When you're right, you're right." He chuckled. "What would I do without you, hm?"

"Stay up way too late and eat horrid junk that would kill that sleeve in less than a month?"

"I love you too, Amalthea." He stood from his work chair and stretched, feeling relief from each pop of a vertebra and his ribcage. He looked around the warehouse and smiled. He was finally working for Disney on the Star Wars sequels. He was looking forward to working with Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford and the rest to get them used to either telepresence or sleeving. It really depended on how the meeting after Unicon went, and how impressed Hasbro was with the Celestia sleeve.

--VF is less of a "maverick like early Jim Henson" and more of a Ray Harryhausen or Stan Winston, with a penchant for showing up at cons in extravagant "sleeves." His star started rising through helping to outfit a Fen-poser Rock band who lost the "poser" part along the way, kind of like the leather shop that helped KISS get their classic look.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Proginoskes]

I kinda thought South is Rising just petered out, but the only thing up on the Wiki is the Dramatis Personae and I didn't think to check the Google Doc. I'd like to see what (if anything) happened after development left the forum, and I only just now remembered that I don't have to pester somebody to post it to FenWiki.
Also, optically-perfect optics are probably just another application of "unobtanium" materials (gravitic and electromagnetic fields can refract, but not reflect). It just needs a material that treats light differently from other forms of energy.

[robkelk]

I kinda thought South is Rising just petered out, but the only thing up on the Wiki is the Dramatis Personae and I didn't think to check the Google Doc.

Hmmmmm... Should we port what exists to the wiki, with a tag saying "incomplete and likely to remain that way forever," or should we scrub the project from the wiki? Leaving things as-is appears to be rude...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Proginoskes]

I'm in favor of wikifying it. Never know when or who inspiration may strike, and the Wiki is more accessible to new members of the Collective than the GDoc is.

[M Fnord]

Hmmmmm... Should we port what exists to the wiki, with a tag saying "incomplete and likely to remain that way forever," or should we scrub the project from the wiki? Leaving things as-is appears to be rude...

Hrm. I lean towards scrubbing it, if only because what we've got in the various threads and docs is pretty all over the place. Most of it's pretty good but it doesn't make up a coherent narrative, quite. Though the other contributors should have a say in what we do with the silly thing before we start attacking it.

Meanwhile, here's some timeline/political data working from my notes:

"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 goes open-source and generally spreads like usual, and the Fen are the earliest of early adopters. Most of the non-space applications of the tech are pioneered by 'Danelaw governments and corporations, which means the stuff starts to penetrate the public consciousness a little earlier than in mainline. The Fen tend to see the space applications ahead of everything else (one-track minds) and begin building spaceships in their backyards.

By 2009 the Fen have achieved orbit, a few crude-but-functional space stations and a lunar return mission. This comes 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 run around 25-30%. Ouch. But they're successful, and by bringing blackboxes with them they're bootstrapping dirt-covered shacks into actual lunar cities.

It's about this point that, having proved that wavetech spaceflight isn't just a flamboyant method of suicide, that nation-state and corporate interests start getting involved in matters orbital. With way more material and human resources at their command, the 'Danelaw begins 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 it. 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.

~***~

This brings us to "today," which is somewhere in the 2030-40 range.

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 of which much has already been said.

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?

Only the Observer knows for sure.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Dartz]

Half of this is Mal's fault.

Just so as you know.

JET JAGUAR: A madsci enthusiast who left the traditional fleshy life behind as too limiting. Almost but not quite invented the idea of forking; there’s more than a few Jet Jaguars running around the solar system @ any one time, all of them being aspects/copies of the same person. Jet builds stupid-fast motorbikes, teaches martial arts and runs the vigilante/merc group the Knight Sabers in her spare time. Prefers female morphs, though may not have started out that way.

KNIGHT SABERS: Little is known, other than that they style themselves after the animated group of the same name, that they appear to be women, and that they most definitely are not baseline humans. Exactly who they are beneath the armour isn't known. It isn't even known if they are heavily augmented humans, or androids. Observed group tactics depend heavily on the Total Information Tactical Awareness Networks theory originally developed by ***WHITENOISE***.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Bob Schroeck]

I'm in favor of wikifying it. Never know when or who inspiration may strike, and the Wiki is more accessible to new members of the Collective than the GDoc is.

Seconded.  I keep on intending on adding more to the Corners' arrival, and if it goes away, I can't.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Proginoskes]

Well, I don't think Mal was talking about nuking the GDoc, and I wouldn't think he revoked your write access. The GDoc is just harder to find and necessitates bugging Mal for edit permissions if a new Fenspacer wants to take a crack at it. I just don't like the idea of wiping it from the Wiki because then new people might never learn about it at all. Even if it never becomes something to be particularly proud of, it's still creative output of the Collective that doesn't deserve to be hidden as if it were shameful.