The Helium Co-Operatives
"The Co-Ops were my last stop on Parime, and arguably the one that surprised me the most. I'd had some experience talking with Ungratefuls in an older job, and I figured it would be more of the same, but I got my first inkling that things were different from the KTB's self-inflicted troubles when I boarded the ferry down to the Gas-Leviathan that would be accomodating me. While my 'tour-guide' Alphonso signed over the forms that would let me meet and greet the co-op's speakers, I overheard talk of a monetary transfer - they use transport-mass as a currency due to Parime's high surface-gravity, if you're curious - and I asked how much it was going to cost them to send me down. 'Well Ma'am, it's a couple dozen kilos to cover your trip,' Alphonso answered. 'And a couple hundred to pay off the guards in the Old Timer, and make the trip a safe one'. I suppose I should feel flattered."
"Co-Ops might not have been fighting the same straits of survival as we once did, but they still have their own troubles that need addressed on a cultural level. Down where the leviathans go, gravity is about fifteen, twenty percent higher than the 'standard' 1g, so if something falls, it's going to fall hard. Because of this, Co-ops tend to approach everything carefully and with a great deal of thought, even if those thoughts are a tad crude by our standards. Group therapy for their conflict-resolution, accomodating the ship for individuals instead of the other way around, that sort of bleeding-heart drek that they legitimately believe in. Still, if they decide that violence is the only answer to something, they're gonna make sure that they only need to do it once."
Structure
The Co-Operatives are a confederation of worker's unions and mining-crews operating under anarcho-syndicalist inspired autonomy. Overseeing bodies primarily exist to represent the collective interests of the group and settle inter-group disputes, and otherwise holds little legislative power. Rules and security vary by location and group, set by way of democratic vote and individual need, and each ship and station are expected to be responsible for taking care of itself and its crew while avoiding dispute with others. DOJ/HR have yet to establish a full report on individual rights within the cooperative owing to the limited access allowed to non Co-Op individuals
Culture
Co-Operative culture is, appropriately, centered around fostering societal paradigms where forwarding the interest of one's fellow workers and ship are performed out of personal desire, rather than by legal or economic mandate. Individual rights and autonomy are held sacrosanct, disputes are settled on a case-by-case basis over precedence and crews are expected to put each other's wellbeing over themselves, in return for the same from their co-workers. In-group bias and xenophobic sentiment, however, are a recurring issue among Co-Op crews, on account of these mentalities, making cooperation with outsiders a difficult and often limited prospect, and leading to conflicts between various ships and stations.
Many migrant members of the Co-Operatives still identify as members of the colonies they hailed from and bring that culture with them, on the belief that being a Co-Operator isn't so much a nationality as a way of life. As a result, the Co-Operative ships boast having a broad and diverse range of subcultures and belief-systems within them, ranging from anarcho-communist municipalities, to libertarian communes, to 'extralegal syndicates'.
Rights
- Pillar I: Sufficient fulfilment. Unconditional distribution of core amenities and just labor are almost universally provided by Co-Operative ships and stations, albeit to wildly inconsistent standards.
- Pillar II: Sufficient fulfilment. Travel within Co-Operative territory is restricted only through the substantial costs of moving mass into orbit, and is otherwise unconditional.
- Pillar III: Partial/insufficient fulfilment. Though outright slavery and forced labor are outlawed, debt-enslavement is a ubiquitous issue on multiple ships, whose captains are often the sole arbitrator of materials/goods distribution and payment.
Civil Rights: Low Risk. Bigotry of any sorts is highly frowned upon on a cultural level, even towards cloned and NHP individuals. Despite the majority of law-enforcement being impromptu/vigilante in nature, Co-Operative citizens are guaranteed rights to privacy and fair-trial, and to their rights to remain silent.
Political Rights: Low Risk. Politics on all scales are represented through comprehensive systems of e-democracy. Every citizen's vote is unconditional, as is their right to join political parties, run for office and express/demonstrate their thoughts.
Suggested Resolution: Despite being unofficially considered the closest of the three major powers to the Third Committee's cultural and political standards, the Co-Operative's unusually inflexible and standoffish attitude towards Union diplomacies has made matters of discussing such things a difficult prospect. Local Administration have been advised to allow the Co-Operatives time to come into diplomatic contact of their own accord but to prepare for more active sanctions if violations of the third pillar escalate.
Naming Convention
Though there is no consistent name or formal ranking structure among Co-Op ships, A common tradition among Co-Operative ship-clans is the 'new-naming', whereupon new migrants or locals reaching adulthood are encouraged to choose a new name that they feel is more suited to themselves, with no set rules or standards for what that new name might be. There is no obligation to take this change, and many that choose to do so may choose to return to their old name any time. When a Cooperator performs an act of prestige or heroism, they are given the option of adding an additional name to their current one, leading to many more famed Cooperators having a long list of potential titles to introduce themselves with. Examples include:- Crewman Hussain Knightly O'Brien of the Longsteward
- Leung Choh Mah Mickey Lien hua
- Scary Reina of Parime, The Ever-Crawling Sentinel Of Beloved Friends
Assets
The Co-Operatives posess functionally complete and exclusive ownership over all gas-mining operations within Parime's gravity-well. All scoop-ships, shuttles and processing facilities collectively belong to the Co-Operative and serve as their semi-nomadic 'homeland'. Three major processing stations in low-orbit serve as capital cities and neutral ground between ships and clans, while small fleet of orbit-to-orbit ships act as diplomatic grounds between the Co-Operative and Vaduz.
History
The foundations of the Helium Co-Operative have been in some form or another present since the very begining of the colony's gas-mining projects. The difficulty of leaving Parime's gravity-well meant that work-schedules lasted as long as it took to extract the maximum amount of resources before finally lifting back into orbit, a process which took long periods of time in the first scoop-ships and would increase as they grew larger. The result was that scoop-ship crews would quickly amass their own cultures and communal idiosyncracies over the weeks and months spent working together.
With this in mind, it was almost inevitable that labor unions and collective bargaining began taking root. At first by way of individual crews and schedules, but the construction of Central Refinery 01 (and thus a limited degree of long-term habitation within Parime itself) led to union-groups collecting into larger conglomerates, eventually formally founding the Parime Gas-Mining Unions. Despite their slowly growing militancy and corruption, the then-ruling DCFP were simply unable to prevent these groups from forming or making their demands, as the demand for Helium-3 throughout the colonies was simply too high and the bargaining-position of the unions too strong to meaningfully interfere with.
The true independance of Parime's miners would only come, however, with the construction of the second central-refinery, which by design (instead of through retrofit) posessed the infrastructure (including artificial spin-gravity) needed to maintain a permanent population in Parime's orbit. With these accomodations came the first proto-citizens of Parime - primarily spacers from Vaduz, but also many workers from Falias and Loum as well - who forsook their old homelands entirely to truly live their full lives within Parime's orbit and below. It was with this that the Parime miners could follow the precedence said by the Vaduz Orbital Collective and succesfully bargain for collective sovereignity and independance as the Helium Co-Operatives.
Whereas Vaduz had a constitution and government prepared for years in advance however, the Co-Operatives' foundation was constructed on a much more ad-hoc basis: Though founded in officiality, the actual structure and governing system of these newly-independant people became a subject of discussion and experimentation for decades, attempting to find a means to provide the ideal worker's society that would allow for maximum personal liberty whilst still retaining the means to secure that freedom. Too restrictive and the Co-Operatives wouldn't feel too different from what they were escaping from, too lax and corruption might take root and fester without much impedance. It was eventually decided after much debate and some strife that the Co-Operative would practice a 'mostly hands-off' approach, only stepping in to deal with situations that compromise their core-beliefs in a manner recently compared to the Third Committee of Union.
Despite the relative peace of their founding, the Co-Operatives were not immune to the conflicts that grew in the system: On several occasions the DCFP attempted to pressure and intimidate the Co-Operatives into favorable trade-deals (to no success), as have multiple other smaller factions within the system, while internally, despite the best efforts of the Co-Operatives, multiple issues of inequity and corruption had taken hold in parts of their society that had began to visibly affect innocent workers. While some attempts at quelling this were succesful, others ended with long and bloody fights that claimed many lives and only succeeded in identifying and exiling a portion of the people responsible. The most well-known of these incidents being the founding of the Gemini Syndicate, whose criminal activities continue to haunt the entire system to this day.
While the reconnection and arrival of Union forces were celebrated by most in the system, the Co-Operatives initially took an aloof and suspicious attitude to the first visitors from outside the system, worrying about a potential risk to the independance of their operations. These worries were declared in retrospect to be well-founded by the Co-Operatives' leadership when the advent of new technologies and alternative energy-sources dealt a heavy blow to the Co-Operatives' primary economy by dropping demand for their primary export, a consequence that still leaves them standoffish to any co-operation with the Third Committee despite their offers of help.
Military
The Co-Operatives have no official military, but needs of defence are handled primarily through a semi-organised militia, supplemented with occasional mercenary/private-security contracts.
"Each to their own."
Founding Date
4852
Type
Geopolitical, Clan
Alternative Names
The Co-Ops, The Gas Giants
Demonym
Cooperator
Head of State
Government System
Anarchy
Power Structure
Confederation
Economic System
Barter system
Currency
Most transactions done in Co-Op space are through simple barter, but a an officially recognised currency exists in the form of Kilos, an improvised unit of money backed by the cost of lifting a kilogram of mass out of Parime's strong gravity-well. A Kilo is worth aproximately 0.025 Manna.
Subsidiary Organizations
Location
Controlled Territories
Neighboring Nations
Notable Members
Comments