Touring the Stars with Bertram Habeas
We began on Terra, millions of years ago. Today, mankind stretches throughout the
Milky Way, touching worlds as far from our home as Clan space, more than two
thousand light-years distant. Yet who are we, really? What have we become in our
relentless push outward and onward? I’m Bertram Habeas, and tonight we’ll
find the answers to these and many other fascinating questions together, as we tour the
stars!
Volume X: Manifest Destiny
New Avalon City, capital of New Avalon and the Federated Suns today, fills an
area roughly six hundred square kilometers, and is surrounded by a three-river
crisscross made possible by diverting the flows of the Albion, Rostock, and
Burbank rivers to create what the locals affectionately call the New Isle of
Avalon. The geography is no accident; it was a deliberately engineered effort to
recreate a city—Avalon City—whose remains lie just 80 kilometers farther
south, a ghost city of ruins, blast craters, and debris 50 kilometers in diameter.
It stands as a silent memorial to the horrors of the Word of Blake Jihad.
Beneath an aqua-blue sky and lit by a small yellow sun, New Avalon City
sprawls amid a collection of grand towers and the palatial estate of the Davion
family—a dazzling modern castle as formidable as it is beautiful. Surrounding
the city, beginning as near as the opposite shores of the Albion and Burbank
rivers, the fertile plains of Albion give rise to massive agro-plexes, a rural
landscape that contrasts sharply with the urban sprawl just one bridge-length
away.
The Six Liberties of the Federated Suns’ Constitution covers both the hard-
working farmers who toil the fields of the agro-plexes and the First Prince, who
resides in the castle at the heart of the city, with equal force, despite the
presence of an aristocratic governing order. These rights – to personal
liberty, fair treatment, privacy, ownership of property and weapons, and
participation in planetary government – serve to protect the people and
worlds of the Federated Suns from the excesses of a true dictatorship. These
liberties imbue the people of the Federated Suns with a sense of pride and
enthusiasm not often found in other realms, but has at times instilled equal –
or even excessive – levels of arrogance and self-righteousness.
For too many in the Federated Suns, pride in their democratic traditions easily
turns to arrogance. The average citizen sees his homeland as the only truly free
realm in human space and therefore superior to all others. Some take this
righteousness a step further, believing themselves duty-bound to spread the
Federated Suns’ enlightened ways by any means necessary. They sincerely
believe that, given a choice, any sane human being would live exactly as they do.
When confronted with entire interstellar nations whose people live differently, they
tend to either pity them as ignorant or despise them for intentionally rejecting a â
€œbetterâ€� way of life. Such attitudes bolster the promilitary mindset so prevalent
in Federated Suns society, turning the frequently ugly business of war into an
expression of manifest destiny . . . .
--Anastasia Marcus, PhD., On Setting Suns, ComStar Press, 3064
The institutions that maintain fairness and help protect these fundamental rights
date back to the original signing of the Crucis Pact. But as the realm grew more
and more aristocratic, successive rulers tried to reign in the power of the nobility
they themselves spawned. The 25th century, for example, saw the reign of Simon
Davion, who assassinated his own despotic cousin, then threw himself on the mercy
of the Suns’ High Court in the name of controlling the excesses of the
government. All but acquitted for his crime, Simon Davion established an
interlocking checks-and-balances web of new nobility during his rule, while
simultaneously dismantling the less-feudal government titles, including that of
President. Power was decentralized, with five March Lords created to maintain a
balance of power so that, in theory, no single Lord could claim command over the
entire state—until the crisis of the Davion Civil War, that is.
The Davion Civil War was a huge setback for the egalitarian system in the
Federated Suns, and highlighted once again what’s probably the feudal systemâ
€™s greatest weakness, just as the Amaris Coup would prove so aptly years later.
In the hope of ensuring that no single ruler stood above all others, the Davions
planned to install five Regents, including two March Lords, to rule while young
Alexander Davion grew up. Of course, by the time he had all but done so, some of
these Regents grew ambitious enough to want to remain in power.
The details surrounding the kidnapping of the First Prince by two of his own
Regents have proven bedeviling enough to fill a major holodrama or five on the
matter. Living at first in captivity, then in hiding as his Regents fought for
dominance, Alexander himself was the only person who apparently could bring an
end to the situation—but only after more than 10 years of fighting had reduced
the realm and its military to shambles.
Given the outcome of the war, Alexander can thus hardly be faulted for
reorganizing the army, making military service for the First Prince mandatory, and
curtailing the powers of the High Council and March Lords. Having seen for
himself the horrors of ambition, it became clear to Alexander that there was indeed
such a thing as too much power-sharing.
--Arthur Luvonne, The Long, Dirty History of the Federated Suns, Commonwealth
Press, 3100
The lessons that Alexander Davion learned from the Davion Civil War continue to
have repercussions. Firstly, the powers of the March Lords and the High Council
were redefined, placing more authority in the hands of the First Prince and
effectively demoting all other nobles to emphasize their position in the hierarchy.
Secondly, the FPF was reorganized and rechristened the Armed Forces of the
Federated Suns (AFFS) to emphasize its loyalties to the entire realm, rather than to
any March Lord. And finally, the First Lord himself would henceforth be required
to serve in the AFFS for a minimum of five years before being eligible to rule.
These sweeping reforms strengthened the power of the First Prince, weakened those
of the other lords, and more tightly bound the fate of the nation to its prominent
military defenders.
Through it all, however, efforts to promote the freedoms of the people continued.
Alexander Davion himself passed the Laws of Noble Conduct and Review in 2634,
which granted the right of appeal to the common citizen, even against the ranks of
nobility, and obligated planetary rulers to look into such complaints whenever they
arose. Nobles could thus be judged for their conduct, found guilty of crimes, and
stripped of title, land, money, and even their very lives if found to be acting in poor
faith with the people.
But where the rights of the people are often looked after, the prevalence of the
military throughout much of the Federated Suns’ history created a far more
serious imbalance that continues to plague parts of this realm even today. With so
much of the national budget earmarked for defense, taxes are high and particularly
hard on those worlds with fewer resources to draw upon.
On these worlds, the haves and the have-nots are sharply divided. Education is poor
for those who work the fields and mines, particularly near the fringes of the
Periphery, where children go to work as soon as physically possible. Perhaps a
passing “vagabond school� JumpShip may happen by long enough for local
children to learn at least how to read and write, but such government-sponsored
measures are stopgap at best.
Yet, ironically enough, many citizens – even those who live on the poorer fringe
worlds of Davion space – maintain their admiration for the military, either seeing
service as a noble cause or as a means to escape a life spent in poverty. Still others
cling to the freedoms they still enjoy, even without the prosperity known in the
urban sprawls of New Avalon City. These are the people who look upon House
Davion’s neighbors and see nothing but oppression and hopelessness, for even
the poorest citizen of the Federated Suns, they say, can hope for something better.
Join us for part three of this four-part look into the Federated Suns, when we’ll
look into the most well known of Davion rulers and the watershed events of the 31st
century. Please join us as we continue our tour of the stars! I’m Bertram
Habeas.
Milky Way, touching worlds as far from our home as Clan space, more than two
thousand light-years distant. Yet who are we, really? What have we become in our
relentless push outward and onward? I’m Bertram Habeas, and tonight we’ll
find the answers to these and many other fascinating questions together, as we tour the
stars!
Volume X: Manifest Destiny
New Avalon City, capital of New Avalon and the Federated Suns today, fills an
area roughly six hundred square kilometers, and is surrounded by a three-river
crisscross made possible by diverting the flows of the Albion, Rostock, and
Burbank rivers to create what the locals affectionately call the New Isle of
Avalon. The geography is no accident; it was a deliberately engineered effort to
recreate a city—Avalon City—whose remains lie just 80 kilometers farther
south, a ghost city of ruins, blast craters, and debris 50 kilometers in diameter.
It stands as a silent memorial to the horrors of the Word of Blake Jihad.
Beneath an aqua-blue sky and lit by a small yellow sun, New Avalon City
sprawls amid a collection of grand towers and the palatial estate of the Davion
family—a dazzling modern castle as formidable as it is beautiful. Surrounding
the city, beginning as near as the opposite shores of the Albion and Burbank
rivers, the fertile plains of Albion give rise to massive agro-plexes, a rural
landscape that contrasts sharply with the urban sprawl just one bridge-length
away.
The Six Liberties of the Federated Suns’ Constitution covers both the hard-
working farmers who toil the fields of the agro-plexes and the First Prince, who
resides in the castle at the heart of the city, with equal force, despite the
presence of an aristocratic governing order. These rights – to personal
liberty, fair treatment, privacy, ownership of property and weapons, and
participation in planetary government – serve to protect the people and
worlds of the Federated Suns from the excesses of a true dictatorship. These
liberties imbue the people of the Federated Suns with a sense of pride and
enthusiasm not often found in other realms, but has at times instilled equal –
or even excessive – levels of arrogance and self-righteousness.
For too many in the Federated Suns, pride in their democratic traditions easily
turns to arrogance. The average citizen sees his homeland as the only truly free
realm in human space and therefore superior to all others. Some take this
righteousness a step further, believing themselves duty-bound to spread the
Federated Suns’ enlightened ways by any means necessary. They sincerely
believe that, given a choice, any sane human being would live exactly as they do.
When confronted with entire interstellar nations whose people live differently, they
tend to either pity them as ignorant or despise them for intentionally rejecting a â
€œbetterâ€� way of life. Such attitudes bolster the promilitary mindset so prevalent
in Federated Suns society, turning the frequently ugly business of war into an
expression of manifest destiny . . . .
--Anastasia Marcus, PhD., On Setting Suns, ComStar Press, 3064
The institutions that maintain fairness and help protect these fundamental rights
date back to the original signing of the Crucis Pact. But as the realm grew more
and more aristocratic, successive rulers tried to reign in the power of the nobility
they themselves spawned. The 25th century, for example, saw the reign of Simon
Davion, who assassinated his own despotic cousin, then threw himself on the mercy
of the Suns’ High Court in the name of controlling the excesses of the
government. All but acquitted for his crime, Simon Davion established an
interlocking checks-and-balances web of new nobility during his rule, while
simultaneously dismantling the less-feudal government titles, including that of
President. Power was decentralized, with five March Lords created to maintain a
balance of power so that, in theory, no single Lord could claim command over the
entire state—until the crisis of the Davion Civil War, that is.
The Davion Civil War was a huge setback for the egalitarian system in the
Federated Suns, and highlighted once again what’s probably the feudal systemâ
€™s greatest weakness, just as the Amaris Coup would prove so aptly years later.
In the hope of ensuring that no single ruler stood above all others, the Davions
planned to install five Regents, including two March Lords, to rule while young
Alexander Davion grew up. Of course, by the time he had all but done so, some of
these Regents grew ambitious enough to want to remain in power.
The details surrounding the kidnapping of the First Prince by two of his own
Regents have proven bedeviling enough to fill a major holodrama or five on the
matter. Living at first in captivity, then in hiding as his Regents fought for
dominance, Alexander himself was the only person who apparently could bring an
end to the situation—but only after more than 10 years of fighting had reduced
the realm and its military to shambles.
Given the outcome of the war, Alexander can thus hardly be faulted for
reorganizing the army, making military service for the First Prince mandatory, and
curtailing the powers of the High Council and March Lords. Having seen for
himself the horrors of ambition, it became clear to Alexander that there was indeed
such a thing as too much power-sharing.
--Arthur Luvonne, The Long, Dirty History of the Federated Suns, Commonwealth
Press, 3100
The lessons that Alexander Davion learned from the Davion Civil War continue to
have repercussions. Firstly, the powers of the March Lords and the High Council
were redefined, placing more authority in the hands of the First Prince and
effectively demoting all other nobles to emphasize their position in the hierarchy.
Secondly, the FPF was reorganized and rechristened the Armed Forces of the
Federated Suns (AFFS) to emphasize its loyalties to the entire realm, rather than to
any March Lord. And finally, the First Lord himself would henceforth be required
to serve in the AFFS for a minimum of five years before being eligible to rule.
These sweeping reforms strengthened the power of the First Prince, weakened those
of the other lords, and more tightly bound the fate of the nation to its prominent
military defenders.
Through it all, however, efforts to promote the freedoms of the people continued.
Alexander Davion himself passed the Laws of Noble Conduct and Review in 2634,
which granted the right of appeal to the common citizen, even against the ranks of
nobility, and obligated planetary rulers to look into such complaints whenever they
arose. Nobles could thus be judged for their conduct, found guilty of crimes, and
stripped of title, land, money, and even their very lives if found to be acting in poor
faith with the people.
But where the rights of the people are often looked after, the prevalence of the
military throughout much of the Federated Suns’ history created a far more
serious imbalance that continues to plague parts of this realm even today. With so
much of the national budget earmarked for defense, taxes are high and particularly
hard on those worlds with fewer resources to draw upon.
On these worlds, the haves and the have-nots are sharply divided. Education is poor
for those who work the fields and mines, particularly near the fringes of the
Periphery, where children go to work as soon as physically possible. Perhaps a
passing “vagabond school� JumpShip may happen by long enough for local
children to learn at least how to read and write, but such government-sponsored
measures are stopgap at best.
Yet, ironically enough, many citizens – even those who live on the poorer fringe
worlds of Davion space – maintain their admiration for the military, either seeing
service as a noble cause or as a means to escape a life spent in poverty. Still others
cling to the freedoms they still enjoy, even without the prosperity known in the
urban sprawls of New Avalon City. These are the people who look upon House
Davion’s neighbors and see nothing but oppression and hopelessness, for even
the poorest citizen of the Federated Suns, they say, can hope for something better.
Join us for part three of this four-part look into the Federated Suns, when we’ll
look into the most well known of Davion rulers and the watershed events of the 31st
century. Please join us as we continue our tour of the stars! I’m Bertram
Habeas.