The Victoria System
Of all the off-world colonial systems, the Victoria System is by far the most habitable, with three livable worlds in the binary stellar system. Although colonization efforts today have mostly been slow, the wealth of knowledge humanity has gained from these three worlds, and the depth of Xenoarchaeological research therein, has given humanity invaluable knowledge of their place in the universe, and the beings that came before them.
Discovery
Though theBritish Empire was home to some of the earliest developments in Aethernautics, they lagged behind in the development of their own gate. The Prince Albert Gate opened on January 12th, 1887 to much fanfare. The public and press waited anxiously for the launch of the inaugural flight of the HMS Valiant and its crew of 10 scientists, one of which, Charles Smyth, was a founding member of the Royal Society for the Advancement of Aeronautical Technology. Although there were several reported technical difficulties in the days leading up to the launch, the departure itself went off without a hitch. Citizens across the empire listened to the radio with bated breath as the Aethernauts departed for their great journey. However, in the coming months the excitement turned into despair, as communications went unanswered, and the expedition never returned. A rescue operation was mounted four months later in a desperate effort to create a return gate and find the Valiant, but the vessel was nowhere to be found. Although the mysterious disappearance of the Valiant was never solved, the rescue team returned home with reports of a fascinating system that the scientists on board dubbed “Victoria”, after their queen.
Anatomy of the System
The Victoria System is a binary system with nine planets. Its twin stars orbit one another at the barycenter of the system, making neither star the gravimetric center. Victoria Major is the largest of the two suns, and shines a bright yellowish light similar to that of Earth's sun. The much smaller Albert, whose light is much dimmer, appears as a more bluish-white color when viewed from the surface of the planets. Both stars are much smaller than Earth's sun, projecting a much weaker gravitational pull outwards despite the binary nature of the system.
Of the six planets that orbit them, excluding the numerous planetoids scattered throughout the system, only three are habitable. The furthest planet from the suns is a gas giant known as Blonc, after the French scientist who was aboard the Empire's second attempt to build a return gate. The habitable worlds orbit closest to the suns within the Goldilocks Zone. These planets at first were simply designated Victoria I, Victoria II, and Victoria III. When the naming conditions were revealed to the public, the aged John Stuart Mill joked to the press that Queen Victoria's legacy would always eclipse that of Albert, much as Victoria Major eclipses Albert in size in the empire's aetherial holdings. Although these formal names are still used by the scientific community, colloquially Victoria II has been named Avalon by those who have colonized it. Similarly, after the forced colonization of the Irish on Victoria I, the British governors named the planet New Hibernia, though the Irish people living on the planet prefer the name Éire Nua as Hibernia holds deep colonial connotations. Victoria III has kept its scientific designation as it has yet to be colonized due to its irregular orbit.
Avalon and Early Colonization
Although each of the three planets is home to water and a breathable atmosphere, Victoria II was the most obvious of the three for early attempts at settlement as it hosted the most fresh water by far. The first explorations of the planet occurred only a month after the return gate's construction. The explorers were shocked to find strong evidence of an intelligent alien civilization that had long been extinct, with the planet itself having once served as an ecumenopolis for the population that once lived therein. Despite this incredible discovery, the first explorers were extremely ill-equipped to deal with the harsh landscape they faced below.
The surface of what was later dubbed Avalon is almost completely covered in a vast mycelial network, the spores of which coat nearly every surface and float above the vast sea that covers most of the planet. The spore cloud is so thick that it easily obscures the vision of those unprepared to wade through it. This compounds with the drastic elevation changes obscured by the dense fungal trees that cover most of the planet's surface. The planet is also home to numerous species of poisonous mushrooms whose spores are unsafe to breathe. These hazards claimed the lives of over half the initial explorers who deemed that the planet would be exceedingly difficult to colonize permanently. Unbeknownst to the explorers and scientists who initially surveyed the planet, it became clear very quickly to future explorers that the planet was also home to many other dangerous forms of flora and fauna that would be the death of many would-be explorers.
Despite the extensive account of the dangers of the planet by the survivors of the initial exploration team, the tantalizing thought of a long-dead alien civilization was too much for the population back home on Earth to resist. The news of the alien ecumenopolis shocked the world, and people from around the Earth began petitioning the crown for permission to go on exploratory journeys to the new planet to extract the alien artifacts within. The international push to explore Avalon was equally met with concern from the scientific community about the potential harms that so much aether travel might have on the population on Earth. French microbiologist Louis Pasteur warned that the mass exchange between alien flora and fauna with that on Earth could lead to devastating effects on Earth's ecosystem and potentially lead to a very dangerous outbreak of disease, as it did when the old world first made contact with the new only 200 years prior. His predictions, as well as those of the larger scientific community at the time, would be validated in the 1920s by the appearance of the grain fungus Mors Frumenti. Originating from Avalon, it devastated the world's food reserves, partially causing the Great Famine of 1920. Although not directly proven, many epidemiologists have theorized that the Bengal Flu that devastated much of the empire's population was also the result of this cross-planetary exchange.
Despite the dangers, the British flocked to create a colonial holding on Avalon, establishing what would ultimately become the colonial city of New Worcester. This colonial settlement was hardly self-sufficient, as establishing traditional Earth agriculture proved quite difficult on the spore-ridden surface of the planet. Much of the mycelia proved quite hostile to traditional Earth flora, and as a result, most agriculture was sequestered to massive greenhouses, with large industrial filters and several airlocks meant to keep the plants therein safe from the hostile mycology that festered outside. Despite the precautions taken to protect the plants, crop failure remains a prominent issue in Avalon, as it has proved extremely difficult to maintain the level of sterility necessary for traditional agriculture to thrive. Although this process is extremely wasteful and difficult, the practice of using these greenhouses has continued, as much of the edible flora and fauna native to Avalon does not match the palates of those inhabiting the world.
New Hibernia and the Irish Question
With the excitement of the discoveries made on Victoria II close behind them, the scientists surveying the Victoria system quickly mounted expeditions to Victoria I in search of more remnants of the fallen alien civilization. Of the two options to explore, Victoria I was the most promising, as it orbited extremely close to the Albert Gate’s drop point. For this reason, it is often referred to as the twin planet to Avalon. When the future New Hibernia was first explored, the scientists who made landfall discovered that much like Avalon, the surface of the planet was coated by a similar mycology, though it lacked the spore cloud that made navigating the planet so difficult. Instead, New Hibernia was a more volcanic planet, with a crust composed mostly of basalt. As the spore cloud choked the air of Avalon, so too did the smoke and noxious gasses produced by the many active volcanos on the planet's surface. Although the smoke was omnipresent, the air remained mostly breathable near the coasts of the planet's oceans. The coasts of New Hibernia were home to rich soil from the volcanic deposits, as well as large amounts of columnar basalt, similar to the Giants Causeway back on Earth. Whereas it was difficult to grow crops on Avalon, New Hibernia had rich soil where Earth's native plant life grew with relative ease. This fact would later be exploited during the resettlement of the Irish to provide a more stable food source for these fledgling aether colonies.
As the early exploration efforts of New Hibernia proved promising, the political situation back home in England would cause a chain of events that would ultimately determine the cruel reputation that New Hibernia would garner. On March 2nd, 1879, two Irish nationalists fired upon Queen Victoria's car, critically injuring her, and effectively ending her reign. This event further demonized the Irish in the eyes of the British Crown. Irish rebellion and poverty had been increasing issues for the Empire since the famine in 1850. With the recent incapacitation of Queen Victoria, the Irish Question, as it was known in the press, was left to the queen's son and regent Prince Albert Edward, who would later be crowned Edward VII. During his regency, Edward sought to ease tensions with the Irish by sending surveyors to assess the population. This act was seen as one of aggression by many living in Ireland, which caused a number of these representatives of the crown to be assassinated by the local population. Although these assassinations seemed extreme at the time, there was substantial evidence that many of the surveyors sent by the crown acted in bad faith, trying to swindle the already extremely impoverished Irish out of what little land they had left. In response to this wave of violence, Edward dispatched General Gregory Bates to Ireland in 1881, accompanied by a small military force, nominally in an effort to meet the needs of the people. Although Edward had intended for the general to act humanely, the presence of British forces and the harsh stance Bates and his army took against the local population only added fuel to the fire. With these latest indignities, the Irish Republican Brotherhood's membership swelled, and the resistance to English rule increased dramatically. The Brotherhood, fueled by donations from American members who read shocking reports of British brutality in the newspapers, began an 8-year bombing campaign both in Ireland and England alike. This campaign targeted royalist sympathizers and strategic military targets alike, and was often less than discriminate. What had begun as a simple peacekeeping effort had quickly evolved into a near full-scale war with Irish guerillas. The response taken by Bates was one of violent oppression. Irish citizens suspected of being members of the IRB were drug from their homes in the dead of night, with many being executed en masse. Massacres of this kind became commonplace leading up to Albert’s coronation in 1886. When he was finally crowned, Edward VII decided to take a different approach to the Irish Question. Through underhanded policies and opportunistic resettlement programs, 80% of the Irish population was shipped off of Earth and into the aether over the next 6 years, with the majority of the remaining 20% fleeing to America.
Upon arriving on New Hibernia, Irish settlers were given next to nothing aside from simple tools and provisions. British colonial forces occupied the planet alongside the Irish settlers to ensure that the laws of the Empire were still observed. In a sense, the Irish were ripped away from the rapidly modernizing world and forced to return to a state of feudalism, with the colonial government demanding large amounts of the food produced in New Hibernia to be shipped to the planet's twin across the aether. Through starvation, sickness during the journey, and violence, thousands of Irish people lost their lives due to the resettlement. The barbarity of these acts shocked many around the world, but widespread beliefs in the "inferiority of the Irish Race" meant that little action was taken by other nations. The United States issued an official condemnation of the resettlement, but shortly thereafter drew up plans for their own resettlement program, this one targeted at the remaining Native American populations.
Victoria III And The Explorer Movement
Early observations made about Victoria III were rather underwhelming, as unlike the twin planets, New Hibernia and Avalon, Victoria III’s orbit was such that the planet was only close enough to be accessible for about a month out of a normal Earth year. Combined with the fact that Victoria III, ecologically speaking, consisted mostly of barren desert, the planet was an extremely unappealing candidate for habitation. In 1889 an exploration team was finally sent to the planet. They discovered that Victoria III shared the same mycological organisms that seemed to dominate every aspect of the ecology of the other two planets. Another startling discovery was that it even shared many of the same alien structures found on New Hibernia and Avalon, though these structures had been almost entirely covered up by the mighty sand dunes that engulfed much of the planet. It was a great mystery to the scientists present on the first expedition how so much fungal life could exist on a planet as devoid of water as Victoria III. Indeed, there were small oceans and oases on the planet, but it seemed not nearly enough to sustain the fungal jungles that were quite common on the sandy surface of the planet.
Due to the unique ecology of the planet, several theories were posed about the intelligent alien species that may have inhabited the worlds of the Victoria system and their relationship to the mycology there. Although first proposed as questions of simple scientific curiosity, these theories were made public in a full report issued by the Royal Society for the Advancement of Aeronautical Technology in 1890. This information sparked extreme public interest in the question, and funding poured in to begin the exploration of the three worlds. Expeditions were planned to uncover as much information about the extinct alien race as possible, as well as recover as many artifacts from the long-dead civilization. Colonization efforts on Avalon ramped up dramatically as it acted as the main staging post for most of these expeditions. Explorers scoured New Hibernia as well, though to a lesser degree, as the increasingly poisonous air and volcanic surface made expeditions inland quite difficult. Victoria III stayed mostly untouched during the first decade of exploration, with the first significant expedition taking place in 1892 when Sir John Kirk's expedition set off for a fresh adventure.
Kirk's expedition was only meant to stay on the planet for around two weeks, but due to mechanical failure and poor planning, when the planet exited its close orbit of Victoria I at the end of May, Kirk was left stranded on the desert world. Upon the expedition's failure to return, Kirk was presumed dead. Due to the change in orbit, there would be no way to rescue him, as the planet was simply too far away to reach using traditional propulsion. Kirk, however, survived the endeavor and documented his year stranded on the alien world in great detail. The many exciting discoveries he made there were published in a tell-all book entitled Lost on the Edge of the Aether, which became an instant best seller. During his journey, Kirk had discovered the remnants of an alien machine, about the size of a man, which, apparently, he was briefly able to power, during which it moved on its own. News of this discovery was of great interest to the British government, who hoped that the technology described in his book could be recovered. After Kirk's return, travel to Victoria III was officially banned. However, this has not stopped the flow of state-affiliated explorers.
Xenoarchaeology And Science Fiction
The discoveries of the first Aether Race sparked a new field of study known as Xenoarchaeology, wherein artifacts of alien origins were to be uncovered and their history studied and preserved. The mad rush of the early Xenology movement caused this burgeoning field of study to run into a number of serious pitfalls. Early explorers cared little in the way of approaching alien artifacts with any kind of methodology, and most were extracted from the planet to either be sold to art collectors or displayed in the British Museum. Despite protests from more accomplished academics, there was little in the way of preservation or documentation, with artifacts frequently being destroyed simply by carelessness. Overall the Xenology movement from 1890-1910 proved quite devastating. The Society for Xenoarchaeology was established in 1895 in an attempt to formalize a more civilized approach to documenting and preserving alien artifacts, but their efforts were met with deaf ears by the rich explorers who craved adventure. To the joy of the scientific community, the Xenology movement was halted under Lord Protector Cecil Rhodes in 1910 as part of his efforts to increase the security of the British state. In so doing, xenoarchaeology became the sole domain of the Society of Xenoarchaeology, under close supervision of the Lord Protector, who acknowledged the potential benefits The British Empire might find in a more systemized approach to exploration.
Although most unsanctioned exploration halted by 1910, humanity's curiosity about the objects that were found and returned to Earth only grew. A number of famous explorers who survived the movement wrote books about their expeditions. Despite statistics that showed that only about 20% of expeditions returned with survivors to tell the tale, tell-all books about people's journey to the Victoria System in the style of Sir John Kirk became commonplace, with the lines between fiction and nonfiction blurring with every page. These fake tell-alls became so frequent that it became virtually impossible to tell which stories were true or not, so most were relegated to the “science fiction’ section as the credibility of stories faltered. The Xenology movement also gave rise to numerous adventure novels and speculative fiction about the nature of alien life. Science Fiction grew to completely eclipse the mystery novels that were so prevalent under Victorian rule, and the genre grew to international acclaim. American comic books and pulp fiction magazines began publishing their own stories en masse, captivating the global imagination. The future seemed bright for Xenoarchaeology as public interest continued to grow. This optimism and love of the genre was felt all the way up to the start of the Great War.
Colonial Settlement and Depopulation
Avalon proved quickly that it was not quite as habitable as was hoped by the early explorers. The lack of food production on the planet remained a significant issue, with many early residents complaining about having to rely on shipments from Earth to sustain the relatively small populations that lived on the planet's surface. This was compounded by the dangerous nature of the planet, which claimed the lives of many who dared to wander far from the small communities that huddled together. The food issue was mostly solved by the resettlement of the Irish on New Hibernia, as the “indentured” populations there sent much of their produce over to Avalon. A more secure food supply as well as general interest in the planet caused the population of Avalon to nearly double in 1892 alone. Before then, the communities on the planet mostly served as small outposts for would-be explorers to mount expeditions into the fungal jungles of the planet. By 1892, however, these communities grew into more metropolitan areas, though they remained minuscule when compared to the populations present in the Germinal system today. These small cities on Avalon continued to grow steadily until the Bengal Flu and the subsequent global famine swept the population of England in 1922. While the Flu and Famine did not hit the colonial cities of Avalon as hard as they did the homeland, the mass devastation left in the wake of these catastrophes, caused many survivors on Avalon to pack up and return home in an effort to repopulate the British Isles with nonforeign citizens. Because of these efforts, the majority of the small cities around Avalon were abandoned. Only New Worcester remained, with a rather diminished population of its own. William Butler Yeats, an Irish Poet who had fled to America to write for a publication known as The Dial commented about the irony of the crisis: an abandoned alien ecumenopolis being abandoned for the second time thanks to severe mismanagement.
In recent years, immigration in the system has been steadily increasing. On Wednesday, May 19th, 1937, readers of the Daily Herald were disappointed to find that their paper had missed publication for that day. The night prior, the newspaper had received a phone call which informed them, in no uncertain terms, that the paper was not to go out. The cause of this phone call was a small article on the third page. This seemingly innocuous article speculated as to the reasons behind the large number of engineers being hired by the Ministry of Technology. In particular, the article noted that they were all being transferred to an unnamed project in the Victoria system, but that the pay being offered was quite good.
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