This United State
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| Flag of This United State | |
| Motto: "When everything is permitted, nothing is free." | |
| No Map At This Time | |
| Region | The Planet Mars |
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| Capital | New London ( Dome Arcology on The Planet Mars ) |
| Official Language(s) | English and some very minor use of French |
| Leader | T.R. Kom |
| Population | 1.85 million to 2.5 million on Mars. 7.5 million + else-where |
| Currency | The TUS Dollar |
| NS Sunset XML | |
- Article still under construction.
Contents
In Brief
This United State is a fully privatised colony project, the self-styled government of which is presently based on The Planet Mars and located at the southern tip of the territory of Sunset. It is an economically powerful nation, with a complete absence of social welfare. The capital and in fact only city or other major population center on Mars of T.U.S. is New London, an Arcology that can keep and serve the needs of up to two million people. New London is also directly linked into the global mag-lev net-work. The only only so-called " military " base or other-wise dome-external and significantly manned security facility of This United State, at least upon the surface of Mars is Hope Mine, a large uranium mine, ore refinery and military R&D facilty, connected to New London by a heavy-duty, two-way dual track mono-rail link, of which is utilised for military traffic only. The New London space-port is one of if not the largest on Mars and consequently it has a very large cargo yard, which is built both above and beneath the surface of the planet around New London.
These factors, along with the chosen liberal socio-economic and restricted political methods of internal operation, make New London of This United State a major commercial link into and across the Martian trade markets, which helps to give the Directorate and the populance of This United State a solid economy and profitable trade mechanics. The population of This United State enjoy great individual freedoms in everything except elections, as the benevolent dictatorship like government has no intention of ever giving up power.
New London, the space-port, cargo-yards and to some degree even Hope Mine, are in the rough middle of the concise amount of territory This United State holds on Mars, thus there is a area of buffer zone in a rough ring around it all, which is used to enforce an iron-grip of border and territorial security to safe guard both the consumer-citizen population, tourism industry, as well as the services which keep them in comfort and operation. In this semi-waste-land there is a scattered collection of Private Research Facilities, Mineral Exploration Camps and not so scattered T.U.S. Defense Directorate Security Systems, which are usually remote turret emplacements and sensor stations. There are also small, clean yield, tactical scale nuclear weapons hidden under-ground, within the borders of This United State on Mars, in the edges of the buffer zone, in order to stall a large-scale, land-based attack. These have been in position since the first Tyranid landings as an as of yet still precautionary ( If perhaps a tad extreme ) measure.
National Description (OOC)
If you've ever read Peter F. Hamilton's " Night's Dawn Trilogy " you may remember the bitek habitat named Tranquillity, which is a tax haven and a benign dictatorship, where the populance remains safe via a constant and compassionate monitoring by an in-human, autonomous system yet while a respect to privacy remains intact. In the case of This United State, the in-human, autonomous system is in fact a massive amount of intelligent electronic surveillance with multiple redundant measures of coverage, using various kinds of sensors.
If you've seen George A. Romero's Land of the Dead then you've seen the superficial and contemporary beauty of the fortress city Fiddler's Green where the rich and powerful live in luxury and the poor ... do not. In This United State, most of the architecture favours a modern aspect, with clean, smooth lines, and primary materials of cladding being polished stainless steel, high-reflective glass, polished black and white stone facing, and high-polish chrome coatings. However, the society is pre-dominantly of the wealthy with a small service class beneath. Yet, all live in complete comfort and have excellent prospects in both education and socialisation. Citizenship is very exclusive, and permanent residence is impossible without it.
Also, if you've played Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri then you'll be familiar with the Morganite faction, their motives and pursuit of wealth. In This United State, comfort and the pursuit of wealth, and thus in the minds of the populance, a state of happiness, is paramount. A fair enough degree of personal loyalty is granted to the system of government who is the provider of this society - that makes it all possible.
Finally, there is a heavy investment into nanotechnology, perhaps as that seen in the PC game Deus Ex if you like. This ranges from nano-scale based biological and artificial implants, to nano-scale products from medical gear and medical treatment, to nano-scale analytical gear and manufacture. Just a few examples.
These are the four primary influences behind This United State.
National Government and Sub-Directorates
There is no true government, at least in the traditional sense of the word. However, a small, select cabal of T.U.S. community-minded, pro-business, though this business is usually only the business of T.U.S itself - individuals juggle the competing demands of life-time long Education, Commerce, Justice and Defence. The " government " such as it actually is, is the self-titled Directorate, the head position of which is Director. No-where else in the Directorate is the title of Director used. There are four primary sub-directorates of the Directorate. In no particular order these are,
The Commerce Directorate
The Commerce Directorate is the branch of the Directorate focused on making money for This United State. It usually sees to the funding of the other directorates as well. As This United State operates as both a small country and a private corporation, it is both a Treasury, and internal company-spending over-sight organ. It also operates the space-port of New London, and manipulates the global market like any other mega-corporation might, as well as providing a service to customers from across Mars and beyond, as well as at home in New London. This usually means it can turn a good profit, that can both maintain This United State and all holdings of, as well as provide a surplus for non-standard spending or re-investment and / or acquisition. As well as this, it acts as a nominal intelligence gathering service.
It is also responsible for low-level diplomacy with other States upon Mars and beyond. For example, any ambassador to another State would report to the Commerce Directorate. The Commerce Directorate would collate their information as is required and direct the product to the Office of Directorates.
The Education Directorate
The Education Directorate is the arm of government responsible for the education of This United State citizens from the very start of their life and from then on for the rest of a citizens entire life-span, natural or not. It offers free education to all citizens at every level of traditional education, from very-early child-hood, day-care, to primary and secondary education, to college and university, to further adult study. However, by being a customer / student of the Education Directorate it is expected one must then live and work where and how directed by the joint decision of the Education and Commerce Directorates later in the life of the student for a respective period of time to their duration of education. However, all parents or citizens have the conditions explained in detail before chosing to give their child, quite literally, the best education money can buy for them. This means that it can provide a specialised and well-trained work-force to the entire colony at large.
The Defense Directorate
The Defense Directorate is the smaller This United State version of a more traditional military. It is focused as a heavy-duty, T.U.S asset protection service, and most of the budget alloted to it from the Commerce Directorate goes into space-based defensive weapons and heavy-combat classed ships. There is a small section of ground-armour and slightly larger mechanised ( Literally ! ) marine infantry force for civil defense. There are also many static defenses around New London and other facilities.
Most of the assets of the Defense Directorate are part of the space based T.U.S. Strategic Defense Network, most of which is purchased from ZMI and controlled from the ZMI built Market Enforcer class battle-station of London Wall which sits in orbit directly above New London on the Planet of Mars. This net-work is focused on anti-piracy and defence from both small and more massed attacks by both ships, weapons of mass destruction and criminal activity in T.U.S. air-space and in the area of orbit directly above. The system can also engage in limited ground-fire to re-inforce border security.
There is no real standing army, most systems are automated by A.I. The most citizen intensive systems are the pride of the This United State armed forces, the Corporate Cruisers, battle-cruiser classed vessels that mount heavy kinetic weapons and multiple missile systems. Most human staff augment the automated command / control systems or act as a small marine core. The rest are mostly combat-engineers whom maintain and support the automated systems.
The Justice Directorate
The Justice Directorate is a bureau of the Directorate which enforces and administers the Terms and Conditions of This United State or the laws of the land, if you will. It is there-fore in effect a judicial system and police force. Or judge, jury and executioner, heh. There is a security force ( S.F. ) which acts as both a police patrol and other-wise general public security service, a series of detective squads ( The C.I.D. or Criminal Investigation Department ) as in any other crime-solving police force, and finally a dedicated anti-terrorism strike force known as the " Ninja's ". The last are six man / woman mixed squads with heavy physical, mental and chemical augmentation. The jurisdiction of the Justice Directorate is within the Arcology city of New London and any other civil areas of colonies of This United State else-where.
Super-Directorates
The super-directorates rank above the sub-directorates in the chain of administration.
The Office of Directorates
The Office of Directorates exists to link together the four primary directorates so they may operate with little or no confusion with one-another. It reports to the Office of The Director. It also maintains a watch on the private-sectors which handle services that more traditional governments usually control, such as health-care and " public " transport, to ensure there is no " funny business " to screw over citizens of This United State. In such events it may direct the Justice Directorate to resolve any such matters.
The Office of Directorates is also responsible for running analogue services of the above four Directorates, in any further colonies of This United State which are not based upon Mars.
The Office of The Director
This is the office and the personal staff of the closest advisors to and consultants of the regime of, and man him-self - T.R. Kom. It reports only to T.R. Kom, the Director of This United State, and all holdings there-of. It directs and co-ordinates The Office of Directorates, as it is advised to by T.R. Kom. In return, it acquires the information T.R. Kom requests in order to govern the colony as he sees fit to do so.
Assets of This United State
- Article still under construction.
Despina
- Article still under construction.
Galatea
- Article still under construction.
Thalassa
- Article still under construction.
