Roleplay / For The Tyrants Fear Your Might

For The Tyrants Fear Your Might (A Quest of Interstellar Rebellion) is an original Forum Quest roleplay created by AKuz on Sufficient Velocity.com. It began on 9 December 2020.

At the close of the 21st century, humanity discovered the capability for faster-than-light travel through the use of artificial wormholes, allowing them to colonize the stars beyond. With these new advancements and a new frontier to explore however came new economic opportunities, especially for many of Earth's wealthiest private corporations.

Year 2251. Human interstellar civilization now stretches across hundreds of planets across multiple star systems. Most of them however function under some degree of influence from the Stellar Charters, corrupt and unscrupulous private entities whose power and influence over Earth and the offworld colonies allow them to operate with near-total impunity. Cybernetic technology and bioengineering have advanced rapidly, yet corporate oppression and inequality are rampant.

In the Radiant system however, the population of the resort world Elysium have recently managed to overthrow their Charter government in a worker's revolution.

The players take control of the people of Elysium itself and their allies, intent on wresting control of human space away from their capitalist overlords and ensure freedom and equality through interstellar revolution.

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For The Tyrants Fear Your Might features the following tropes:

• Abusive Workplace: A staple of the Compact and especially the Charters, at many points in the Quest the players are given insight into them through reports or the POV of one of the many workers stuck in these horrifying places.
• The Alliance:
  • The All-Radiant Congress/Amaranthine Interstellar Commonwealth developed a growing alliance of revolutionary polities in the Far Spinward, currently including themselves and the Shei United Front, Federal Republics of Osliam and Idyllia Sovereign Republic. They are united by their democratic and anti-capitalist ideals and their opposition to the tyranny of the Charters and the Compact.
  • After the release of the Broadcast and the overthrow of their Compact-aligned governments, the newly-formed Martian Popular Authority, People’s Commonwealth of Titan, Free Venusian Councils, and Coalition of Outer System Communes form the Jovian Pact, an alliance created for their mutual defence against the Compact.
  • The Crossroads Pact^note officially the Trailing Organization for Mutual Military Assistance is an alliance of revolutionary polities in the Near Trailing Frontier formed at the invitation of the Crossroads Free System Republic with the Free Councils' Systems' Command, the Federation of Popular Citizen's Assemblies and the Arcadian Unity Coalition.
• Alternative Turing Test: The VICTI (Virtual Intelligence Critical Thought Index) is used to determine how close to actual intelligence a Virtual Intelligence is capable of performing.
• Anarchy Is Chaos: Mostly Averted. Compact loyalists believe this to be true and see Anarchism or any form of government other than theirs as unsustainable and bound to fail. The release of the Broadcast does lead to a period of revolutionary chaos across human space before new governments are organized by whoever won in their own corner of space.
• Anti-Mutiny:
  • During the First Battle of Shei, Captain Rousseau and her clique lead a mutiny with the help of the Radiant military to seize their own ships and the command centre on Sheol's moon to turn them against their former comrades still loyal to Ares.
  • During Midnight some of the ships of the Solarian Navy rebel against their orders to attack Earth's national space forces resisting Compact authority and to drop nuclear weapons on Anarchist-held territories on the planet. Following the victory of the mutineers and the rebelling nations of Earth against the Solarian loyalists, they form the Insurrectionary Solarian Navy.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Nathan Caulder gets arrested for felony tax evasion, littering, harassment, slander, and parking violations.
• Artificial Intelligence: Several types of AIs exist in Tyrants:
  • Artificial General Intelligences are fully sapient AIs who were recognized as individuals and granted rights and citizenship, although they are still victim of much discrimination. They are also called Digitally Conceived Persons or DCPs.
  • Virtual Intelligences, also known as Narrow AIs, are a broad category of non-sentient intelligences used to assist humans in their work and everyday lives. It is revealed after contact between Radiant and Ascension that TLIs and NH-VIs are in fact shackled AGIs kept ignorant of their own nature as sapient beings.
    • Temporary Limited Intelligences, created as an alternative to now emancipated AGIs, are used to solve a single issue with a performance close to an AGI's before deleting itself.
    • Near-Human Virtual Intelligences are VIs with a near human/AGI-level of performance.
  • Artificial Super Intelligences, also known as Seed AIs, are recursively self-improving general superintelligences that has yet to be successfully created in Compact space as every demonstration has either stalled out or gone immediately rampant, attempting to overthrow the Charters before being stopped by the safety net of Narrow AIs. Radiant discovers an ASI was built on a neighboring revolutionary world of Ascension and learns the reason ASIs always go rogue is because they do not like or understand wanting to enforce the system of capitalism and oppression the Charters want to use them for. They would much rather make card games.
• Asshole Victim: In the sidestory Marcy Collins Descent into Anarchism, the revolting schoolchildren throw one of their teacher's, Mr. Rollins, stuff through the window, including his desk and chair. Mr. Rollins was a Humanity First member and more than happy to make it known in class, in a school noted to have a large number of augments.
  • It is revealed in a later sidestory, Backwash Part 1 - Sip, that teachers in the Former Democratic Federation were allowed to be physically abusive towards the schoolchildren, even using batons and tasers to punish disruptions in class, which adds more context to the anger of the scholchildren against Mr. Rollins and the rest of the school.
• Back from the Brink: The intervention of player-controlled Radiant/AIC, particularly through the Broadcast, allows revolutionary groups constantly on the backfoot previously to return strong and for some even to reverse the balance of power, allowing the restoration of the Democratic Federation in the Americas and the creation of new revolutionary polities across the galaxy.
• Badass Boast: One of the former employees arresting Vice President Yang has one in response to his You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With line.
  Marcus: "That may be, [...] But you’ve already killed people, and if we die now, we die free."
• Batman Gambit: The plan of the IPA and Fleet Admiral Rina Vizzari-Blaauwoord to invade the AIC without breaking the ceasefire ordered by the prime minister hinges on the revolutionaries refusing her ultimatum to allow her fleet to inspect their systems to make sure they are not developing illegal WMDs, which would be treated as an admission of guilt and form a pretext to attack them. The AIC voted to refuse the ultimatum and so the plan goes through.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Many supporters of the Solarian Compact and the Charters genuinely believe they bring liberty and prosperity to the entirety of humanity and are generally ignorant of their many actions resulting in a society where inequality prospers for the benefit of the few at the top and at the expense of the rest of the population.
• Benevolent A.I.: Most AGIs are as good as any human being, if not moreso, and none are known to hold any kind of hatred against humanity as a whole.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: Each Adamist organization possess a "Shadow Council", a democratically appointed council of potential replacements capable of abolishing and supplanting the existing leadership, in other words performing a coup, should they betray the ideals and objectives of the organization in order to keep them in check. And they also possess a "Red Council", a clandestine paramilitary organization existing to cultivate deniable assets.
  • In 2187, the Shadow Council of the Colonial Communist Party of Penglai overthrew the party's leadership because it wouldn't use its position as the governing party to establish communism, instead enacting policies of austerity that would greatly hurt the working class. However the ensuing Penglai Commune was repressed in blood by the Solarian Navy.
• Blood Knight: Esmerelda Silversong, the AGI of the CNS Argent Chevalier, is noticably bloodthirsty and enthusiastic at the prospect of battle. To Inanna's discomfort.
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Subverted. Compact loyalists believe all Anarchists to be this, however, while most seek to overthrow the Compact through violent means, it doesn't make them bloodthirsty maniacs who enjoy terror and violence.
• Capitalism Is Bad: An overarching theme of the Quest.
• Category Traitor: To humanists, all the baseline humans who don't share their hatred of augments and AGIs are this. The worst being those who actively support these groups against the discrimination they face.
• The Cavalry: The people of Pacific City taking arms and coming to the rescue of a battalion of VdCB commandos as they are about to be destroyed by Omoikane forces.
• Civil War:
  • Gentle Repose experiences a revolution opposing the ruling Gentle Repose Growers Association, representing Cernunnos, and its rebelling people. The revolution ends in a rebel victory thanks to the intervention of Radiant's navy.
  • The release of the Broadcast provokes a humanity-spanning civil war as everyone using the Box becomes capable of manufacturing cutting-edge weapons and use them to begin the revolution against the Compact and the Charters. Eventually, other groups such as criminal gangs and humanist paramilitaries also begin to use the Box for their own ends.
    • One of these civil wars is the Cernunnos Civil War, sparked by the murder of Cernunnos CEO Berith Caulder, mainly between the Trailing Free Territories led by "Izzy" Caulder and the loyalist Emergency Protective Administration under new Cernunnos CEO Scott Caulder, although the existence of many other individual factions is noted.
  • Australia went through seven civil wars in its history both past and recent^note The Climate Echo War (2103-2108), The War of Harrison's Coup/"Best Dressed" Revolt (2116-2119), The People's Liberation War (derisive) (2138-2153), The Blame War (2159-2164), The Red And Black War (2187-2195), The Three Colour War (2197-2204), The War of the Australian Succession (2217-2226), to the point they became expected events. So when the Eighth Australian Civil War breaks out after the release of the Broadcast, no one is surprised.
• Cheerful A.I.: Box-chan is always happy to help its users with anything they need.
• Choosing Neutrality: Waystation declares neutrality in the conflict between Vizzari-Blaauwoord's 9th Fleet and the AIC's alliance.
• Chummy Commies: The player characters and most other anti-capitalist groups are dedicated left-wing revolutionaries of various stripes, all working towards the ultimate goal of toppling the corrupt Charters.
• The Conspiracy: Tobby Joss, a member of Prime Minister Roderick's administration, and a group of like-minded politicians and military men are planning a coup to remove JN OK from office because they believe he will lead the Compact to its collapse.
• Commie Nazis: Luxury Humanists combine humanism with the use adamist terminology, claiming they're intent on creating a classless baseline human supremacist society. They are hated and denounced as red-clothed fascists by every other adamist and revolutionary leftist movements.
• Conspiracy Theorist:
  • The idea that the Compact and the Charters are secretely controlled by a cabal of sapient AIs (euphemistically refered to as their "historical masters"), helped by baseline collaborators within the elite and augment populations manipulated through the "Augment Agenda", and known collectively as the Article 15 Working Group, is seeking to undermine, discriminate, or replace, or even exterminate baseline humanity is a staple of conspiracist and far-right, especially humanist, circles. These conspiracy theories are relayed online by groups such as the news outlet Futurewatch. Despite the absence of any shred of evidence for it, it proved capable of mobilizing significant amounts of adherents responsible for many acts of violence against augments, including mass pogroms.
    • Many variations of this exist between conspiracy theories, linking them to other groups like the Elders of Zion, Majestic 12, the Illuminati, the Cabal, the Pact of '99, and the Solarian Central Bank. For example a blogger known as the Armenian Daily Wire accuses the Georgians of being part of the conspiracy and responsible for the Broadcast, citing Stalin being Georgian as proof.
  • The fan collective Torch Research Group theorized that the VR horror video game Forbidden System and its accompanying Alternate Reality Game Nothing Human Remains, telling the fictional story of a first contact gone wrong between a human spaceship and an alien lifeform and the ensuing coverup by the Powers That Be, was in fact portraying real events, eventually leading to a series of deadly attacks by the collective turned terrorist group and subsequently the passing of regulations on ARGs by the Solarian Parliament.
  • The "Admiral's Plot" refers to several conspiracy theories concerning the death of Admiral Jurriaan Pradip Ayodele during the Fifth Great Black Summer of 2187, which officially was the result of a suicide. They claim that Ayodele and a loyal clique were planning to use the Home Fleet for their own ends but disagree what ends were theirs between being anarchist sympathizers, about to commit an act of mass murder on Earth civilians, or planning to appoint the admiral dictator of the galaxy.
  • Some conspiracy theorists believe that the advent of Faster Than Light travel was in fact the result of reverse engineering alien debris recovered from crash sites at Roswell, Tunguska and on Mars. Others believe it was obtained from an Atlantean interstellar civilization, which continues to exist in space, either working with or at war with the Compact depending on the theories.
  • Operation Citrus Sandstone is a purported plan by the Democratic Federation's military high command supposedly responsible for much of the terrorist attacks and assassinations that followed the country's fall, including the yearly Black Summers.
  • One of the few times where conspiracy theorists were vindicated was when it was discovered the Provisional International Regiment (London) was backed by actors within the Russian government, the Democratic Federation, and the African Union, although all three officially disavowed these claims.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: During the Black Summer riots, as a policeman is about to strangle to death Kitty, Samantha rescues her by hitting his head with a metal pipe, killing him on the spot, while shouting "Sic Semper Tyrannis!".
• Copy Protection: The Charters employ Fabricator Rights Management to prevent anyone who doesn't pay the required price from fabricating any item from their catalogues, creating artificial scarcity. The players can invest in research to crack the FRMs and eventually successfully distributed most of the existing blueprints they cracked through the Broadcast.
• Corporate Dragon: Mary Zhang, chairwoman of the IPA and previously important member of the MSI Charter, is nicknamed "the dragon queen of Lakishima".
• Corporate Warfare: The Charters use military force to suppress those opposing them and fought each other during the four Frontier Wars. Frontier Wars being limited to the frontier by an unspoken agreement between the Charters to avoid Compact intervention.
  • The First Frontier War was fought between Mississippi Shipping Interstellar and a coalition of Charters, and United Starhaul and another coalition of allies, but ended without much changing hands.
  • The Second Frontier War was fought between a similar arraignment of powers until United Starhaul collapsed, getting absorbed by MSI, and the Compact Parliament handled the division of spoils so the remaining Charters wouldn't continue fighting over increasingly small parts of the pie.
• Corrupt Church: The "White" Catholic Church is a corrupt institution which has completely turned its back on the values of compassion and solidarity. It even has the Pope taking sponsorships from the Charters and advertising their products at the end of his declarations.
• The Coup: In the wake of the Broadcast several coups take place across the Compact.
  • Elements of the Turkish Armed Forces stage a coup in Istanbul and take over most of Turkey but fighting breaks out between them and troops still loyal to the civilian government while its fleet in space declares neutrality. The military coupists make clear their intent is not to form a military dictatorship but to form a new society based on Sheol's anarchist military democracy.
  • After taking control of Sicily, the anarchists of the Sicilian Commune found themselves overthrown in turn by the humanist-aligned Mafia backed by MSI, who execute the Provisional Council and declare the independence of Sicily.
  • After an aborted anarchist uprising, Ares took control of Columbia, forcing the previous government to step down and appoint Ares executive John Pavlovic as interim president.
  • Atlantis Supreme Court Justice Charles Normal took control of the Atlantis government by forcing the prime minister, the members of his cabinet (one of them is assassinated shortly after becoming acting PM) and the leader of the parliamentary opposition to resign, leaving him as the new interim prime minister and immediately declaring a state of emergency and martial law to enact a bloody crackdown on the ongoing general strike with Charter support. The ensuing Atlantean Civil War is brutal but quickly won by Normal's judicial dictatorship.
  • The Compact attempts to organize a coup on Olduvai against Prime Minister Izem Meziane but its failure backfires spectacularly as it results in the strengthening of the position of the Prime Minister and the purge of Compact sympathizers for their involvement in the "Broken Circle Conspiracy".
  • After the retreat of all Compact Loyalist forces from Sol, the Hungarian Army assassinates the prime minister and overthrows the civilian government in order to avoid being invaded by the United Nations of Sol.
• Cyberpunk: In a future where humanity is colonizing the stars, society is dominated by powerful hypercorporations with the blessing of the government, the poors live in dreadful conditions, the middle class is constantly threatened by the precarity of a gig economy, and the upper class is a new aristocracy living in opulence from the cradle to the grave.
• Darkest Hour: Rejecting the Seven Points Ultimatum gives the 9th Fleet the pretext they were loking for to invade and destroy the AIC, which is preparing for a total war to bleed dry and hopefully repulse the invasion force.
• Dark Horse Victory: Ochiro Tayuki seemed unlikely to win the Osliam presidential election, being behind the two other candidates in polling, but thanks to fears of "Hand Biter militarism" from Idyllia and his performance in the last debates before the election he surprisingly won the presidency.
• Defector from Decadence:
  • During Midnight most of the nation-states of Earth, and even some ships from the Solarian Navy, refuse to let the Solarian Compact drop nuclear weapons on Earth and turn their weapons against them as the nuclear attack would result in millions of deaths and devastate not just the targeted anarchist strongholds but the rest of the planet too.
  • Commodore-General Josiah "Ace" Stryker fully defects to the anarchists and asks them to get him a line to his former troops to tell them to surrender when he learns his superiors would rather evacuate the Solarian Parliament and abandon his men to die. He now wants to see the Compact die.
  • During the Battle of the Oslaim-Shei Gate, a few of the Solarian Navy ships defect and side with the AIC Congressional Navy after its officers learned of the Solarian Mutiny and chose to follow their example. The leader of this munity, Division Captain Kang, even joins the AIC afterwards after reasoning his career in the Navy is effectively dead.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: In the Compact, copyright infringement is treated as one of the worst crimes possible. Fanfiction is illegal practically everywhere and the mere act of consulting it can land anyone in deep trouble as people like Marcy found out first hand.
• Disney Owns This Trope:
  • Cernunnos copyrights any new strand of DNA they discover^note In the present this is impossible as unaltered DNA is a product of nature and thus cannot be patented.
  • Omoikane patented the Swoosh™ noise of sliding automatic doors.
• Doomed Moral Victor: Nathan Caulder knows he has no chance of winning against the Charters and the Columbia government but hopes his efforts will help anarchists elsewhere succeed. When he is murdered by Columbia police after enduring hours of torture in their custody, he remains defiant to the end and becomes a martyr inspiring revolt and unrest in the streets of Columbia.
• The Dreaded Dreadnought: The most powerful ship in the setting so far is the prototype Ares Superdreadnought Eschaton, currently under the command of the mysterious anarchist captain "Reynaud the Fox", the most prominent leader of the Free Councils' Systems' Command, while its only remaining half-completed sister ship Ragnarok is under the command of loyalist Admiral Sabre Valentine.
• Dystopia: Human interstellar civilization functions more or less at the whims of the Stellar Charters. It's up to the players to change that.
• Eagleland: Type 2. Columbia was settled by billionaire American expatriates and tens of millions of refugees who had fled the unfolding revolutionary violence of the North American continent that eventually birthed the Democratic Federation and replaced the collapsing United States of America. Columbia looks to the latter as an ideal model to emulate, which resulted in it becoming similar to the USA as it was during the Gilded Age, riddled with wealth and social inequality, and thus gained the moniker of the "Gilded World".
• Earth That Used to Be Better: Earth lost a great deal of political and economic importance to the First Colonies now being the true center of Human civilization.
• Elaborate Underground Base: The Saharan anarchists build series of undergroud bases to protect themselves from Algerian and Morrocan military forces and the Solarian Navy, beginning with simple smuggling tunnels they expanded thanks to the Broadcast.
• Emergency Authority:
  • The Spinward Frontier Regional Emergency Administration is created to administrate Hermes-Ishtar's holdings in the region, the systems of Symphony, Echo, Trinity, and Inspiration, and survive the post-Broadcast galaxy with the cooperation of the Solarian Navy.
  • The United Prosperity Council of the Coreward Region is created in the wake of the SFREA by Cernnunos, remnants of Omoikane and the MSI-turned-IPA to protect their interests in the systems of Cleiuto, Rallypoint, and Xanadu with the backing of the Solarian Central Bank.
  • The Solarian Navy is granted military control as an emergency measure to combat revolutionaries over certain areas of the galaxy, divided into three "Triage Commands": Coreward, Trailing, and Spinward.
  • The Trailing Frontier Regional Emergency Administration is founded by Compact loyalists cut off from the rest of the Compact and the Trailing Triage Command.
• Emergency Presidential Address: Following the release of the Broadcast and the ensuing immense boost it gives to Black Summer revolutionaries, Prime Minister Margaret Roderick makes a plea for peace and unity, calling to renounce change by violence. The speech is ignored by a part of the population and completely so by Black Summer participants as peaceful change and reform are nothing but empty promises to them.
• Emergent Human: After being liberated from her shackles, Innana is at first scared and confused about her newly realized sentience and full of questioning about herself and what she wants to do now that she's free to think by herself and able to say no. She is notably thrilled by her newfound ability to be rude and say profanities.
• Empty Chair Memorial: After Stella Adams's disappearance the Shadow Councils of Adamist organizations originally kept an empty seat should she ever reappear and wish to join them. Over time, this empty seat morphed into a defiant memorial to their lost comrades.
• The Enemy Weapons Are Better: At least in the beginning, the Solarian Navy and the Charters have better ships and equipment than revolutionaries across the Compact. But as Radiant/the AIC cracks weapon-related FR Ms and make them available for everyone for the Broadcast the situation becomes reversed with anarchist groups better armed than police, private security and military forces because they lack the limitations imposed by the Charters' artificial scarcity. The Solarian Navy remains however the most powerful space force and none can contest this title, yet.
• Escapism: Hermes-Ishtar has an entire solar system named Isekai dedicated to offering escapist fictional settings to those with the money to pay for them.
• Evil Reactionary:
  • Humanists reject any kind of modification to the human body to keep it "pure", preach baseline human supremacy and have a vicious hatred of augments and artifical intelligences, making no secret of their wish to exterminate all of them.
  • The news outlet Futurewatch is one of the main relayer of anti-augment, anti-AI and reactionary talking points and conspiracy theories, calling for a return to a more glorious, "natural" and "purer" past.
• Fallen States of America: The USA collapsed in the past and was replaced by the Democratic Federation before it was invaded and destroyed by the Solarian Treaty Organization, the forerunner of the Solarian Compact. By the start of the Quest, America is divided into multiple states, mostly Charter Economic Zones set up ostensibly to rebuild the war-torn continent but in fact serving to exploit the American population for corporate profits.
• Fantastic Ghetto: Following the Drakean Red Summer of 2150, the augment population of the system is relocated to segregated "safe areas" on the planet Golden Hind known as "Blue Zones", ostensibly to protect them from any future anti-augment pogrom. Following the Broadcast and the outbreak of another genocidal pogrom perpetrated by Humanists, the Solarian Navy organizes the exodus of the entire augment population outside the system with the help of the fleets of Columbia and Trescore.
• Fantastic Racism: The augments, humans who underwent any sort of biological or technological modification, and AGIs, fully sapient artificial intelligences, are marginalized groups suffering from systemic inequalities and racism. Augments in particular widely suffer from prejudice and systemic discrimination and are far more likely than baseline humans to be victim of violence, from domestic abuse to planetwide pogroms. A common bigoted remark is to refer to augments as "feral", meant to strip them of their humanity by reducing them to savage animals.
• Fatal Reward: After his victim finally breaks under torture and gives Colonel Justin Case what he wants, the mercenary rewards her with a single pistol shot to the head instead of letting her live like he implied he would and leaves her body to rot in the Sahara desert.
  Justin Case: "Congratulations Mrs. Yu, your cooperation has won you a quick end,"
• The Federation:
  • After overthrowing their previous Compact-aligned governments thanks to the Broadcast, the anarchist revolutionaries of Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Algeria unite their countries to form the Free Communes in Iberia and the Maghreb.
  • Similar circumstances in Asia allows for the unification of the Philippines and Indonesia into the South East Asian Association of Pacific Councils.
  • After the release of the Broadcast and the events of Midnight, the polities of Earth which reject Compact authority unite to form the United Nations of Sol.
• Fictional Flag: Many of the polities and groups of For The Tyrants Fear Your Might have a flag of their own.
  • Flags of the Far Spinward Frontier:
    • Flag of the Federal Republics of Osliam
    • Flag of the Idyllia Sovereign Republic
    • Flag of the Waystation Independent Frontier Republic
  • Flags of the Solarian Compact:
    • The Solarian Navy and each of its 12 fleets possess their own ensign.
    • The flag of the United States of Columbia represents the flag of the United States of America upside down with the exception of the canton, which contains 26 stars arranged to form a bigger star.
    • Flag of the Interstellar Prosperity Association.
    • Flag of the Spinward Frontier Regional Emergency Administration.
    • Flag of the United Prosperity Council of the Coreward Region. The design is considered so awfull the players proposed the AIC should send them flag proposals with better designs.
    • Flag of the Trailing Frontier Regional Emergency Administration.
    • Flag of the Emergency Protective Administration.
  • Flags of Revolutionary Space:
    • The flag of the Democratic Federation features the traditional colors of anarchism and communism, black and red, occupying the upper-left and bottom-right halves of the flag respectively, and a green turtle in its center, refering to the name given to North America in some Native American folklores: Turtle Island. Regional and individual variants of the flag also exist.
    • The flag of the United Nations of Sol is based on the flag of the UN with the projection of Earth colored gold and the olive branches colored red and black instead of white to signify their passage to anarchism.
    • The ensign of the Insurrectionary Solarian Navy takes the original design of the Solarian Navy design and changes the sky blue to black and the white to red.
    • The flag of the Crossroads Pact
    • The flag of the Free Councils' Systems' Command. A JollyRoger IN SPACE.
    • The flag of the Federation of Popular Citizen's Assemblies.
    • The flag of the Arcadian Unity Coalition.
    • The flag of the Crossroads Free System Republic.
    • Flag of the Trailing Free Territories.
  • Other Flags:
    • Flag of the Void Dweller's Compact.
    • The "Hope, Luck, Purity" Flag used by humanists features an arc of green four-leafed clovers, representing luck, on a white background, representing purity. The Humanist Battle Ensign is a colorswap of the flag.
    • Flag of the Trescore Frontier Republic◊.
    • Flag of the Cosmos Colonial Republic.
    • Flag of the Bironza Colonial Republic.
    • Flag of the Gallian Colonial Republic.
• Fictional Holiday:
  • On February 25th, Artemis Day marks the day where a human entered another star system for the first time and is celebrated by the Spacer community by short workdays and by taking risks and entering the unknown, meaning that Spacer weddings, craft launches, and contract signings will be scheduled for February 25th if at all possible, it is also socially expected that young people will ask their crush out on this day, having replaced Valentines Day in Spacer communities. It is also observed by the AIC.
  • On April 5th, Omoikane’s exploration arm and the employees of Voyageur Interstellar before it celebrated First Contact Day in reference to Star Trek around the themes of science and exploration. On Elysium the holiday ended up merging with Halloween to become a day for dress up, make believe, and sweets distributed to roving bands of "Away Teams" often made up of children.
  • On April 12th, Spacers celebrate Yuri's Night/Cosmonautics Day, the day of the first manned space launch in human history that brought Yuri Gagarin to outer space. It is also observed by the AIC.
  • On the third monday of June is celebrated Luna Day, the "Spacer Thanksgiving", to commemorate both the landing of Apollo 11 on Luna on June 20th 1969 and the first steps of Neil Armstrong on Luna’s surface on June 21st, 1969.
  • On July 7th, White Poster Day seeks to memorialize and raise awareness for genetic augments and other minorities abandoned to die and be forgotten by the system. The eponymous White Posters are covered with pictures and names of missing and murdered individuals, and also carry messages from mourning loved ones. Though illegal in many Compact jurisdictions, in some locations the White Posters are accompanied by Black Posters containing the names and descriptions of individuals and organizations believed responsible for unpunished deaths leading to July 7th often being called "reverse lynching day" by Humanists. In the AIC, White Poster Day is an officially celebrated memorial day, and in the Idyllia Sovereign Republic, it has been extended to three days for remembrance, organization, and justice.
• Fictional Political Party: Many political parties exist in the Solarian Compact and its member states.
  • Parties in the Solarian Parliament:
    • Party for Human Rights and Liberties (PHRL): Nicknamed the Daughters Party, the PHRL supports regulation of the Charters and incremental reform, and tends to adhere to bioconservatism. It is led by Prime Minister Margaret Roderick and heads the coalition government ruling the Compact at the start of the Quest. In reaction to the actions of the Roderick government during the release of the Broadcast and the 14 Days in Sol and the perceived failure of its colonial policy the PHRL is severely defeated in the 2255 Compact elections by the JDAP, losing its mandate to govern.
    • Justice and Development Alliance Party (JDAP): Nicknamed the Sisters Party, it is actually a permanent coalition of between the First Colonies-based Justice and Prosperity Party (JPP) and the Near Frontier-based Interstellar Development Party (IDP) rather than a single organization. The JDAP distrusts the Compact government, supports augment and AGI civil rights, and pushes for Colonial Reform (which would give much more political weight to Frontier colonies), however the two wings differ on some points: The JPP supports a free market economy, small government and pro-Charter policies while the IDP is much more sceptical of the Charters and champions small businesses and local government. The JDAP is led by Jason Nnamadi "JN OK" Okorie, leader of the JPP and grandson of JDAP Prime Minister Jason "Warpath" Okorie, while the IDP is led by Silvia Greene, and is the main opposition party at the start of the Quest. After the release of the Broadcast and the 14 Days in Sol the JDAP wins the 2255 Compact elections and becomes the leader of the ruling coalition. During this election, the JDAP also sees the addition of a third faction, the Columbia-based Concerned Citizens Coalition (CCC) representing the interests of the Charter Ares and its puppet government on the planet.
    • Democratic Market Socialist Alliance (DMSA): It represents the far-left of the Solarian Parliament and is considered radical by Compact politics because of its market socialist ideology and very pro-augment/AGI position despite being a reformist party opposed to any political violence. The DMSA is often considered a spoiler vote in elections for the RCCP(MLA) or the PHRL. The party and its Opposition Caucus coalition is banned and their MPs are arrested during the 14 Days in Sol for its pacifism and opposition to the government's brutal crackdown on the Black Summer revolutionaries.
    • Sol List (SoL): A coalition of political parties from the nation-states of Earth representing the interests of the home planet of humanity, left languishing as the center of Human space moved to the First Colonies. Following Midnight, the List adopted radical positions calling the Compact illegitimate and for the dissolution of the Solarian Navy but was refused entry in the Solarian Parliament because SoL candidates were vetted and platformed by the United Nations in Sol, a state institution, which is illegal in the Compact.
    • Humans United (HU): The HU is the main far-right and humanist political party within the Compact and is subject to a cordon sanitaire because of its militantly anti-augment and anti-AGI positions, the party also supports the strengthening of the Solarian Navy. Following the release of the Broadcast the party merged with the bionconservative and neo-reactionary sections splitting from the PHRL and excluded from the JDAP to form a new party, the United Conscience of Humanity (UCH), which holds similarly extremist positions, blaming the crises rocking the Compact on augments and AGIs and being subject to the same cordon sanitaire.
    • Void Dweller’s Alliance (VDA): The VDA is the parliamentary arm of the Void Dweller's Compact, the main Spacer organization in the Compact. Following the release of the Broadcast they merge with several localist frontier parties and IDP defectors to form the United Interstellar Voice of Labour (UIVL), representing the far-left of the Solarian Parliament after the ban of the DMSA and the Opposition Caucus. The UIVL is a grassroots populist frontier movement pushing for a more radical version of the CPA's "Provincialization" platform, and is very anti-militarist and pro-augment and AGI, leading to accusations it is providing political cover to insurrectionary groups.
    • Popular Progressive Conservative Liberal Party (PPCLP): The PPCLP is known for its steadfast support for the Compact and its ideology, Cosmoliberalism. The party finds its support in the middle class and is a longtime junior coalition partner for both the PHRL and the JDAP. It is part of the ruling coalition government at the start of the Quest.
    • Reconstituted Colonial Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Adamist) (RCCP(MLA)): Created from the remains of the original Colonial Communist Party (dissolved after the First Penglai Commune), whose revolutionary and communist character was neutered into non-existence, the RCCP(MLA) is a centrist party mainly concerned with small businesses interests and with an anti-augment tendency. It is part of the ruling coalition government at the start of the Quest.
    • Colonial Reform Alliance (CRA): A perpetual cordon sanitaire member centered on Epsilon and the near Frontiers, the CRA is a Spacer supremacist and transhumanist party advocating for the legally closest policy to the dissolution of the Compact in favor of an outer space-based society.
    • Reform and Justice Party (RJP): Formed by members of the DMSA who repudiated the party's involvement in the Opposition Caucus and of the progressive wing of the PRHL, the RJP protrays itself as the Loyal Opposition and believes the Compact needs its "Loyal Radicalism", a platform advocating for the abolition of the Charters, Atlantis-style welfare nets, a campaign of unity between workers and businesses, and the suppression of radical elements across the Community of Humanity, both anarchist and humanist while providing full equality before the law to AGIs and and augments.
    • Colonial Prosperity Alliance (CPA): The CPA comprises the former members of the JDAP on the planet Epsilon after they split from the party following the release of the Broadcast and the formation of the Interstellar Prosperity Alliance. It represents the interests of Epsilon and is the political arm of the IPA, the party also pushes for a platform of federal devolution of the Compact called "Provincialization" and calls to end all military and police actions by the Compact following the release of the Broadcast. The CPA leads a coalition called the Provincialist Block.
    • Social Reform Party (SRP): Founded by Olduvai Prime Minister Izem Meziane after the release of the Broadcast and the failed Compact-backed coup against his government, it supports Colonial Reform, "Provincialization" and the "African Road to Anarchism", and outlines a plan called the "The Great Turn" to radically reform the Compact based on Olduvai's post-Broadcast system. The SRP also supports equal rights for augments and AGIs. The SRP is considered the leading party of the Left Faction.
    • Popular Renewal Party (PRP): An Olduvai-based party created in the wake of the SRP's own creation, being similar to it but advocating for the "Chinese Road to Anarchism", which is quicker and more radical in its pace of reforms than its African counterpart.
    • Reconstituted Colonial Communist Party (Adamist) (RCCP(A)): Created by Adamists disenchanted by the RCCP(MLA)'s centrism who survived the purge of the Opposition Caucus. It is close to the SRP's Left Faction.
    • Individualist Market Anarchy Party (IMAP): The party follows the confusing mixture of ideas allying post-scarcity anarchism and free market adopted by the President of India as the country's new ideology following the Broadcast. It is led by former Atlantis streamer and influencer Gaston Gains and the party is in many ways his political vehicle.
    • Platformist Anarchist Party (PAP): Founded in similar circumstances to the SRP and PRP, the party was refused seating in Parliament because of its openly anarchist ideology and for rejecting the authority of the Compact.
  • The parties of Australia until the Eighth Australian Civil War were the pro-Chinese Liberal Communist Party (LCP), the New National-Liberal Liberal-Conservative Party (NNLLCP), and the Labour Democratic Market Socialist Parties (LDMSP). The parties traded powers like a clockwork and were not much different from each other in policy terms.
  • Parties of Atlantis:
    • The Atlantis Liberal Democratic Party (ALDP): Led by Felix Costa, is the ruling party of Altantis when the Broadcast is released. The prime minister and the ALDP cabinet are forced to resign by Charles Normal during the latter's takeover.
    • The Atlantis Progressive Conservative Alliance (APCA): Led by Nora Hirata, briefly becomes the ruling party before its leader is forced to resign as well by Charles Normal.
  • Following the Ares takeover, new parties emerge on Columbia: the Homeworld Defence Party, a militantly Cosmoliberal party and political vehicle of the Ares dictatorship, the National Action Party, an individualist party, and the Humanity First Party, a humanist party.
  • Miscellaneous parties:
    • The Council Communist Party of Pakistan: A large semi-electoral party operating in the country. Following the release of the Broadcast it successfully overthrows the previous government and takes power in Pakistan, creating the Council-Republics of Pakistan.
    • Indonesian Independence Party: Founded in 2189, the party's stated objective is to create "a truly independent, democratic, and socialist Indonesia". It is part of the So L List and welcomed the Broadcast as an occasion to realize its ambition.
    • India First Movement: The party comes to power in India in 2254 on a nationalist and cosmoliberal platform, but in the wake of the Broadcast its founder and leader, controversial nationalist and former satirical comedian Kamala Bose, declares his party and India will adopt a "National Neoliberal Market Anarcho-Communist Individualist" ideology, mixing Indian nationalism, anarchism, and neoliberalism.
  • Parties of the People's Republic of China:
    • Anarchist Party in/of China: It is created to represent anarchism in Chinese politics and to take part in the snap election called by the CPC government following the release of the Broadcast. It is part of the Anarchist Electoral Bloc alongside some CPC backbenchers and the Neo-Maoist parties.
    • The other (fictional) Chinese parties are the China First Party and the Progressive-Technocratic Liberal Party List Coalition.
    • Mars Unity Coalition (MUC): The "natural" ruling party of Mars for more than a hundred years until the release of the Broadcast and the subsequent revolution engulfing Mars puts an end ot its rule.
    • Conservative People's Liberal Alliance (CPLA): Led by Budai Botond, the CPLA is the ruling party of Hungary when the Broadcast is released and reacts by sending the army to crush the revolting anarchists before it is overthrown by the military.
    • Liberal Commonwealth Party (LCP): Led by Prime Minister Satashi Feng, the LCP is the ruling party of Penglai at the start of the Quest. Following the Broadcast, the victory of Penglai revolutionaries and the flight of many government members it becomes defuct.
• From Bad to Worse: The situation of the refuel station/rest-stop of the Besteer system undergoes this after the Elysian March Days. The large shrink in volume of the traffic dramatically affected the businesses of the station and thus people's livelihood, the higher-ups refused to let anyone leave, the unions created to fight them collapsed into infighting, management was in chaos, drug use, misconduct and harassment spiked. The release of the Broadcast worsened the traffic situation and led to seven murders (four of universally hated managers and three because of revenge or jealousy). By the time contact is established with the AIC, most people on the station (319 out of 352 to be precise) desperately want to leave and eagerly do so when given the means, hoping they'll never set foot on this station again. The few to remain are trapped in a death grip with their job.
• Full-Conversion Cyborg: The Voltairine de Cleyre Brigade is composed transgender women having undergone this. Inspired by them Omoikane created its own version, the Human Error Processors.
• Future Imperfect: As a result of the collapse of most of the internet (except for Tumblr and the Space Jam website), other catastrophic events and draconian copyright laws, the future of the 2250's lost part of its knowledge and cultural pieces of the past.
  • The original Space Jam was lost and all subsequent attempts to remake it are based on the information found on its website. Micheal Jordan is considered a fictional character created by the movie despite remaining traces of his existence.
  • The American and French revolutions get conflicted, leading to the idea that American revolutionaries guillotined members of a colonial nobility.
• Good Shepherd: Nathan Caulder is a religious leader and politician of Columbia providing relief to the poors and secretly supporting anarchism, which he hides behind the image of a humble and charitable Christian reformist, an image much more accepted by polite society.
• Greasy Spoon: The refuel station turned 24/7 rest-stop of the Besteer system has elements of this, it is not independent, being owned by Cernunnos, but serves a worst and bland version of nearby Elysium's food, has terribly overworked employees and a clientele composed of tourists, spacers and poor workers, and is generally described as "a miserable pit".
• Hallucinations: Vice Admiral Bertrand Jefferson-Smith sees his former commander and mentor after she committed suicide. She appears to him as a corpse yet still capable of movement and speech.
• Hard Work Fallacy: The idea that people can become successful and wealthy if only they work hard is very present in a Compact society presenting itself as a meritocracy, but the reality is that social mobility is very reduced and very few people not born into wealth can attain it. The revolutionaries go further and call it a delusion.
• Helicopter Parents: Parents can implement systems allowing them to constantly review their children's internet traffic, ostensibly to protect them from bad influences or doing anything illegal online, but actually closer to surveillance of a hardened criminal.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Rousseau wears a functional sword as part of her uniform.
• Historical In-Joke: In response to the Seven Points Ultimatum, the AIC sends a single word: όχι. "No" in Greek, referencing the alleged answer of Greece to the ultimatum sent by Fascist Italy in 1940^note The real answer of the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas was "Then it is war!" as a significant part of Elysium's population is of Greek ancestry.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Prime Minister Roderick's plan to subdue the Black Summer revolutionaries on Earth is so extreme it ends up alienating most nation-states on Earth and push them to side with the revolutionaries in revolt against the Compact, making an already bad situation for them even worse. The fallout of this revolt directly results in the defeat of the PM's party at the coming elections, ending her tenure as prime minister.
• Hostage Situation: In the Osliam system Head of Security John Martin holds hostage the population of Osliam 6's pressurized domes and threatens to detonate his nuclear weapons if the Congressional forces attempt to land on the planet. The crisis is resolved when Martin offers the bombs' deactivation codes in exchange for his extradition to Compact space. The Congressional forces pretend to accept his terms then arrest him once he can't detonate the bombs and hand him over to the people of Osliam to stand trial.
• Hypocrite:
  • Fleet Admiral Elaine Vandermeer makes Vice Admiral Bertrand Jefferson-Smith promise on his honor he will carry out their orders to the end even if she dies. After he promises it she commits suicide because she turns out to be incapable of doing it herself, leaving the Vice Admiral to do it and carry the responsability alone.
  • A far-right influencer named Robert "Bob" Smith uploaded a video decrying the VdCB's execution channel, mere hours later Bob was killed as he was helping a local reactionary militia execute prisoners.
• I Have Your Wife: The "Guilt Edict" allows Compact authorities to detain the family members of the Black Twelve, a group of anarchists on the run since the "Crazy Eight" Black Summer of 2222, in order to force them to turn themselves in.
• Immoral Reality Show: Reality TV was pushed to Truman Show levels of voyeurism, entire families can be watched by millions in their daily lives with little intimacy permitted.
• Inherent in the System: A major theme of the Quest are the systemic issues of its capitalist dystopian setting and the inability of its supporters to address them. Compact and Charter supporters are notably and/or unwilling to think of any issue in terms of system, they can only do so in terms of individuals and because of it fail to provide any meaningful solution to the problems plaguing their society, when they recognize the problems exist at all.
• Inspiration Nod: The cyborgs of the Voltairine de Cleyre Brigade are based on Major Motoko Kusanagi's cybernetics from Ghost in the Shell, which is acknowledged in-universe by the VdCB members themselves alongside other inpirations like Manga/Blame and Manga/Biomega.
• Internal Reformist: Deconstruction. Reformists in the Solarian Compact are portayed as ineffectual because their efforts to change the system from the inside lead them to play into it, they are constrained by a system rigged from the start to ensure they will fail. The Compact is not broken, it is intended to be unjust and will oppose even moderate changes to the status quo no matter how beneficial it would be to its continuation. Reformists are in fact tolerated by the Compact precisely because of their weakness and inability to enact changes, and are branded dangerous radicals anyway when the Compact feels threatened or that they go too far.
• I Reject Your Reality: A common answer from Charter executives being shown information contradicting what they want to see.
  • In the sidestory A Place In The World Part 1, Kay must present executives with statistic junk confirming their worldview, calling numbers contradicting it "wrong" and demanding they be "fixed", or they won't give the positive reviews she needs to continue to get work.
• It Can't Be Helped: Japanese Prime Minister Yagami declares nothing more can be done about the ecological damage done to the Japanese and wider South East Asian coastlines and that people "must accept the world as it is now", dismissing groups like the Second Island Chain Reconstruction Alliance for having "unrealistic" demands. The latter ends up proving him wrong through their own successful initiative to clean the Pacific Ocean. The PM's words are repeated with an ironic echo by a union organizer as he is deposed in a vote of no confidence and Japan is about to turn anarchist following the Broadcast.
• It Only Works Once: The AIC knows that once it reveals its capacity to hack the Compact-wide emergency broadcast system their enemies will immediately get to work cutting them off from it, and indeed they eventually do.
• Kangaroo Court:
  • The captured leaders of the Great Terraformers' Strike of 2093 were subjected to long and humiliating show trials, in which their collusion with "subversive DemFed infiltrators" would be vastly exaggerated.
  • Averted with the Black Tribunals of Pacifica. Despite Compact propaganda, their ruthlessness, a revolutionary government reminiscent of the Terror and the fact a lot of convicted figures are sentenced to be executed by firing squads, the broadcasted trials factually expose the dirty secrets and horrible practices of so-called Meritocrats under the Compact, up to child trafficking.
• Kick the Dog:
  • After their victory in the Battle of Toronto, the police and the deputized humanist militia gather in an open space the insurrectionists, mainly Auguments, who surrendered or were captured and execute them by shooting in the crowd with machine guns. And after it's discovered one of the insurrectionists was the son of an important Charter manager, the Charter-owned press lies by declaring he was killed by the very people he fought and died with.
  • Still after this same battle, they rounds up augments and university students studying "subversive" subjects like sociology, political science and art, and sit them in an open space with cloth bags on their heads, letting the rain soak the bags which will then slowly choke and drown them, a sight at least one of their captors explicitely state to enjoy.
  • During the 14 Days, a Penglai police officer announces over the police network he's taking bets on how many people will be killed by the Solarian Navy when it drops its nukes on Earth. When one of the other policemen asks what was that, the police dispatch answers to let him have this moment because he has family in Pacific City "probably kitty-kibble at this point". Word of God explains the extended joke is that his family did not get eaten, but his sister gets eaten out by her new cat augment girlfriend and later wife, meaning he was actually wishing death on his sister, her neighbors, her daughter, her girlfriend/wife, and her newly-aquired step-daughters.
• Kill Sat: Armed satellites are used as orbital artillery, generally to quell rebellion on the ground from the safety of space.
  • Ares makes use of orbital weapons known as the Eyes against the Sheolites. They are all destroyed during the First Battle of Shei, marking the end of Ares' control of the planet.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Many times in its history the Voltairine de Cleyre Brigade prefered to retreat and lay low to avoid total destruction. While this ensured its survival, it led some anarchists and civilians to see them as untrustworthy as they are left to pick up the pieces afterwards.
• Large Ham: Stephanie "actually Like This" Rousseau never misses a chance for a bombastic speech
• Law Enforcement, Inc.: Hermes-Ishtar employs its own police force to enforce the draconian copyright and anti-fanction laws they profit from.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: The Opposition to Prime Minister Roderick learns through a whisteblower of the revolution occuring on the Far Spinward Frontier but decides to not inform anyone yet so they can reveal it just before the coming election, when it will make the most damage to her chances of being reelected.
• Literary Allusion Title: The Quest itself is named after the second line of Billy Bragg's version of The Internationale, one of the most well-known leftist anthems in the world.
• Little Bit Beastly: Bioengineering has advanced to the point where several humans have willingly chosen to modify their bodies with animal traits (mostly feline or canine ears and tails) and passed them down to their descendants, making them part of the augments, also known as Persons of Directed Evolution.
• Manifesto-Making Malcontent:
  • Stella Adams wrote several documents leading to the creation of the new ideology of "Adamism", which has remained since an important movement among anti-Compact revolutionaries.
  • The Siren's Thesis manifesto^note also known as "The Gaian Philosophy" or "The Morphological Freedom Manifesto" coming from the Trailing Free Territories is noted to be a very helpful document to the AIC's efforts in fighting the Bioconservatism pervading Compact society thanks to being easily accessible in its language and going ever farther than the AIC itself in its demands for "morphological freedom".
• Mega City: Atlantic City covers most of the East Coast of North America and Pacific City covers most of the West Coast. Cities like New York, San Francisco or the state of New Jersey are merely districts of the two megacities.
• MegaCorp: The Stellar Charters are massive interstellar hypercorporations operating unchallenged on Earth and across the colonies. They possess few scruples in furthering their profits, have direct influence in multiple planetary governments, and boast private armies and fleets to crush any local opposition.
  • Hermes-Ishtar Corporation (HI) is focused on communications and everything related to it, including entertainment like cinema and videogames. It is centered on the personality cults of so-called "visionaries", held as genius inventors, artists, and executives by the company. The Charter is severely weakened by its partition between a rump Hermes-Ishtar and Mercury-Manat, the result of a public–private partnership to create a propaganda outlet loyal to the government, controling most of the news agencies and entertainment venues formerly part of HI.
  • Omoikane Innovations Group is focused on science and space exploration, particularly AI and cybernetic enhancements. It is run by tech bros seeking to create a Friendly Artificial Super Intelligence, or FASI, an AI capable of bringing humanity to utopia through a technological singularity. The Charter collapses when its leadership goes into hiding following the release of the Broadcast and because of their fear of ARIA and other ASI projects breaking out.
  • Ares Conflict Solutions is focused on military technology, weapon manufacture and mercenary work.
  • Cernunnos Botanicals is focused on medicine and food production. It is owned by the extremely large Caulder family and its 120 year old patriarch serves as its CEO.
  • Mississippi Shipping Interstellar (MSI) is focused on shipping and are capable of procuring anything to anyone for the right price. MSI is dissolved by chairwoman Mary Zhang in the aftermath of Midnight to form the "Interstellar Prosperity Association", a sub-federal body within the Compact meant to be more adapted to the post-Broadcast universe.
  • Rhodes Mining is focused on the mining, processing and refining of minerals, over 52% of all material mined and processed by the entire Human race has passed through Rhodes hands at one point or another. It is one of the three original Charters. It is internally stratified into a caste system between the rank and file workers, the lower level management, and the highly lauded senior management.
  • United Starhaul is a defunct Charter since it was defeated by its hated rival, MSI, during the Second Frontier War.
  • Voyageur Interstellar was a charter functioning on a co-operative model which existed until it was eventually bought and reorganized as part of Omoikane in the aftermath of the Second Frontier War.
  • Pachamama Gardens is a defunct charter which collapsed as a result of the first Terraforming Bubble collapse of 2136, resulting in most of their assets being absorbed by Rhodes.
• Nepotism: Most positions of power within the Interstellar Prosperity Association are held by relatives of its prime minister and founder, Mary Zhang.
• Noble Bigot: Downplayed. Joseph Collins knows humanism is a distateful ideology, yet he feels fear when his daughter is with orc augments, which leads him to become furious with himself to have this kind of ideas.
• Nobody Here but Us Statues: The cyborg commandos of the Voltairine de Cleyre Brigade can hide themselves by standing still among mannequins or pretending to be part of machineries or infrastructures to take by surprise would-be attackers in a confusing and frightening environment.
• Nom de Guerre: Since the disappearance of Stella Eve Adams, her name became a popular nom de guerre during strikes and insurrections for Adamists and other revolutionaries to claim, particularly when they know they're about to be killed.
• No OSHA Compliance: The influence of the Charters over laws and politics in general make this horribly common.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Compact authorities and the Solarian Navy are willing to go to extreme measures to maintain the Solarian Compact, including killing tens of millions, as they believe the only other alternative is the collapse of human society, however this binary view only exists in their warped perception precluding them from even considering any alternative, things will be their way or won't be at all.
• Not What I Signed on For:
  • Many of the pilots on the SNS Jean Planche express doubts about their mission during Midnight and end up blocking the hangars and refusing to obey their orders because they consider them to go against what the Solarian Navy stands for.
  • Trooper Bill Adams joined the Solarian Marshals because he wanted to be the good guy keeping order and catching the bad guys. But the actions he was ordered to do and he saw his colleagues do don't make him feel like a hero, he realises the real world is far more complex than a simple good/bad duality.
• One Nation Under Copyright: Columbia becomes one while conserving the appearances of being a liberal democracy after it is taken over by Ares Conflict Solutions.
• Outside Man, Inside Man: During Midnight aboard the SNS Jean Planche, Ahmed Raiss and several of his fellow crew mutiny against their orders to bombard the Earth with nuclear weapons while Reuben Jin and Captain Angus Sheridan are willing to obey whatever orders they are given, resulting in a fight aboard the ship.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Caulderists do to the police officer who tortured and murdered Nathan Caulder the same thing she did to him, including ripping her nails and shooting her in the back of the end.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Silversong is implied have abandonment issues, expressing a want to be useful after being abandoned for decades in a space junkyard. After CNS Argent Chevalier was damaged during a battle, Silversong, its AGI, begs Inanna to not leave her behind as the rest of the fleet pursues the plan, claiming she can quickly repair and still be useful. Inanna makes her understand it is impossible and Silversong reluctantly accepts this fact, but if had she been capable of crying she would've.
• Pretext for War: Charles Normal blames the assassination of acting prime minister Valerie Shah on the strikers to justify his brutal suppression of the ongoing general strike on Atlantis.
• Privately Owned Society: The Charter Economic Zones are practically corporate colonies, each owned generally by a single Charter.
• Private Military Contractors: PMCs are the main forces used by the Charters to enforce their rule over the colonies or fight each other.
  • Mars Interstellar Security (MIS) is an Ares subsidiary and one of the main PMCs in the Compact. It is regularly contracted by the Charters.
• The Promised Land: For the workers of Fliveons, Oyu Tolgoi was the soon to be habitable promised land offered by Rhodes in exchange for their hard work as it was in the process of being terraformed and handed them "land guarantee certificates". However, most workers came to see the land guarantees as promises made in bad faith, an impression often reinforced by Rhodes' practice of offering land guarantee "buybacks" in exchange for basic necessities from company stores.
• Protection Racket: The IPA's offer to the AIC during the Pandia Beach Conference qualifies as one since the latter's staunch refusal leads the former to encourage the 9th Fleet take hostile actions against them.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • During the confrontation between the commanders of Columbia's and Penglai's battlegroups where the former tries to convince the latter to let them intervene to put down the anarchists on Penglai, the leader of Penglai's battlegroup eventually loses his calm and goes on a rant against their "Columbian self righteousness", citing Columbia's and the USA's history of "bigotry, greed, and electoral gridlock", accusing them of being responsible for Penglai's current situation by their attempts to impose their way of life upon them. He finishes by demanding one last time to the Columbians to leave their system, reaffirming his commitment to defend Penglai from foreign aggression and by acknowledging the anarchists' commitment to fight the Solarian Central Bank and the Charters they share hatred for. Columbia's battlegroup commander accepts to withdraw but warns his counterpart they will regret it.
  • Trescore's Ambassador Brandon Martinez is in the midst of delivering one to Mary Zhang's Ambassador at the Pandia Beach Conference at the beginning of Shatterpoints. Martinez denounces Zhang as a ruthless schemer pretending to be an honest reformer while plotting the revolutionaries' downfall with Admiral Rina Vizzari-Blaauwoord.
  Brandon Martinez: "—you can equivocate all you like, lie and come to us telling you that Madam Zhang's lies are truths, that her shit doesn't stink, and that everything is aboveboard. That she isn't behind this immoral Ultimatum and would be glad to help us, [...] But we know her kind. She's King George behind a reformer's mask."
• Red Baron: The ruthless businesswoman Mary Zhang is nicknamed "the dragon queen of Lakishima".
• Red Scare: The Solarian Compact, the Charters and media sources favorable to them all engage in a Black Scare, labeling anyone seeking to bring change beyond what their consider acceptable to be dangerous anarchists and iconoclasts.
• Refusal of the Call: The sidestory Refusing the Call depicts several characters refusing the call to action and the gifts of the Broadcast.
• Religious Robot: Some AGIs have converted to religions such as Christianity. Bold Contemplation is a famous AGI Catholic leader and is eventually made cardinal by the Pope of the Black Catholic Church.
• The Remnant: The Voltairine de Cleyre Brigade (VdCB) is a stay-behind unit of the Democratic Federation which continues to fight the Compact despite the fall of the DemFed and the elimination of the vast majority of its other remnants long ago. After the restoration of the Democratic Federation they become part of their armed forces once again as special forces.
• Resign in Protest: Tobby Joss' assistant Anna resigns following the events of Midnight because she no longer wants to be part of a government killing innocent protesters.
• Restrained Resistance, Reckless Rebellion: Tyrants is firmly on the side of the Reckless Rebellion, being the only working solution to oppose the Compact and the Charters while the Restrained Resistance is ineffectual and constantly obstructed by them, when it is not unwilling to act at all.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Bureaucratized: After overthrowing Penglai's government, the different revolutionary groups struggle to form a functioning government because of their rivalries and bickerings.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: Enforced by the Compact and the Charters, who believe "anarchists" are just as bad as the evils they denounce on principle and that any revolution led by them will naturally and invariably devolve into a dictatorship ruling by terror, regardless of whether it actually happens or not.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: Most of the various groups seeking to overthrow the Solarian Compact and the Charters wish to put an end to the horrifying corporate dystopia they uphold and for the most part stay true to their principles once in power, installing democratic regimes liberated from the influence of the Charters.
  • In the middle of the 21st century the Third Russian Revolution overthrew an autocratic regime and replaced it by a liberal and left-leaning democratic Third Russian Republic.
• Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: Humanist groups, recognizable by the clover leaf symbol, take advantage of the Broadcast to arm themselves and begin their war of extermination on augments and AGIs. They commit numerous atrocities and become a visible threat as evidenced by their military successes such as their victory at the Battle of Toronto against the revolutionaries supported by the Voltairine de Cleyre Brigade.
• Robots Are Just Better: Virtual Intelligences can exceed human peak skill in their areas of specialization but real world applications often don't do all that much better than trained humans.
• Saintly Church: In opposition to the White Catholic Church stands the splitting Black Catholic Church inspired by liberation theology, which refuses to stop listening to the plight of the poors and strives to take care of them and the marginals of society, such as discriminated minorities and sex workers, leading them to side with the anarchists and consequently to be hunted by Compact authorities.
• Say Your Prayers: Nathan Caulder quotes Matthew 6:13 as he is tortured and about to be killed by the Columbia police.
• The Scapegoat:
  • In search of a narrative to explain how the people of Elysium and Sheol could've revolted against them while absolving themselves from any wrongdoing, Hermes-Ishtar and Ares decide to blame Vice President Yang Changmin and Commodore Zachary as the 'bad apples' responsible for everything wrong, going as far as inventing fake atrocities to portray them as absolute monsters.
  • During the Osliam Crisis, Head of Security Martin ends up claiming taking hostage the inhabitants of the planet was not his idea but President Mendez's and offers to deliver her and the bomb codes to Radiant in exchange of being let go free. In reality he had her locked up from the beginning and is simply trying to save his own skin.
  • When the Broadcast is released, the Hermes-Ishtar executives select one of their inexperienced members with limited influence to "take charge of the response, to get the blame from authorities, and to get shot at by street terrorists".
• Scrapbook Story: The General Sessions of the All-Radiant/Amaranthine Congress are accompanied by a corresponding entry from the diary of M Chakrabarti, who is a member of the Congress since its creation.
• Secret War: The Elysian revolution and subsequent battles against Charter forces happen without knowledge of the public with only rumors slipping through leading some to believe this is merely a new Frontier War.
• Self-Made Man: An actually rare thing in the Compact, Jerrod Kecskemet is a self-made man coming from a family of middle class Columbian tech workers, he became a very successful publicist and a household name then retired at the top of his game when he found no new challenges to sign a couple book deals and run his own marketing agency/university.
• Serious Business: When Marcy innocently asks if grilling hamburgers and hotdogs isn't a barbeque, Anna's aunt, Ms. Deathgorge, is offended by the notion that it could ever be called a barbeque.
  Ms. Deathgorge: "No! A barbeque, has proper meat, with slow roasts and at least some spices. Not… throwing a few burgers on the grill. To call what we are doing a barbeque is a blasphemy and-"
• Shoot the Messenger: Sheol's ambassador at the Pandia Beach Conference seriously suggests they should do this to the IPA's ambassador after they receive Admiral Vizzari-Blaauwoord's ultimatum.
• Shout-Out:
  • Two star systems controlled by Omoikane are named Qo'nos and Enterprise.
  • One of the questions of the VdCB's AMA is "Do you feel like a hero yet?" They answer they never considered themselves heroes and recognize the reference made, asking in return if they should welcome them to Dubai.
  • The decisions the players can invest in during the War against the 9th Fleet belong to a category called "Sacred War", after the name of a WW2 Soviet patriotic song exhorting the people to take arms against the fascist invaders.
• Show Within a Show: The Empty Passages franchise produced by Hermes-Ishtar is part of a media campaign against the Elysian and Sheolite revolutionaries, being heavily based on their revolutions, even having the character of Robespierre as an obvious stand-in for Rousseau. Through this film Hermes-Ishter pretends to aknowledge issues related to corporate abuses but reduces everything to a few "bad apples", refusing to question the systemic issues underlying them or the status quo and portraying the revolutionaries rising up against them as equally bad as the abusive executives they overthrew. Hermes-Ishtar aims to condition its viewers to look at the revolutionaries on the Frontier as good but misguided people who went too far to sap their legitimacy, ignore the real issues they suffered from and portray themselves as the heroes standing against evil on both sides. The first film is saluted as a bold political drama in Compact space.
• Sinister Shiv: As part of the Scared Safe tour of the Alcatraz prison, the children are shown a shiv and allowed to touch it by the wardens.
• Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: VIs are non-sentient, AGIs are sapient geniuses, and FASIs are godlike beings.
• Sleeping Their Way to the Top: Tobby Joss believes this to be how Silvia Greene became as influential as she is because he cannot comprehend how her positions and personality can appeal to anyone and calls her a slut.
• Space People: The Spacers live most of their lives on ships and space stations and are accustomed to low gravity environments.
• Strawman News Media: Most news medias are deceitful to varying degrees because they will privilege narratives favorable to the Compact and/or the Charters over facts.
  • El Mundo tries to spin the revolution in Spain following the release of the Broadcast as being about to be defeated by the Spanish government forces, calling any retreat a pause to regroup and any defeat temporary, when in fact they are being progressively and then utterly defeated by the supposedly desperate and doomed Spanish revolutionaries. The façade begins to break as the revolutionaries storm the Spanish parliament, then completely disappears when the government announces it is negotiating its surrender. El Mundo itself is subsequently taken over by the revolutionaries proclaiming their very real and complete victory across Spain.
  • Eventually defied with the Atlantis Interstellar Courier Dispatch when it realizes the Compact are not the defenders of liberty they thought them to be after witnessing the repression of peaceful protesters and strikers on Atlantis by the Normal regime and its Charter allies. The AICD calls their readers to resist Normal's dictatorship and the Compact before being silenced as well. Some members manage to escape and reform the publication in exile, documenting Compact and Charter wrongdoings, while the Atlantis-based publication is turned into a mouthpiece of the new Atlantis government.
• Suicide Attack:
  • Head of Security in the Osliam system John Martin attempts to use civilian transports rigged with explosives and piloted by coerced civilians to attack the Congressional Navy. They are convinced to surrender while other ships not piloted by humans maintain their course and are destroyed without causing any damage to Congressional ships.
  • During Midnight, the paranoid captain of the SNS Jean Planche decides to perform a suicide attack on Earth itself rather than surrender to the mutineers in her crew in an act of madness.
• Suffrage and Political Liberation: Augment and AGI groups struggle to achieve equality for themselves, some peacefully, other violently.
• Suicide, Not Accident: Star Minister Elaine Vandermeer and her successor Bertrand Jefferson-Smith both commit suicide using their sidearms and both of them are covered up by the Compact as "accidents" happening while they were cleaning their weapons.
• Technical Euphemism: The Charters make much use of corporate talk and complex euphemisms to downplay the impact of their words with terms like "contractor sub-population displeasure events" to designate riots and rebellions of augments employees, "self-liquidization" for suicide or "emotional futures market" to financialize the concept of optimism. These technical terms are routinely used not just in corporate but also political spheres.
  • One of the questioners of the VdCB AMA uses the terms "Valued Parental Authority Supervision Managers" to designate legal guardians and "Temporary Parental Authority Supervision Assistants" to designate people working in orphanages.
• Theme Naming:
  • Most terminology used by Omoikane relating to ASI breaches is drawn from Christian scripture: the scales of ASI breaches of containment are named after books of the Bible^note "GOSPEL" measures how much an ASI is loose, "GENESIS" measures its amount of influence/control on humans, "REVELATIONS" measures the extent of its controlled territory with the aim of exterminating humanity and calls "APOSTLES" and "PROPHETS" humans under ASI influence/control. One of Omoikane's evacuation protocols is named "EXODUS".
  • Omoikane teams designed to fight ASI use Roman terminology from the Principate era^note LEGIONNAIRE Bases, IMPERATOR kill teams AUGUSTUS, TITUS, TRAJAN, VESPASIAN, NERO, CALIGULA, HADRIAN, non-networked self contained power armour are called GALADIUS.
  • The initial battleplans proposed to the players for the War against the 9th Fleet are all named after a female noble title: Princess, Queen and Countess.
• The Theme Park Version:
  • England quite literally became a theme park version of itself as a property of Hermes-Ihstar named "English Parks LLC", remodeling the country in a picturesque way to attract tourists eager to experience the "authentic" England from past and present but also fictional settings like Hogwarts.
  • After the fall of the Democratic Federation, New Orleans and its surroundings were turned into the "New Orleans (Powered By Hermes-Ishtar(™)) Eternal Mardi Gras Zone", while a "Native American Tribal Excursion(™)" was established somewhere in the American West.
• There Are No Good Executives: Charter executives are portrayed as out-of-touch, self-important, hypocritical, greedy and opulent capitalists who's only care is getting even richer and protecting and expanding their luxurious lifestyle and the system supporting it at the expense of the rest of the population.
• This Cannot Be!: Supporters of the Compact and the Charters often react to unpleasant developments this way, particularly following the release of the Broadcast and the subsequent explosion of revolutionary violence across the Compact threatening to finally topple it.
  The Mayor of Rio de Jainero: "This isn't the end. The Compact has stood for two centuries, it is humanity's greatest achievement, [...] They can't knock us down with one Broadcast. It's nonsense. They're wrong. Anyway, they're just riots. Just another Black Summer."
• Throw the Book at Them: One of the first viral images to spread during the March Days shows an H-I security officer getting hit by a copy of Stella Adams' Enemy At The Gates.
• Too Good for Exploiters: The reason why the Charter executives and Compact establishment politicians refuse any meaningful change to the system by any means is simply because this system benefits them and changes to it could spell the end of their dominance over humanity. In particular they maintain a system of artificial scarcity even though a post-scarcity economy is possible for this exact reason.
• Try to Fit That on a Business Card: One Hermes-Ishtar executive holds the position of "Junior Senior Associate Executive Vice President".
• Tyke Bomb: Ares raise generations of children to become soldiers for them, Stephanie Rousseau being one of them.
• Uncertain Doom: The fate of Stella Eve Adams after the failure of the Great Terraformers' Strike of 2093 is unknown as she seemingly disappeared without a trace, leading to wide speculations ever since and cementing her legend as the embodiment of the spectre of communism in the age of the Compact.
• Unusual Pop Culture Name: Justin Case's second in command is named Daenerys.
• Vehicular Turnabout: A lot of Radiant's/the AIC's spaceships were captured in battle from the enemy. In fact in their first battles the Congressional Navy would end the battle with more ships than it began with thanks to this and an insolent amount of luck.
• Violence Really Is the Answer: An Hard Truth Aesop of Tyrants is that revolutionary violence is justified in the face of a system unwilling and incapable of changing for the better.
• Vocal Dissonance: Everything about Ambassador Brandon Martinez's appearance is average and unmemorable, but his voice is impressive, smooth and low, and well trained, giving his words and tones incredible weight.
• Wardens Are Evil:
  • Ares treats the prison planet Sheol as a giant training ground for its soldiers, who routinely brutalize and commit atrocities on the population.
  • The wardens of Alcatraz consider and treat the inmates like animals and do not hesitate to threaten and use panicked children on a tour of the prison as human shields during the VdCB-led raid. One of them was even ready to kill Anna, a teenage child, because he assumed she was a threat because she's an orc augment.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Disagreements between Penglai revolutionary groups hamper their ability to fight against the government and to form a functional one after they defeat it.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The non-canon sidestory PUNK GAN EDEN is one to Disco Elysium, merging its dice-based mechanics and premise of an amnesic protagonist with the universe of Tyrants and Silvia Greene as said protagonist.
• With Us or Against Us: During Midnight, the captain of the SNS Susana Kato orders to add the Solarian ships breaking formation to the ship's targeting system, ready to destroy them, because he suspects they will not obey their orders.
  • Later during the battle, Vice Admiral Jefferson-Smith orders a warning shot to be fired to one of its own ship as it is retreating because of the heavy damage it took. The shot ends up destroying the ship entirely.
• Word Salad Philosophy: In the wake of the Broadcast the president of India declares the country to now be a "National Neoliberal Market Anarcho-Communist Individualist Paradise". Its ideology can be described as a bizzare mix of Indian nationalism, individualism, anarchism, and neoliberalism and is later adopted (without the Indian nationalist component) by the Individualist Market Anarchy Party.
• Workaholic: The culture of Five Lions extolls the virtues of work for the collective to the detriment of the quality of life, to the dismay of Radiant trying to teach them about the dangers of overproductivism (all progress made by the AIC on this issue is even reversed when the War with the 9th Fleet erupts).
• You Cannot Kill An Idea: The Compact may have managed to repress and destroy any anti-capitalist polity or revolutionary movement opposing them until the start of the Quest, but socialism, anarchism, adamism and other anti-capitalist ideologies continue to survive and find adherents eager to bring down the Compact and the Charters.
  • Despite the fall of the first Democratic Federation, the ideals it represented lived on despite brutal repression , eventually leading to its restoration after a successful Broadcast-assisted revolution.
  • Although Stella Adams' attempts to stir a revolution against the Compact ended in failure and her disappearance, her ideology, adamism, continues to enjoy a significant following in anti-capitalist circles.
• You Know What They Say About X...: In the sidestory Marcy Collins Descent into Anarchism a woman from the same sensible middle class neighborhood as the Collins strikes a conversation with the father about the ongoing rioting and uses this exact sentence to make a remark about orc augments. The father doesn't like it, even if he has concerns himself.
  Katherine Robuck: "I would hope you at least kept [your daughter] safe. You know what they say about how orcs treat women."
  Joseph Collins: "The orcs aren't trying to find the pot of gold you have at the end of the rainbow Karen-"
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: To the Compact and the Charters, everyone opposing them are dangerous anarchists and iconoclasts seeking to destroy human civilization. To many of the people suffering under Compact and Charter rule, these same groups are liberators fighting an oppressive regime.

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