British Antarctican

British Antarcticans were the descendants of British settlers on the Antarctican continent prior to the Terran Renewal. Their most notable member is Augustus Longinus, conqueror and overlord of Terra during the reign of the Terran State.

Origins

Antarctica, Terra's "Last Continent," once a vast ice-covered expanse, began to melt once humans kicked the foundations out from under the climate system during the Age of Capitalism. In the last days of the first globalized civilization, a gold rush for Antarctic resources ensued to fuel the fires of economic growth, some of which left lasting, though very small, populations in coastal areas, where ice-melt had freed up land for construction and even limited plant growth.

Antarctic population rebounded as economic activity returned with the Renewal and rise of humanity's second global civilization, which sought desperately the continent's nearly-untapped resources. In some ways it was a testbed for the settlement of space: the artificial life support systems needed to support human life in a place where the ground gave no crops and the sun no light for half the year, were quite similar to those required for space habitats.

Zenith

The zenith of Antarctican culture came with the rise of one of their own—Augustus Longinus—to the eventual rank of ruler of the Terran State and controller of humanity's homeworld. The Last Continent had risen to overthrow the old world, an epochal victory which would not soon be forgotten. Under the Terran State, British Antarcticans spread to the stars, some to the established colony of Queen Elizabeth's World, others to a new planet, Erebus, established as the second jewel in Longinus's crown.

Decline

The dominance of this culture died with the Terran State, in the Second Collapse. In the modern Starweb, with Antarctica (and all Terra) uninhabited by humans, the ethnicity proper is extinct, though the descendants of British Antarcticans continue to live on several planets, most notably Erebus.