Mesa (star nation)

Mesa was a small, single star system star nation with a history of genetic engineering and slavery. Its main world was the planet of the same name.
== Society ==
Mesan society was divided into three major classes. At the top were the freeborn citizens, who constituted thirty percent of the system's population and controlled Mesa System government. They enjoyed a high degree of personal freedom and their rights were ordinarily not abused by government action with the exception of procreation issues.
Ten percent of Mesa's population consisted of the descendants of genetic slaves, who had been freed from their "indentured servitude" before the Mesan Constitution was amended to ban the manumission of slaves. This part of the population, legally regarded as "second-class citizens" and popularly known as "seccies", was excluded from "respectable" employment and generally made their living by servicing the slaves' economy as sutlers. The seccies were closely watched by Mesan security and police services. Marriage between seccies and freeborn citizens was legally forbidden.
The majority of the people of Mesa, around sixty percent of its population by 1921 PD, consisted of slaves. They had neither freedom nor civil rights. They were forbidden to own property, but they were "informally" allowed to have personal belongings, and to earn income from side businesses. ()
== Government ==
The official government of Mesa was organized as a corporation in which all free citizens and resident corporations held voting stock. The General Board's membership was split between representatives elected by the free citizens and those appointed by the system's corporations. It served as a legislature, and elected a Chief Executive Officer to hold executive power for a period of no more than ten years. Because elected members only amounted to one-third of the General Board, the Board was largely dominated by the corporations. ()
== History ==
=== Founding and businesses ===
Mesa was founded in the second half of the 15th Century PD by a group of renegade Beowulfans, led by Leonard Detweiler, who rejected restrictions on genetic engineering of humans. Later it would became the headquarters of several, widely reviled as morally and criminally bankrupt, corrupt, and corrupting trans-stellar corporations:
* Manpower Incorporated, a company that bred and marketed genetically engineered human slaves.Mesa had probably the highest level of genetic engineering expertise in the human-settled galaxy, Manpower was the foremost of its corporations which dealt in genetic engineering commercial. This company began as Detweiler Enterprises and was founded by Leonard Detweiler himself.
* the Jessyk Combine, an interstellar transport corporation clandestinely owned and controlled by Manpower
* Mesa Pharmaceuticals, with a major production facility on Verdant Vista ()
In 1920 PD, the Kingdom of Torch was founded as a nation of freed slaves, on the planet formerly called Verdant Vista by its owners and Congo by most everyone else until its seizure by a military action sponsored or aided by each of the Republic of Haven, the Star Empire of Manticore, the Republic of Erewhon, and units of the Solarian League Navy (and the Maya Sector). Torch promptly declared war on Mesa. ()
In 1922 PD, the Mesan Alignment made the decision to effectively abandon Mesa; on their way out, they launched a series of false flag style terrorist attacks designed to implicate the local Seccy population and the Audubon Ballroom. A genocidal retaliatory strike by the de jour Mesan government was launched, resisted by the local Seccy organized crime syndicates and General Thandi Palane, senior uniformed officer of the Kingdom of Torch armed forces, with the assistance of her lover Victor Cachat. Despite a heroic resistance, government forces were on the cusp of overrunning the last holdouts (including General Palane's command post) when the Tenth Fleet of the Royal Manticoran Navy and the Second Fleet of the Republic of Haven Navy, under Admiral Gold Peak, entered the system, forcing the rogue state to surrender to the Star Empire of Manticore. ()
=== Mesan Alignment ===
In fact, however, Mesa and its corporations were controlled by a covert organization which called itself the Mesan Alignment, and was unknown to most of the population of Mesa, including most of the nominal rulers of Mesa, like the trans-stellar corporations and their executives. Those aware of the Alignment, who were limited mostly to active membersnot including the population of Gamma, the planet in the Darius System on which the Alignment established its shipyards and major research operations, were all heavily genetically modified, the result of many centuries of deliberate, secret, effort. Many descended from Leonard Detweiler himself, and quite a few had been emplaced covertly, sometimes many generations earlier, as agents of influence. (, , )
== Armed Forces ==
See also: Mesan Naval Affairs
Mesa maintained a small, but effective Mesan Space NavyThe armed forces maintained by the Mesan Alignment were not Mesan forces and were largely unknown to all in the Mesan military, and were unknown to the rest of the Galaxy. Some parts of those forces became evident with the attacks on the infrastructures of the Star Empire of Manticore and the Protectorate of Grayson. Due to covert operations of the Manpower - Mesa was the Galaxy's largest hiring operations for mercenaries. Several of the Mesan transstellars maintained military forces also, some transitory and most small..
== Internal Security ==
The executive official responsible for internal security was Director of Security. He was superior to the Procurator of Public Safety. There were two major agencies, that underwent to the Procurator of Public Safety: Office of Public Safety and Mesan Internal Security DirectorateTechnically one of the Office of Public Safety's branches..
Moreover there was the regular police, responsible for security among full citizens - including the Mesan Office of Investigation, the elite police organization.
The Mesan Planetary Peaceforce was a military security force on the planet Mesa, but not technically an army. Under the Mesan constitution, it answered directly to the CEO Mesa System. The main reason for its existence was to respond to threats of seccy or slave unrest and therefore the MPP operated the strongest amount of firepower on the planet, despite the fact, that the Office of Public Safety forces were more numerous. ()
== References ==
Category:Mesa
Category:Star nations
Category:Mesan Alignment Components