We Few Who Remain

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,"
- Shakespeare's Saint Crispen's Day Speech

Once upon a time, mankind discovered how to traverse the stars faster than light itself. And while this allowed travel, man found the environs of most planets hostile to them, inhospitable. The Empires of man were thus disconnected and distanced, requiring months of travel between planets. And then came the age of Terraforming. Humanity was, finally, connected across the stars, desolate planets between major colonies transformed into garden paradises. The collapsing nations of the stars quickly fell into line beneath the boot of the Homeworld. From Earth, the Confederation of All Humanity became the most powerful, and soon the only, human nation. It embodied Human ideals in its motto: Individuality, Yet Unity. Autonomy, Yet Loyalty. Chaos, Yet Order. But all empires fall eventually.

No one knows where the Bleeder Plague started, or what it even truly is. An alien pathogen? An escaped bio-weapon? A natural disease? It's anyone's guess. The plague works quickly. It starts as an itch on the arms, and soon people begin to bloody themselves, causing scabs. But they seem perfectly normal, operating on their day to day as if nothing is wrong, and they subconsciously refuse to see the scabs, covering them up and forgetting they have them as soon as they look away from the wounds. The infected then begin bleeding from every orifice, even their pores if they survive long enough. They become erratic, violent. They begin attacking all around them, deranged into thinking that anyone they see is the source of the pain they feel. And finally, their blood pressure builds until their skin and skulls split open, like a tick bursting. If any blood, be it from a 'Scab' or a full-blown Bleeder, comes into contact with another, they become infected. In the span of a few years, the Sol system, housing the inhabitants of Earth, Mars, Titan, Europa, Ceres, and the Belt Cities, totaling almost 50 billion human beings, was empty.  Humanity panicked, desperate to escape the plague. And for a time, it seemed they had.

What was left of the human race rebuilt, regrouped, and even expanded. The secret of terraforming died with Earth, the increasingly centralized government keeping the process a top secret, but some have tried their hand at recreating it, with limited success. The process now creates only enough hospitable land for a few domed cities, and is incredibly expensive. As such, much like on old Earth, land is a very set commodity, fought over and bled for.

Loyal colonials have formed a 'Provisional All Humanity Government', and had hoped to control all of what remained of human space. What they did not realize was that their few systems were some of the only ones that actually still respected the unified government, and the only ones that believed in what it stood for. As the Confederation had delved into the dark bowels of corporatism, communist ideals arose back into prominence amongst the people. When word of Earth's fall came, the revolutionaries took advantage of the chaos, creating the Proletariat Confederation, redistributing wealth, cracking down on crime, and doing whatever it took to keep the state secure. Of course, such actions brought resentment from many, and not all bent to the will of the Common Man. Many systems had fallen off the grid, descending into proper despotism in order to avoid falling prey to crime lords and pirates. These neo-feudal worlds were content in not only their system of governance, but their independence from outside influences, creating their own languages and culture. The Imperial Alliance of Sovereigns is less a nation, and more of a trade agreement and defensive pact. Their bloody war with the Proletariat Confederation has only recently ended, with five entire systems snuffed out or abandoned in the crossfire. The peace is fragile, but few are willing to break it, the resources of the Confederation drained, and the peasants of the Alliance war weary.

Then there are the four Old Earth Alliance (OEA) nations. The remnants of the Sol and closer systems, the OEA is racially divided, supremacists having taken hold of the evacuation ships that had been, for the most part, had been homogeneous. However, they all stand as ready and capable allies, quick to defend one another. To them, they are 'true humans', representing the true races of those true humans. The other three human powers are, to them, backwater scum, mixing their blood and cultures in abominable ways. Each, of them, however, is admittedly dominated by one ethnic culture or another, all of them by the nationalities of the Earth-based nation that managed to escape the Bleeder Plague; Yomi by the Nihonese, Neu Europa by Norse-Germanics, Allkebulan by Afro-Americanos, and Aztlan by Tejanos. 

Corporations have also established their own colonies and internal economies, not unlike the company towns of early 20th Century America. Three human companies stand out as the most powerful and influential. Thule Incorporated started as an exploration company only, but now they produce weapons, assistant robotics, food supplies, and every other amenity that an ship, private, civilian, or military, could ever need. After them comes their close partner, the Tengu Corporation, a Nihonese started company that builds starships and zero-point drives. Talks of merger with Thule have been whispered, and already both have made a joint biological research division (the Thule-Tengu Collaborative Research Division), ostensibly to find application for a sort of organic assistant/combat droid. Lastly is PsionCorp, a secretive company that invests in research in prosthetics, both robotic and cloned, and whose military consists of augmented super-soldiers, all of which are for hire. At the head of PsionCorp is the illusive Lady Cetus, always seen veiled, known to be one of the most ruthless people in all business.

And, of course, there are the Sordins. A race of grey- to red-skinned aliens, who, while humanoid, possess heads and features that are a "cross between a cobra and a lion", and having the ability to gain memories by consuming the flesh of other beings. Many human groups call them devil-spawn and demons, and their cannibalistic methods of consuming their dead and taking blood and flesh from crime suspects does nothing to curb these allusions. Some, however, such as the official stance of the Proletariat Confederation, treat the Sordin as simply living things that are the same in worth as humans. Granted, few actually hold that belief to heart, but it has led to recent influxes of immigration. The only actual empire of the Sordin is the Valos Regency, a young "democratic" nation not much different in culture from Earth's Kingdom of Prussia with its militarism and centralization. Its Council of Regents (as it is translated into English) is elected, but only the wealthiest and most powerful ever have a chance of winning the position. There is also The Business, a coporation run by Sordins only that acts as both a producer of most Sordin-marketed goods outside of the Regency, and as private military and intelligence network that seeks to punish abuse against their species at the hands of humans.

The only other place of note in the settled galaxy is the Station Trios Collective, a three part station that orbits the star Enki. Upon it, scientists, doctors, musicians, artists, and philosophers all live and collaborate to create the perfect society. Any are allowed to visit and trade, but should any outsider deviate from their laws or attempt to "pollute their society", they may find themselves locked in a "rehabilitation centre".

The known galaxy has begun to settle, and prepares for what may finally be an era of peace. But rumors are spreading of the Bleeder Plague being detected not in the OEA, but as far as the systems of the Provisional Government, and the Valos Regency has been trying to suppress any knowledge that the Bleeder Plague can affect Sordins, desperately trying to deal with a small outbreak on one of their worlds...