Here are some ideas that may be taken up by the rest of the group or may not be.
THE BLAKES
What do Blakes believe in? Freedom. A laudable goal, for sure, but they also believe that blowing
things up, in disrupting life for the average Fen is a reasonable tactic in gaining this "freedom."
Who are they trying to be free from? Everyone.
Call them anarchists. Call them nihilists. Call them libertarians, or socialists; terrorists or
madmen. In the wake of the destruction of Boskonianism, there was a gap in general mayhem in
Fenspace and the Blakes were all too eager to fill in that gap.
Started as a group that opposed the Federation's growing power in Fenspace, the Blakes staged daring
prison breaks, destroyed power stations, disrupted trade and travel. They soon broke up into many
competing factions, eager to fight each other as their supposed oppresors. Some of the many, many
factions of Blakes include the Real Blakes, True Blakes, Continuity Blakes, The Avon Brigade, and
the Blakes 700.
THE BLACK MONOLITHS
There's a rumor in the Jovian system, a rumor born from a half-glimpsed nothing where a star should
be, a rumor that's spread in Browncoat watering holes and transit stations when all that're left in
the bar are the last holdout drunks, stringing together half-remembered tall tales from other bars
and that one moment of strange terror when they perhaps were at the edge of the mystery. And it
comes down from parent to child as a warning, an admonition to do right.
And the rumor is this: that in a useless moon are a strange cult of fens who truly left behind their
bodies to go AI; AIs shaped like Black Monoliths. That in their caves of dust and ice, they plot
the future of human evolution, testing it and shaping it with perverse bioreactors and kidnapped
victims who were reduced to component chemicals and reshaped in the Black Monoliths image of
potential superhumanity or into slaves or just kept as puddles.
And mothers say to their children, "Be careful or the Black Monoliths will get you."
BALEY SECURITY SERVICE
Now there's a lot of good to be said about the B-Men, and it's all true. They won't let anything
stop them from getting to the truth, from getting their man. And they'll follow due process, chain
of evidence; anything and everything to let everyone know that when they've pinched someone, it's
the real deal. And they also respect human rights. Now, some security services, they'll do
everything for their bosses. The B-Men know how to do their jobs without being monsters. They're
professionals and they don't let things like anger, expedience, or just the righteous feeling of
giving a bugger a toe in get in the way of doing the job. Catching the bad guy. Protecting their
clients. Upholding the law. Whatever it is that they're there for, they'll do it. Their way. The
Right Way.
And there's a lot of bad to be said about the BS, and it's all true, too. Arrogant? Oh, yeah.
Superior? If they stuck their noses further up, they'd break their necks and a good thing, too.
And they're willing to work for anybody. A 'danecrat trying to steal all the unreal estate or
freestate, claiming the moon and the asteroids and the stars as theirs? Oh, the BS'll work for 'em,
and gladly. A little tinpot, madman would-be dictator that's just taken over his asteroid/space
station/planet and wants to rule it with an iron grip? BS'll work for that nutter, too, saying
please and thank you all the way to the bank. A Robber Baron Industrialist decides that all those
pesky worker rights are getting in the way of maximum profit? The BS'll come a running to bust up
that undemocratic union. Oh they may not break any bones doing it, won't hold the leaders in jail
for too long, but they'll do it and cash the blood money with a whistle on their lips and a spring
in their step.
And that's Baley Security Service for you.
SLANS
The Slans started off as your average Fens, really. Maybe a bit self-absorbed and melodramatic, but
basically alright. Then they all, and there were only a few of them in the beginning, not as much
as there are now, who took the same batch of 'wavium with the same wish: to become Slans.
And they got it.
They got the enhanced physiology, the waving tendrils, and even a form of telepathy. It's really
just integrated biological FTL-comms, but they can talk to each other over long distances, and even
with anything else with FTL-comms all without having to pay a service carrier.
So naturally this makes feel superior. And you know what, having a bunch of smug so-and-sos around
wouldn't have been that bad if they weren't also the most whiny, supercilious jerks with
overinflated martyr complexes in all of Fenspace. Basically because nobody thinks they're as great
as they do, they feel persecuted. And they tell everybody that they're persecuted loudly and in as
grating a manner as possible.
Maybe there's a nice, well-adjusted Slan out there somewhere. But nobody's found him yet.
THE QUATERMASS INSTITUTE
While the rest of fendom gleefully go out into space like intoxicated five year olds in a playground
filled with broken bottles, the Quatermass Instute grimly watch the indifferent depths of space for
signs of the inevitable alien invasion. While the Federation and the Republic talk about how first
contact will herald a true galactic awakening in humanity, Quartermass is far more skeptical,
thinking it more likely that the alien hordes are waiting to dupe the young and the hippies into
going stupidly and gleefully to their own deaths as food for the aliens.
Depending solely on hardtech, as they believe that handwavium may be a plot by the unseen aliens to
weaken humanity as a prelude to their inevitable genocidal feast, Quatermass stands ready and
vigilant to defend humanity at any and all costs. Dismissed by much of fendom as paranoid doomsday
fanatics, it is rumored that Quatermass has a storehouse of nuclear weapons, mass drivers, railguns
and kinetic missiles standing by to repel any alien invasion, even if it means destroying 99.9% of
humanity and the planets to do it.
THE AEUG
The Anti-Earth Union Group is simply a coalition of various fens who resent any encroachment of
'danes into fenspace. The reason why they went to space in the first place was to get away from
them, and now that they're trying to wrest control from the fens, from those that truly tamed space,
and take all the rewards and impose rules and regulations that have no basis on life in fenspace . .
. well! The AEUG won't stand for it, that's all.
But it's not like they're Blakes or anything. Goodness, no. They're peaceful fens who'll fight
with peaceful means. Protests, letter campaigns, "legal" action on Earth. Any and all of that.
And, no, there are no secret fleets massing in the Asteroid Belt. And the idea that there's an army
of mecha being built on the Moon is just plain ridiculous. And these aren't uniforms, man! It's
just fashionable to have epaulettes on your red space suit these days. And so what if I am wearing
sunglasses indoors?
-murmur
Edited to remove redundant Metropolis entry
THE BLAKES
What do Blakes believe in? Freedom. A laudable goal, for sure, but they also believe that blowing
things up, in disrupting life for the average Fen is a reasonable tactic in gaining this "freedom."
Who are they trying to be free from? Everyone.
Call them anarchists. Call them nihilists. Call them libertarians, or socialists; terrorists or
madmen. In the wake of the destruction of Boskonianism, there was a gap in general mayhem in
Fenspace and the Blakes were all too eager to fill in that gap.
Started as a group that opposed the Federation's growing power in Fenspace, the Blakes staged daring
prison breaks, destroyed power stations, disrupted trade and travel. They soon broke up into many
competing factions, eager to fight each other as their supposed oppresors. Some of the many, many
factions of Blakes include the Real Blakes, True Blakes, Continuity Blakes, The Avon Brigade, and
the Blakes 700.
THE BLACK MONOLITHS
There's a rumor in the Jovian system, a rumor born from a half-glimpsed nothing where a star should
be, a rumor that's spread in Browncoat watering holes and transit stations when all that're left in
the bar are the last holdout drunks, stringing together half-remembered tall tales from other bars
and that one moment of strange terror when they perhaps were at the edge of the mystery. And it
comes down from parent to child as a warning, an admonition to do right.
And the rumor is this: that in a useless moon are a strange cult of fens who truly left behind their
bodies to go AI; AIs shaped like Black Monoliths. That in their caves of dust and ice, they plot
the future of human evolution, testing it and shaping it with perverse bioreactors and kidnapped
victims who were reduced to component chemicals and reshaped in the Black Monoliths image of
potential superhumanity or into slaves or just kept as puddles.
And mothers say to their children, "Be careful or the Black Monoliths will get you."
BALEY SECURITY SERVICE
Now there's a lot of good to be said about the B-Men, and it's all true. They won't let anything
stop them from getting to the truth, from getting their man. And they'll follow due process, chain
of evidence; anything and everything to let everyone know that when they've pinched someone, it's
the real deal. And they also respect human rights. Now, some security services, they'll do
everything for their bosses. The B-Men know how to do their jobs without being monsters. They're
professionals and they don't let things like anger, expedience, or just the righteous feeling of
giving a bugger a toe in get in the way of doing the job. Catching the bad guy. Protecting their
clients. Upholding the law. Whatever it is that they're there for, they'll do it. Their way. The
Right Way.
And there's a lot of bad to be said about the BS, and it's all true, too. Arrogant? Oh, yeah.
Superior? If they stuck their noses further up, they'd break their necks and a good thing, too.
And they're willing to work for anybody. A 'danecrat trying to steal all the unreal estate or
freestate, claiming the moon and the asteroids and the stars as theirs? Oh, the BS'll work for 'em,
and gladly. A little tinpot, madman would-be dictator that's just taken over his asteroid/space
station/planet and wants to rule it with an iron grip? BS'll work for that nutter, too, saying
please and thank you all the way to the bank. A Robber Baron Industrialist decides that all those
pesky worker rights are getting in the way of maximum profit? The BS'll come a running to bust up
that undemocratic union. Oh they may not break any bones doing it, won't hold the leaders in jail
for too long, but they'll do it and cash the blood money with a whistle on their lips and a spring
in their step.
And that's Baley Security Service for you.
SLANS
The Slans started off as your average Fens, really. Maybe a bit self-absorbed and melodramatic, but
basically alright. Then they all, and there were only a few of them in the beginning, not as much
as there are now, who took the same batch of 'wavium with the same wish: to become Slans.
And they got it.
They got the enhanced physiology, the waving tendrils, and even a form of telepathy. It's really
just integrated biological FTL-comms, but they can talk to each other over long distances, and even
with anything else with FTL-comms all without having to pay a service carrier.
So naturally this makes feel superior. And you know what, having a bunch of smug so-and-sos around
wouldn't have been that bad if they weren't also the most whiny, supercilious jerks with
overinflated martyr complexes in all of Fenspace. Basically because nobody thinks they're as great
as they do, they feel persecuted. And they tell everybody that they're persecuted loudly and in as
grating a manner as possible.
Maybe there's a nice, well-adjusted Slan out there somewhere. But nobody's found him yet.
THE QUATERMASS INSTITUTE
While the rest of fendom gleefully go out into space like intoxicated five year olds in a playground
filled with broken bottles, the Quatermass Instute grimly watch the indifferent depths of space for
signs of the inevitable alien invasion. While the Federation and the Republic talk about how first
contact will herald a true galactic awakening in humanity, Quartermass is far more skeptical,
thinking it more likely that the alien hordes are waiting to dupe the young and the hippies into
going stupidly and gleefully to their own deaths as food for the aliens.
Depending solely on hardtech, as they believe that handwavium may be a plot by the unseen aliens to
weaken humanity as a prelude to their inevitable genocidal feast, Quatermass stands ready and
vigilant to defend humanity at any and all costs. Dismissed by much of fendom as paranoid doomsday
fanatics, it is rumored that Quatermass has a storehouse of nuclear weapons, mass drivers, railguns
and kinetic missiles standing by to repel any alien invasion, even if it means destroying 99.9% of
humanity and the planets to do it.
THE AEUG
The Anti-Earth Union Group is simply a coalition of various fens who resent any encroachment of
'danes into fenspace. The reason why they went to space in the first place was to get away from
them, and now that they're trying to wrest control from the fens, from those that truly tamed space,
and take all the rewards and impose rules and regulations that have no basis on life in fenspace . .
. well! The AEUG won't stand for it, that's all.
But it's not like they're Blakes or anything. Goodness, no. They're peaceful fens who'll fight
with peaceful means. Protests, letter campaigns, "legal" action on Earth. Any and all of that.
And, no, there are no secret fleets massing in the Asteroid Belt. And the idea that there's an army
of mecha being built on the Moon is just plain ridiculous. And these aren't uniforms, man! It's
just fashionable to have epaulettes on your red space suit these days. And so what if I am wearing
sunglasses indoors?
-murmur
Edited to remove redundant Metropolis entry