Freelance Traveller

by Peter Gray

Capital

Pretoria/Pretoria (Deneb 0406)

Political Organization

Undivided federation with no internal subdivisions. Presided over by a governor and a bicameral legislature.

Symbolism

A Tree of Life set within a golden Sunburst on a Bright Purple Field. Semi-official variations often add an angelic figure, with golden wings and hood, holding the sunburst and Tree in its hands in front of itself. Pretorian merchant ships also decorate themselves with a golden Commonwealth Eagle, or adorn themselves with golden bird wings. Federation colors are always bright purple and gold.

Astrography

The Pretoria Federation comprises the coreward subsectors of Deneb Sector (Pretoria, Lamas, Antra, and Millions), the rimward subsectors of Tuglikki Sector (Dhukhaegz, Athdong, Allazkhor, Augurgh), Aramis subsector (Spinward Marches D) and Lighoz Subsector (Provence M)

Population

Mixed Human and Vargr population predominates (77% and 21% respectively). The only known minor race in the federation are the "Haniiwa" of the world of the same name in Lamas Subsector (Deneb 1208).

History

Vilani settlers from the Ziru Sirka/First Imperium settled a small number of worlds in this region as early as -3100. These colonies were independent of the Imperium, being home to dissident or runaway populations. The region around Pretoria supported a series of small pocket empires until -1650, when Vargr corsairs overran the region. The Third Imperium contacted the region around IY 40, and in a series of early border wars, drove the Vargr out of Pretoria and Lamas subsectors by IY 90. The corsairs persisted in Antra and Millions until 285, when Imperial Naval expeditions captured the last of their bases during the Vargr Campaigns. A few worlds remained under Vargr control in the coreward portions of Lamas, Antra and Millions, though they were heavily patrolled by the Imperial Navy.

Though the region seemed far removed from the most active and contentious regions of the 3I, its own history was stalked by racial controversies. Though most of the traditionally "Imperial" worlds bear Solomani names, the first waves of colonists to reach them were primarily Vilani that adhered very closely to their traditional culture. But in the wake of the Imperial Wars for the Throne and the ascension of the Alkhalikoi dynasty, the region became the inhospitable home for troublesome Solomani nobles exiled here in the 650s. These brutally repressed their Vilani nobles: the Carles-Davies of Pretoria, the Sung of Urnas and the Peletiere of Borlund went so far as to crack down on the use of Vilani language, traditions and institutions, completely disenfranchising their subjects. These excesses led to the Rachelean Revolts on Pretoria, and the eventual disenfranchisement of the offending noble families in the crackdown that followed. Pretoria itself was subjected to a century and a half of military rule (see library data below)

The Vargr invasions that followed news of Strephon's assassination in IY 1116 overran many Imperial worlds along the Deneb-Corridor interface, and created bloody battles for control over worlds along the antebellum border in coreward Deneb sector. The majority of the latter aggression was led by an opportunistic state called the Assemblage of 1116, which funneled corsairs towards Denebian worlds in Lamas and Antra subsectors. Reinforced Domain fleets were able to prevent the corsairs from making any significant land seizures, but were unable to stop the flow of refugees that crossed the frontier after the announcement of Virus in 1132. Assemblage fleets made one last attempt to seize more land as the new Regency of Deneb sent forces further trailing to handle the evacuation of vulnerable worlds, only to be decisively defeated in the Battle of the Ashes. The Corridor Vargr either ignored or disbelieved the Regency's warnings of Virus, and were almost completely annihilated by Vampire Fleets after the Rape of Trin in 1139. Those Vargr groups present in the Regency that survived the battle, or repudiated the Assemblage, were granted political representation, and several became fait accompli lords in recognition of their gains on several worlds.

The Dark Years (IY 1132-1248) saw the coreward frontier become a tense and paranoid place. Many worlds placed in the new Regency Frontier were partially or completely abandoned, and their populations were placed in crowded transit camps further "inland". This was most pronounced on Borlund/Lamas (Deneb 1406) where more than forty billion people voluntarily evacuated from that extremely crowded and vulnerable world. And even though the trailing frontier received the greatest number of vampire attacks, the slow collapse of Vargr polities in Tuglikki sector made for periodic surges of tragedy and anguish on both sides of the coreward frontier. Intolerable living conditions for Wildside Vargr prompted many nationalist factions to attempt to run the Quarantine, and the resulting smuggling operations-which moved materials OUT and refugees and contraband IN-were later organised by Vargr underworld figures into the organisation later known as the Pack. Racial tensions between humans and Vargr translated into political attempts by the remaining nobility to disenfranchise the interlopers; and on those worlds where the refugees threatened to become the majority, the human population emigrated en masse in what the Vargr and more sympathetic humans derisively called "monkey flight" or the "flying monkeys." The Representational Reforms announced in IY 1152 legitimised some Vargr parties, particularly those on Urnas (Deneb 0609).

The popular fear of Vargr economic and political takeover made reactionary politics popular among the frontier's human population. Groups like the Purifiers were most popular in other regions of the Regency with disaffected elements of the former Imperial nobility and their former subjects, or with the most self-interested segments of the new upper-middle class. In Pretoria they found wide cachet among the urban blue-collar and lower middle classes. In this they were inadvertently aided by the Representational Reforms, which allowed for unscrupulous demagogues unlimited access to the local electorates without delaying interference by discredited landed nobility. Their parties attracted billions of followers during the early 1200s by imitating the tactics of the Vargr opposition: constructing political machines among urban locales depressed by post-Collapse events, and carrying out a carefully inculcated media campaign that impugned Vargr and, most importantly, the politicians that abetted their "cause". By IY 1219/NE 19 the Purifier affiliated Imperial Party had virtual control over most of the coreward frontier, save for Vargr fait accompli worlds and holdout human worlds like Urnas.

When Lemat Arthurian was appointed Regent after Caranda's death, the locals celebrated his ascension as a victory for their cause, and the new Regent cultivated their support. Despite appearances, the Purifiers were little inclined to change the status quo in the frontier or removing the imaginary advantages of the Vargr, due to previous alliances between the Pack and some of their corporate financial backers, and the impractical or unethical nature of the locals objections to their neighbors. Keeping the Vargr bogeyman dangling before local human constituents was more useful for the Regent's immediate goals. His agents riled up local crowds against the Vargr, and recruited several million locals to act as street militia or stormtroopers to help keep the region under his control, through their implied threat to more liberal or dissident groups. Unlike other regions of the Regency, where the Purifiers slowly lost what little popular appeal they had as the war against the Zhodani went south, Pretoria kept the faith until the bitter end.

In NE 36, naval officers recalled from exile in Corridor sector staged a popular mutiny against Arthurian. Under the command of Admiral Elizabeth Bonesteel, these "Liberators" seized control of the massed reinforcements constructed by Stronghold yards or unsealed from cache fleets, and turned them against Arthurian's main power centers in the coreward half of Deneb. Sabinar Main and the Midway fell quickly, as the popular mood turned against the Black Regent after years of severe losses. In Pretoria subsector, however, the population remained pro-Purifier, and Pretoria (the world) was placed under blockade while Bonesteel and her admirals turned their attention to the Zhodani. After Arthurian was deposed and executed, millions of other Purifiers fled to Pretoria with their ships and guns. After the Liberator victory in Lunion subsector, the new Commonwealth government clearly communicated its intent to purge Pretoria of its lingering reactionary taint. With dissension growing between the beaten refugees and the disillusioned local cadres, the Purifier leaders took the hint and fled the world for trailing Corridor sector, from which they would later join the Ziru Sirkaa. Admiral Logan Harappa took custody of Pretoria in NE 39, bringing the world under Commonwealth control, and disarmed the remaining Purifier militias. About four billion of the planet's population joined the exodus, either to join the Vilani, or after NE 48, the newly declared Fourth Imperium.

After about a decade of martial law, Pretoria regained its independence, and became the capitol of its namesake Federation in NE 50. During that time, many Vargr and humans reclaimed dead worlds on the other side of the frontier, and recontacted worlds such as Athdong (Tuglikki 0933) and Audhunga (Tuglikki 1836). Under a more unified Vargr-human government, these worlds and much of rimward Tuglikki became part of the Commonwealth in NE 54. Tensions in Corridor between the Kaasu cluster and those worlds allied with Drayne (Corridor 0910) led to Khouth subsector (Corridor A) being placed under Pretoria's virtual control. Led by the Khamaaka (see below), the Federation has taken a leading role in reconstruction of the Vargr Splinters and the former Zhodani Consulate.

In the wake of the Purifier Purge, Pretoria was culturally shattered. Ten percent of its population had fled to the Ziru Sirkaa, and what remained were uncertain and mutually suspicious communities of Vargr and humans without inspiring leadership. During the decade of occupation, these sedentary communities attracted younger and more progressive human immigrants from Sabinar and Vargr from the world of Deneb who came to participate in recolonising Tuglikki sector. The human portion were mainly "Neo-Vilanis", idealistic utopians from Thingen and Magash (Deneb 0518 and 0316) that wanted to return to a more back-to-basics communitarian lifestyle espoused by the old First Imperium. The harsh conditions of newly reclaimed worlds defeated their half-formed ideals, and their leadership had retreated to Pretoria, Marz and Urnas. There they found a more hospitable environment and a receptive audience. Aided by the Vargr Willies from Deneb, the outsiders managed in a very short amount of time to convert a significant minority of the population, particularly disaffected former Purifiers, to their lifestyle. They were aided by a coincidental resurgence in interest in Vilani culture on Pretoria and Urnas. By NE 55, these groups had combined their resources into a concerted poltical program, and by NE 60 had captured a majority of the federation governmentally all well as culturally. About fifty percent of Pretoria's population follows the Khamaaka belief system. The other fifty percent, which includes worlds farther to coreward, merely adopt the political and communal structures, but modify them to their own purposes or supplement them with other systems. About ten percent of the population includes hardcore reactionaries, either unreconstructed human Purifiers and local Vargr nationalists. Tensions tend to be muted by Khamaaka social activism and generosity, which engenders at grudging admiration among hardliners.

Culture

Pretoria, to paraphrase an ancient Terran writer, is a "nation with the soul of a church." Of course that sums up the entire Commonwealth, but it is most literally true here. The Neo-Vilani, or the Khaamaka (High Vilani for Peasant/Farmer), attempt to be mostly faithful to the old Vilani culture, but add a binding religious component and some suitable adaptations to the contemporary way of life. In many ways it resembles ancient Terran Mennonite or Mormon faiths, in imposing a severe morality and code of ethics on its members, that creates a noticeable degree of cultural distinction between the followers and their apostate or unbeliever neighbors. Despite this, unbelievers have significant say in local governance, as neither they or the Commonwealth want a theocratic state. The Khamaaka are zealously faithful to the Covenant, and are even its apothesis in terms of citizenship.

Pretoria's culture is group oriented and conformist, and is considered part of the so called Kingsmen Trinity. The Khamaaka "cathedral" (source of inspiration) is the garden, representing the tie between humanity to the material world, and the recognition that no ambition can travel faster than the limits of the heart or stomach. As the garden is an artificial construction in defiance of nature, so the community is an ordered structure created by human actions and predicated upon ordinances and laws that defy the worst human pathologies. As the garden is watered and tended, so be it that the community will not grow strong without leadership and authority to tend to its needs and nurture its talents. But in the end the garden is harvested, and within the community the individual must understand that its contributions are not its own, and that he or she must answer to a standard of civility and public service as dictated by custom and law.

The status of a person in Khamaaka society is a measure of both success in productive fields of business and the professions, etc.... and their ethical contributions to the general society. This is referred to as the charisma (which originally meant the presence of god or fate in an individual) of an individual in local society. While wealth and productivity are esteemed, they are less important than the individual that seriously undertakes, at no small cost to themselves, a pilgrimage to uplift or better the lives of society or their fellow sophonts. The former are merely successful, the latter are charismatic. And when a person is both successful and self-sacrificing, they are the natural leaders of the community. Though outsiders may argue that this system can be cyncially manipulated, they overlook the stringent requirements of local faith. A person who is committed only to the appearance of virtue will eventually betray themselves through their own deeds; in this society there is a basic humility stressed by the common leadership. There are those who are for themselves, those who are for just a priveleged few, and then there are those who are for the greater good. And the local leadership and their most dedicated servants are aware of the differences. And the "good" must be beyond the trite definitions of contemporary culture. A true Khamaaka considers "Wu Wei" in less abstract terms. Life is a matter of balancing, both between conflicting and overlapping requirements. They will not act more than necessary, and they willingly restrain more hotheaded individuals.

The leadership of this culture is always consensual and committee based, much like Vilani leadership institutions. However they are less bureaucratic and insulated, as they do depend upon elections and charisma. The lower councils of state are popularly determined, and consist of the more ambitious and energetic politicians. The upper councils (including the upper house of the Federation government) are populated with communal elders elected to long terms by a mixture of popular election and prearranged communal consensus. These elders include both leaders that represent the broadest definition of the community, and those who represent much narrower communities like business, academia and private society. Visitors will find that formal government is heavily regulated by chancery councils that have the final say in regulation, taxation and moral behavior permitted. And then they will have to deal with lesser bureaucracies, before and after the chancery hearings. As a result Khamaaka worlds are quite conservative, but they do progress after the advocates of change successfully argue their case before the chancery and supreme governing councils.

Worlds of Pretoria Federation

Those communities that most strongly follow the Khamaaka interpretation are laid out on the lines of enormous gardens. Wags like to say that their cities aren't so much constructed as landscaped. This generally takes the form of cities built along labyrinthine or rectilinear patterns, containing buildings constructed in pleasant organic shapes, each of them hollowed out around large sealed courtyards filled with riotous flora around gardens and pools of water arranged in a zen-like fashion. Whenever demography and engineering make it possible, these aggregated cities are replaced by huge arcologies, many built underground in environmentally responsible locations, built like the interior of massive Nautilus shells, with swirling vault-like architecture and compartmentalised chambers.

The articles of family and agriculture are omnipresent in these communities. Every Khamaaka city is mostly self-sufficient in terms of food and life support. The huge greenbelts are food-producing gardens, waste and water recycling plants, and scrub sealed communities of CO2 to provide oxygen to its human and Vargr inhabitants. The inner courtyards are both a symbol of faith and a cornerstone of the economy. Around these are the apartments and offices of extended families and their retainers. A single dwelling can be home to 4 to 12 families in comfortable conditions. Privacy is respected with the exception of the "family" meal, which takes place in large dining halls, and provides the cement of Khamaaka culture, as most business is handled by the elders during these long meals. Every individual dwelling is connected via technical or personal networks with other allied dwellings, either in a geographic and/or professional relationship to each other. One community in trouble can call upon ten to hundred other allied dwellings to their aid. This makes insulting or attacking even isolated individuals or communities dangerous, as vengeance to repay aggression becomes the obligation of both the law and the community.

Khamaaka communities are very open to visitors. Accommodations are comfortable, oftentimes opulent, and are always available. In the latter case it is not uncommon for communities to put up valued patrons and allies up in private lodgings, even if it means displacing the host and their family. And the community is generous in its entertainment of visitors. Food and beverages are cheap, though outsiders are expected to eat and carouse with the family when staying in a private dwelling. However, betrayal or abuse of generosity has severe punishments. Law enforcement and Brotherhood cadres tend to be more kidgloved than in other federations, but enforcement of the law is more insidious. Lawbreakers are usually subjected to a lot of psionic therapy, in nonviolent felony crimes verging on the kind of reeducation once favored by the Zhodani Consulate. A favor maliciously spurned or abused will create a longlasting grudge among the local authorities towards the offender, and they will let others in the Federation (and others) know this fact. This generosity towards other sophonts has made their worlds a collection for a multitude of refugee colonies, and significant communities of Bwap and Virushi are counted among the dwellings of many high population worlds.

Politically Khamaaka worlds are conservative in the traditional sense: they distrust the motives of the individual and put more stock in centralised power. They are fiscally conservative and consider profilgacy in fiscal issues the greatest cause for corruption in all great states. They are peaceable in foreign policy, but not pacifistic, and they will accept military intervention abroad as an acceptable last course of action. Given their great experience in bureaucracy and diplomacy, and their missionary activism in the Periphery and beyond, they are cosmopolitan and highly tolerant of other societies' odd habits and idiosyncracies, but they steer well away from pathological or tyrannical governments or societies, and will offer non-lethal support to reform or revolutionary movements. In domestic politics they apply strong pressure to the Commonwealth and fellow Federation governments to uphold social contractual obligations laid out under the Articles of the Covenant, support a government that is strong and activist in economic and social issues (the latter mainly crime and social deviance). They work well among the poor and the marginalised, and speak out bitterly against capital punishment and other policies that traditionally punish the disenfrancised few instead of being applied to all persons. But they are socially conservative and distrust excessive materialism, consumerism and capitalism.

Library Data

Nautilus

AKA Nautilus Pompilius. A tentacled mollusk native to Terra's oceans, related to squids and octopus. It differs from its brethren species in that it encases its soft body with a internally segmented shell made of calcium carbonate to protect from predators. Gas-filled balloon sacs within the segments provide buoyancy to counteract the mass of the shell. Widely thought to be among the oldest evolved species of mollusk, with fossils dating back over 100 million years. The species has been introduced to a few water worlds by Terran explorers during the Rule of Man period.

Rachelean Revolts

The bloody race riots that tore apart Pretoria/Pretoria and several neighboring worlds during the early 1000s. The rioters were mostly Vilani, rebelling against the Pro-Solomani practices of the sector duke, whose family had long repressed them and outlawed Vilani culture and language. These riots culminated in the creation of the Rachele Society, and the destruction of the scout base, and subsequent killing of 26,000 civilians, on nearby Saki (Deneb 0306).

Pretoria, along with many other worlds in Deneb, was heavily settled by Vilani in the first century of the Third Imperium. Later colonization waves of Solomani and mixed blood humans eventually assimilated into these communities, and the racial distinction faded away on most worlds. But on Pretoria the Vilani were able to preserve their cultural heritage almost intact, as their urban communities were tightly organized around small neighborhood sized collectives. This led to some tension with immigrating Solomani, but in nearly every case these were assimilated into Pretorian culture without much trouble.

But in the wake of Arbellatra Alkhalikoii's ascension, a number of troublesome Solomani nobles were relocated or exiled by the new Empress to the far frontiers of the empire for a variety of reasons. And to Pretoria she assigned a former Daibei sector noble family, of pureblooded Solomani descent, known as the Carles-Davies. It was to have disastrous consequences. The Carles-Davies were sympathetic to the Solomani movement, and their forced relocation to Pretoria had the effect of hardening their fervor. In their new position as Duke of Pretoria, they cracked down hard on "Vilani intransigence." The Vilani language was banned in favor or Anglic, Vilani merchants and businesses were subject to harassment and onerous laws and regulations, and the authority of the neighborhood councils were curtailed in favor of a bureaucratic government that favored the Duke or Duchess. The advent of the Psionic Suppressions were used as an excuse to practically ban all forms of Vilani cultural and political expression, and Pretoria became a police state patrolled by the Carles-Davies huscarles' and hated Uniformity Police.

Because of this pressure, traditional education and authority had to go underground. Educators formed secret shadow academies where students were taught the Vilani language and culture, in small dormitories and cloistered classrooms. Attempts to ferret out these "school-rings" with random searches and expedient mass arrests further radicalised the population, and many school-rings became training grounds for terrorists and resistance cells. One ring produced Zidi Rachele, an extreme Vilani supremacist who called for the extermination of non-Vilani races in favor of a racially pure "Fourth Imperium." Despite the obvious insanity of his message, the fact that many local Pretorians sided with him and his terrorist society was an indication of how desperate the population had become.

The revolt coincided with the end of the Solomani Rim War, and in its wake an Imperial intervention seized Pretoria, and the Carles-Davies were liquidated by the newly appointed Sector Duke. Pretoria was subject to a 160 years of military occupation, which was only ended by the Representational Reforms.

Wu Wei

The Taoist philosophy of balanced morality. Translates literally as "Inaction" from Solomani Chinese, but its actual meaning is more positive than that: Appropriate actions for the circumstances. This isn't the slipperiness of the cynical trickster, but the moral recognition that preconceived moralistic philosophy does not cover every potential encounter. The individual must strike a balance between their own practical education in morality with this unknown. They must act appropriately: to restrain themselves when restraint is needed, to act progressively when action is required by moral law. And above all to hold to both the purity of their belief with the proper amount of cosmic humility, so that they remain faithful without blinding themselves with self-righteousness. This is the same idea as that summed up in Ecclesiastes 3: "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven...."

Khamaaka Careers

Name

Benefactor

Description

Khamaakan society stresses an active life of acts over the contemplative life of faith. The Benefactor is the executor of their will, a missionary that works to improve the lives of the oppressed, the marginalised, and the forgotten. Contrary to stereotype, the majority of Benefactors work within the Commonwealth, which no doubt upsets a few of the less sanguine Federation and world governments. The Benefactor career stresses interpersonal skills, administrative acumen, and bureaucractic mastery.

Prerequisite

Member of the Khamaakan faith. Served two terms as a Bureaucract, Manager, Scout or Trader; EDU 8+

Commission

None

Promotion

None

First Term Skills

Interaction-1, Explore-1, Theology-2, Charm-1, Determination-1, CHR+1

Subsequent Terms Skills

Economics, Interaction, Instruction, Theology, Charm

Special Duty

8+ to follow "calling": Takes 3 points in either Animal Handling, Artisan, Fine Arts, Social Scient, or Technician. A character receives one point in their calling, and Instruction-1 for every repeated success.

Contacts

4 of any kind per term if no secondary activity is undertaken, otherwise any 2 religious or government

Other Effects

Rolls on starting cash table with a -1 penalty