An Introduction To The Morningstar Universe

A bit of background for an up and coming new series …

An Introduction To The Morningstar Universe

In theory, humanity’s expansion into interstellar space should have been greatly accelerated by the invention of the jump drive, which – in theory – from one end of the universe to the other in the blink of the eye. In practice, many of the early explorers vanished without trace, never – or very rarely – to be seen again. It was not until the invention of the gravimetric scanner that humanity realised that the presence of large gravity masses warped and twisted interstellar space, ensuring that the ship that tried to jump too far would either go wildly off course or simply fly straight into a gravity mass and vanish. This discovery put limits on the use of the jump drive – it was very difficult to travel more than a light-month, in the early days, without being blown off course – but it still opened interstellar space to human expansion, the domain of STL slowboats. It was not long until the expansion reached an unbelievable pace.

This was not surprising. Earth had become overpopulated and heavily polluted and the unsteady rise of a planet-wide government had done little to quell either global pollution or political unrest. That government worked hard to ensure that hundreds of thousands of restive  groups – some national, some religious, some simply wanting to be left alone – received colony ships, a certain amount of funding, and title to a world that might – or might not – prove hospitable. Over the next century, hundreds of colony walls were founded, ranging from spectacular successes like New Caledonia to disasters that remain unnamed, because when starships arrived to try to open communication links they discovered that every last member of the original colony population had died. A number of those worlds even sent out colony missions of their own, creating tiny unions of stars that held together surprisingly well … at least at first. A new golden age appeared to be at hand. There was no need to fight, humanity told itself, when each and every human faction could have a planet of its own. Surely, ancient hatreds could be buried and forgotten if there were light-years between former enemies?

The golden age came to an end five hundred years after it began. In hindsight, the outbreak of the first major interstellar war was inevitable. Improved sensors had allowed humanity to chart interstellar routes – jumplines – in a bid to speed up interstellar travel, giving the planets that held domain over the faster jumplines an edge over their peers and allowing them to tax starships that pass through their territory. The sudden return of territorial competition led to a series of minor wars and conquests, as weaker but well situated planets found themselves overwhelmed by their powerful neighbours, and a period of cold war between various hastily-formed alliances that eventually culminated in a major war. Precisely what event triggered fighting is difficult to say, but there are so many flashpoints that is properly accurate to state that most detonated in very quick succession and ensure that nearly every major power would be dragged into the fighting. There were very few powers that managed to stay out of the fighting and those that tried often found themselves targeted anyway.

Historians argue for decades over the course of the war, and there still many questions historians have been unable to answer, but is impossible to deny that the war was unbelievably devastating. Hundreds of worlds were bombarded, billions of people wiped from existence; thousands upon thousands of starships, space habitats, and industrial facilities were destroyed. Even the worlds that got off lightly, by the standards of the war, were still badly damaged. A number, dependent on interstellar trade for their very survival, found themselves reduced to barbarism or simply doomed to slow and yet inevitable death; others were cut off from the rest universe and developed more or less independently. Nearly every pre-war major power found itself crippled if not destroyed, barely able to patrol its own core systems, and suffering under a resurgence of piracy and/or insurgent attack they could not handle. It looked as if a new dark age was at hand.

It was at that point the Daybreak Republic made its appearance on the galactic stage.

Daybreak, like many other worlds founded during the golden age, was based on a political ideal (drawn, with a handful of modifications, from a book entitled  Starship Troopers (required reading in Daybreak schools)) rather than a historical nation, ethnic group and/or religion. The founders had laid claim to a star system that, owing to a freak of interstellar gravity masses, was supposed to difficult to approach without passing through a handful of chokepoints. There was only one jump route that led straight into the system and that was easy to guard. Furthermore, Daybreak had successfully concealed the true size of its military power, and industrial potential, ensuring it was not considered a priority target by anyone (certainly when compared to planets that controlled numerous jumplines). If the war had not exploded, it is quite likely that Daybreak would have remained a minor and independent power. As it happened, Daybreak became the core of a new interstellar union.

This process started more or less by accident. The breakdown of interstellar law and order forced a number of the remaining powers – most of whom had very little military power – to do what they could to police the spacelanes, just to keep what remained of interstellar traffic alive. Daybreak rapidly took the lead in this project, finding itself dealing with numerous issues that required a degree of territorial expansion, developing new military fleet basis and forging close alliances with local powers that were prepared to trade political hegemony for protection. The discovery that it had effectively created an empire provoked numerous debates in the Daybreak Senate, ending with a decision to formalise the process of empire building, on the grounds that the failure to produce a workable interstellar government that could settle disputes between planets and star unions had contributed directly to the First Interstellar War. Not everyone on Daybreak was happy with the inauguration of a new process of expansion, but they were outvoted.

And so Daybreak set out to reunite humanity, whether or not it wanted to be reunited.

***

The Daybreak Republic is a semi-timocracy, although the Daybreakers themselves would deny it. Put crudely, an inhabitant of Daybreak (a term that includes the Daybreak System and the Daybreak Outposts) is a civilian until he spends two years of his life serving the planet, after which he becomes a citizen who can vote, be elected to Congress, serve on juries, and enjoy a number of other rights that are designed to civilians. He can also become a ‘mustang’ – an enlisted man who becomes an officer – and start a path towards the Senate, perhaps even the Consulship. The planetary government is obliged to take all civilians who wish to volunteer for service, and to find something they can do (if they are physically incapable of doing basic military service), and it is actually very rare for anyone with any sort of ambitions refuse to become a citizen. Civilians do have rights, but Daybreak has a certain contempt for civilians to insist they have the right to lead without first serving.

A mustang – or a volunteer who goes straight into the officer track – will work his way up the ranks until he becomes a Captain, whereupon he is enrolled in the Senate and expected to add his voice to political debates as well as leading men into battle. Every five years, the senate elects ten Grand Senators, who form the planetary council, and two Consuls, who serve as both Heads of State and Heads of Government. Ideally, the Consuls are expected to work in harmony, with one taking command of the military – if the planet is fighting a war – and the other remaining behind to supervise political developments and ensure total backing. In practice, it is not uncommon for the Consuls to be at odds, although disputes between them tend to be sorted out before a Senator or a Congressman proposes a bill of no confidence.

Given their importance to the military as well as political system (Senators are expected to be serving military officers, which makes them think carefully about approving military operations they will have to lead), Senators are encouraged to develop patron-client networks that support promising young officers as they climb through the ranks and hopefully reach senatorial status themselves. These networks are technically not part of the government, but their existence is an open secret and a patron who discovers that his client is not worthy of his support often finds himself embarrassed, if not threatened with impeachment. It is not always easy to see the dividing line between reasonable support for a client and an embarrassing mistake; supporting your clients is seen as a virtue, but – at the same time – backing the wrong horse is a serious mistake. Most patrons will not hesitate to drop a client who crosses the line, or steer a client into a position where they can do no harm.

There are more checks and balances worked into the system than one might suppose. Congress has the right to approve legislation and either send it back to be rewritten or simply reject it entirely; Congress also stands in judgement of the Consuls and Senators, with the power to impeach either if they are found to have lost the trust of the citizen population. There is also a very strong Bill of Rights, including the right to free speech, property and gun ownership, and many other rights, which cannot be infringed save by a three-fourths majority in Congress. Civilians do not have the vote, but they are still able to influence debates in both planetary and local governments.

The de facto Daybreak Empire (Daybreakers persistently refer to it as a republic) is divided into four sections. At the top, there is Daybreak and the Daybreak Outposts; military garrisons and/or colony worlds that sit along strategically important jumplines, giving the Daybreakers unprecedented control over interstellar trade and make it difficult for anyone to organise a major military challenge to the empire. The Daybreak Outposts have full self-government and are legally considered part of the Republic, with the right to send congressmen to the homeworld and be represented in the Senate. Beneath them, there are Autonomous, Incorporated and Client worlds, the precise status of which depending on just how much independent military power they have and/or the degree of planetary unity they possessed before Daybreak rediscovered them. As a general rule, the more a world (or union planets) is capable of defending itself, the more freedom it has as long as it doesn’t break interstellar law. At the top, there are world that are effectively independent; at the bottom, there are worlds that are controlled by a Daybreak-imposed government and likely to be economically looted for decades before they work their way up to Incorporated or Autonomous status.

Daybreak attempts to be as hands-off as possible. Interstellar law is very simple and focuses only on interstellar issues, such as trade, immigration, and a handful of other issues. A planet may not, for example, impose excessive tariffs, or seize passing trading ships without very good cause. A planet may not prevent individuals or groups from leaving, if they wish to go, and it may not harass Daybreakers without prior consent of the Daybreak Republic. In theory, a person who is convicted of a crime may appeal to a Daybreak official for a review of his sentence, but in practice this is very rare. A person who wastes the time of such an official may find himself being sentenced to permanent exile, imprisonment on a penal world, or death.

As long as planets behave themselves, they are generally left alone. When they don’t, Daybreak will send a punitive expedition to assess the situation and take steps to deal with it, which can range from ‘encouraging’ the planetary government to deal with a rogue official to outright bombardment and occupation. The degree of punishment depends very strongly on just how much the guilty party challenged interstellar law. A planet that arrested a passing Daybreaker for an offence that is not a crime under Daybreak law will be forced to hand arresting officials over for judgement, while a planet that actively supported interstellar piracy will be reduced to client status and spend several decades under direct rule.

That is not say that Daybreak does not exploit other worlds, in manners both obvious and subtle. It is far from uncommon for promising young people – military officers, up-and-coming scientists – to leave their homeworld and immigrate to Daybreak, working to achieve this in step and become part of the interstellar government. It is also true that Daybreak merchants have an edge, when it comes to passing through the outposts and establishing networks with newly incorporated worlds, although it is rare for this sort of manipulation to be particularly blatant. In the early decades, after the war, there was little open opposition to such behaviour. The rewards of unity – and the likelihood of another war exterminating the human race – quelled opposition more effectively than any threats of force. Now, with the horrors of the war fading in the public mind, there is more opposition to Daybreak’s hegemony. It is generally believed that it is only a matter of time before one or more autonomous worlds attempts to challenge the system a little more openly, perhaps even rebel.

Daybreak itself is very much a planet of sexual and racial equality. The only real difference is the dividing line between civilian and citizen, and that line in thinner than one might believe; civilians, put simply, have everything citizens have save for the prestige of proving they put their lives at risk for the planet. Immigrants to the homeworld are legally treated as equals, once they prove themselves by undergoing planetary service and becoming citizens. That is not to say they are always accepted; as a general rule, immigrants who fail to assimilate and/or have cultural practices that clash with the law are rarely welcome, if their behaviour slips into outright criminality they are always deported.

This is not always true across the Daybreak Empire. There are planets where one gender is considered legally or culturally superior to the other; planets shaped by religious laws that are not very welcoming to heretics or outsiders; worlds that range from constitutional government to outright monarchical systems or dictatorships. Daybreak rarely intervenes in how the locals treat each other, although it does strongly suggest that heretics or unwelcome ethnic minorities be allowed to emigrate instead of persecuted. It also insists that outsiders, particularly tourists or traders who are just passing through, should not be held to account under local law (unless their offence is also a crime under Daybreak law) and should simply be deported, rather than punished in a manner that would challenge the underlying basis of interstellar law.

Two hundred years after the transformation from lone world to interstellar empire began, Daybreak has good reason to be pleased with itself. It controls, directly or indirectly, most of the original core worlds of humanity (Earth is an interstellar backwater, regarding itself as the source of art and civilisation instead of political power) and it is expanding rapidly to incorporate the remainder of the worlds settled prior to the war. The empire has brought great wealth to Daybreak, from trade and advanced technology to a selective immigration policy that brings in men of great ability and talent (and denies them to their homeworld), and that wealth is used to fund a military machine without peer. The combination of politicians, who are also expected to be military commanders and lead from the front, and the competitive nature of political society has produced a leadership that is capable, stubborn, and unwilling to give up even when it might rise to do so. There seems no reason to believe the Daybreak Republic will ever run into something it can’t handle.

And yet, trouble is brewing.

On Daybreak itself, the rewards of interstellar empire have not been spread evenly. The competition for political office, and military command, is growing ever more savage, fuelling a demand for more expansion. Outside the homeworld and its outposts, the autonomous world chaff under the rule of a system that can neither give them complete equality or let them go free, while the incorporated and client worlds resent their looting by unscrupulous Daybreakers and the imposition, in places, of governors more interested in promoting themselves (and making a fortune) than developing the planets placed in their care. Along the Rim, the great uncharted gulf of forgotten colony worlds, hidden settlements and industrial nodes, there are rumours of pirates and other interstellar empires and threats that might or might not exist.

Something will break. But who knows when and where?