CW 43

To no one in particular,

The Great Game

The Illness shuffled the deck. It provided a window of opportunity for people to see the world as it really was. Corp. and the Senate had no choice but to phone it in as each day brought its share of bad news and unexpected situations. They'd always been phoning it in. Hubris gave them the impression of command and control over the direction of space and species. Our own complacency strengthened that hubris. The Illness, if you were paying attention, showed deep fissures in our lives and the fragility of interstellar society. 

Many saw the world for what it was. Many, many more didn't necessarily see the bigger picture, or maybe they couldn't make sense of it, but they did see ways of navigating the situation to better themselves in life. The vast majority of people however became embroiled in the spectacle of social and political polarization. It all started becoming too much along with the prospect of a dying planet, the threat of omega weapons being used in same-system wars, and living in impossible economic conditions across systems. People looked for ways of going back to the way things were. They accepted precarity if it meant that someone else took charge. The same same people whose confidence came not from competence, but only from the fact that most people can't navigate living from one crisis through the next. "The end of abundance," is how one "great" statesman on Earth put it. As if, we'd all been suffering from having too much of everything.

In short, the known universe became a lot more dangerous. 

The entire Dh-1na system closed in on itself.  It broke away almost entirely from interstellar governance and heavily monitored all incoming and outgoing wires. Within the system, communications were heavily censored and altered to promote harmony.  Now, a system closing in on itself is problematic for a number of reasons which I won't get into here, but it just so happened that Dh-1na happened to be a major workshop system. Most of the raw materials that served to rapidly build up new settlements were sourced and produced on Dh-1na which made it a strategic partner for all settlement operations. Naturally, as the system closed in, space-wide operations ground to a halt and put Corp. and the Senate under the spotlight considering so much of their legitimacy came from promises to rapidly settle colonized planets and provide decent economic prospects for settlers.

Since then, other systems have been attempting to make a play for some of Dh-1na's lunch and have promoted themselves to Corp. and the Senate as viable workshops. There's always been some speculation that the system I'm currently in could one day provide a viable alternative to Dh-1na but it all remained very theoretical. 

Recently however, there's been a flurry of activity in my system. All sorts of political and business envoys have been pouring into the system. And it's also why I've been encountering all manner of saints, spies, diplomats, and charlatans and why the notables here are a lot more visible. A change is wanted and will come which is why it feels like something is brewing. The ambient chaos however makes understanding the situation complicated. As a result all manner of people are coming to study the situation and predict developments in the system. Everyone is building up expertise and selling it and there's a huge market. Earth is obviously interested in what's happening here as are a number of older systems looking to reduce dependence on Earth. This makes the stakes all the more higher for everyone. Earth will be looking to control the situation while older systems will attempt to undermine Corp. and the Senate's control. Meanwhile, newer systems competing with the one I'm in are going to attempt to convince Earth and old systems to come and do business with them. This system's advantage however is it's sheer size, venal and insecure notables who will bend over backwards for Corp. and the Senate but who would do the same for any entity promising a big cash payout and promises to secure their power. Finally, there's also an abundant, desperately impoverished settler population that will allow the system to be plundered if it means no longer living in squalor. There's always more to destroy, always more poison to let out into the air or dump into the water, more animals to kill for luxury goods on developed systems, and more people who can be robbed of what little dignity they have left. And everyone knows this.

This system is now the prize of the Great Game.