Difference between revisions of "Safehouse"

Revision as of 07:26, 30 November 2012

This is not a current world element, but is simply a page to organize my thoughts and make it visible to others who may wish to give feedback. Do not use this in the room until approved.

Safehouse is a colony world located and initially established by Empirical Industries during the Undoing the Godslaying Sword crisis.

Colonization

While ships were dispatched to New Namek to seek the assistance of the Namekian Dragonballs in resolving that crisis, no Empirical ships accompanied that voyage. Instead, they were scouting worlds, seeking to find a suitable world to establish a human colony on, that humanity need not fear being wiped out for sake of being only on a single planet, and that they could evacuate to if the worst occurred. The world that became known as Safehouse is the world that was selected as the best option, and colonized largely by refugees fleeing the wrath of Zell and his abominable Amalgams.

When refugees crossed the portal to the Safehouse, they found a garden world, much like environmentalists might wish the Earth to be. A golden sun illuminates the skies of the world, looking much like familiar Sol, rendering the natural flora of the world a familiar green. There is no moon, so Oozaru need not be feared short of some artificial source of moonlight. The other biggest difference between the Safehouse and Earth is also found in its night sky, for not a single star can be seen. Instead, a multihued nebula fills the skies, overwhelmed by the light of the local sun during the day, but glowing faintly during the night, making every clear-skied night on the Safehouse faintly lit. This nebula is also part of the world's perfection for its role, as its stellar location is a closely held secret, and the lack odd stars in the skies prevents astronomers from easily determining their location.

Even with a year to mature, and with the formidable industrial engine of Empirical Industries backing it, the vast majority of the world remains untamed wilderness. It has been mapped to a certain degree, and Empirical has established a satellite network to provide worldwide communications as the world develops, but most of the world has yet to feel a human footfall.

The primary city of the Safehouse is called Sanctuary. Eighty five percent of the world's population lives in this small metropolis, with the other fifteen percent scattered amongst smaller towns or individual homesteads. Sanctuary hosts the local government as well as the Empirical enclave-factory, which still comprises the primary local industrial capacity of the colony world.

Continuing Immigration

Immigration to the Safehouse is controlled to prevent the population from blooming beyond the planet's infrastructure's capacity to support. As well, there are various criminal and other background checks that are completed prior to permission being granted.

Gaining citizenship in the Safehouse is not terribly difficult once residency is achieved, but does require renouncing citizenship in any other country save Cardinal, as that is the single dual-citizenship that the Safehouse permits.

Power Wielders

While the primary population of the Safehouse is, of course, mortals, there is also a fraction of the population who are power fielders of varying types and degrees. While there still remains some of the natural caution towards the inhumanly powerful on Safehouse, the population is generally more positively disposed towards them than the general Cardinalian population. This is largely due to a combination of their abilities being incredibly useful in dealing with the challenges of breaking in a virgin world, and the rarity of public powered conflicts, as secured training arenas were one of the initial facilities established by the lead Empirical colonization team, and they have continued to be expanded and improved as necessary since. Whether this situation will hold if and when a power wielder goes rogue and real trouble begins on the Safehouse is unknown.

Government

Initially, the government of the Safehouse was vested in a single man, advised by a number of experts. After six months, however, the colony was deemed sufficiently stable to begin handling its affairs in a more democratic fashion. At that point, elections were held for the Curia, the primary governing body of the colony, which is currently composed of one hundred persons. Any resident can be elected, regardless of species, and as the initial charter of the colony was essentially written by Empirical interests, the definition of 'person' is somewhat broader than it is in Cardinal. Notably, artificial intelligences are regarded as persons, and several sit as Curia members currently. The seats in the Curia are entirely volunteer positions -- they do not come with the compensation that is often attached to high governmental positions in some places. Instead, in this relatively small population, they hold a powerful respect and esteem that is uncommon for career politicians in more numerous lands, as many residents of the Safehouse are personally familiar with one or more members of the Curia -- and the very limited 'perks' that accompany the demanding job may also have something to do with that respect.

Legal Code

As the vast majority of the Safehouse's residents were born and bred in Cardinal, its legal system resembles (to the point of cut and paste) the legal system of that state to a very large degree. As time passes and the culture of the Safehouse diverges from that of Cardinal at large, this will no doubt also organically diverge as well.

Military

The Safehouse has no dedicated military to speak of. The Sanctuary Police Department is the closest the planet has to a government-mandated force, along with a small number of people that are employed in search and rescue duties, backed up by a larger cadre of volunteers

Should the Safehouse come under danger of invasion, its sole defenses are its power wielder residents and whatever forces Empirical Industries might marshal to defend it.

Logistics

Travel to and from the Safehouse is, of course, strictly via Empirical portal. Empirical maintains a few small ships in orbit of the Safehouse, but they are just small scout ships without interstellar capacity to keep an eye on the small nebular pocket that the Safehouse and its sun exist in. It is not expected that ships will arrive from outside, as finding the relatively small pocket of clear space inside the light-years large nebula is no mean feat -- but it was done once, so they take precautions in case of a repeat. Despite the ease with which portal travel can be done, even over the interstellar distances which separate the Safehouse from Earth, few mortals often choose to do so. This is largely due to Empirical choosing as initial colonists primarily people with few remaining ties to Earth -- not hard, when so many homes and cities were completely destroyed by Zell. As such, they have little to call them back to Earth, and much to keep them busy on the Safehouse.

Industries

One of the major industries on the Safehouse is farming. As a virgin planet that has never known the touch of industrial farming methods, the soil is extremely fertile, and with the colony solidly on its feet now, it has begun to export foodstuffs to Cardinal. Not only do they grow and export foods of Earth, they have also discovered various species of plant which are good in both taste and nutrition and begun cultivating those as well. In fact, a great deal of effort is poured into analyzing the native flora and fauna for useful pharmaceutical compounds, and collecting those materials which cannot yet be synthesized to create new drugs is a small but significant part of the Safehouse's economy.

Little to no mining happens on the surface of Safehouse. Instead, there are several portal links to lifeless moons and planetoids in other systems that Empirical has located that host mining operations that supply Safehouse. These are accessible to private prospectors that are appropriately equipped, and not solely an Empirical concern. Empirical instead requires a small per-trip fee, regardless of how much the prospectors retrieve in terms of material. Empirical also offers processing services to those prospectors that do not have their own capacity to do so, or links to another company to handle that for them, and will also often simply assay and purchase ore outright.

While the Empirical enclave-factory is the biggest point source of industrial manufacturing, they have also carefully nourished smaller specialty producers of goods, being careful to not drive them out of business so that a healthy economy can be sustained. This has ended up in what are essentially 'cottage' industries using advanced microrobotics, available through Empirical at a discount to the residents of Safehouse, to produce commercial-quality goods at a level of efficiency that normally requires a much larger scale and accompanying investment of capital. As these 'microfactories' are fairly common, this has resulted in intellectual property right being very firmly vested in the Safehouse legal code, and as often as not, rather than buy a physical item, a person will license a design and have it produced at a local microfactory. Indeed, there are store that specialize in doing exactly that -- their 'stock' is composed of electronic blueprints and whatever raw materials they may need. Some of these products have also begun to be sold through Empirical's distribution channels on Earth, enhancing the colony's fledgling economy.

Places of Interest

Training Arenas