L.O.A.V.E. Program

The program for the *Legally Overseen Allotment of Various Edibles*, the L.O.A.V.E. program, is the official system of imperial food rations for otherwise non- or barely self-sustaining worlds. It involves the buying of agricultural produce on high-producing worlds, such as Yakiyah, Tiber, and Intaglio, financed by the Imperial Treasury and shipped to and distributed on worlds with otherwise insufficient or limited food supplies.

The target recipients of the rations are the serfs most vulnerable to starvation when planetary food stores are limited. Requests for L.O.A.V.E. rations must be filed by the nobles or legally recognized organisations responsible for the serfs that are to be fed, and are supposed to be allocated based on need.

Many nobles and freemen would consider it an indignity to rely on L.O.A.V.E rations to feed their charges, though just as many would consider it a convenient cost-saving measure. The goal of the program is not to take away a noble’s responsibility to and over their serfs, but merely to ensure all imperial worlds have a safety net that they can rely on to prevent starvation.

The program is far from perfect, as recent history on Shān attests to. Negligent or incompetent administration can lead to L.O.A.V.E. rations being insufficient or absent in times of need. But overall, over the centuries of its existence, the program has helped stabilize many worlds that would otherwise have found their populations unsustainable. From an economic perspective, the L.O.A.V.E. Program has been instrumental in preventing the loss of production efficiency among the working class serfs on the harshest and most over-populated planets in the sector.

## History

The program for the *Legally Overseen Allotment of Various Edibles*, the L.O.A.V.E. program, was implemented by the imperial decree of Empress Aquila Alejandra Ari in 2901. Its formal title was the *Atto Imperiale di Sostentamento*, and it was meant to replace and centralize the various ad-hoc food rations and subsidies that had been initiated around the sector in the post-Scream era.

The effects of the Scream had utterly scrambled the agricultural supply and demand of the sector. Estimates of the numbers of humans who starved in the little over a hundred years between that disaster and House Velan's reconstitution of the sector map range from millions to trillions. But even after contact was restored, many worlds still constantly suffered food shortages, or were rarely more than two lost or stolen food shipments away from starvation.

Many local arrangements, of varying levels of exploitation, were initiated by the various political blocks of the fractured Empire during the First Civil War, but these tended to move and shift with the political landscape and were as much another source of instability and conflict as anything.

The institution of the *Atto Imperiale di Sostentamento*, then, was a move both to the benefit of the Imperial citizens and to the re-institution of centralized power vested in the hands of the Emperox and the imperial bureaucracy.

Tasked with producing, packaging, shipping, and distributing the food rations was the little-over-a-hundred-years-old A.C.R.E. corporation, with House Eridanus overseeing taxation, financing, and auditing. The A.C.R.E. corporation named its part of the implementation the program for the *Legally Overseen Allotment of Various Edibles*, the L.O.A.V.E. program. This was subsequently printed on all packages and would become a famous success of early A.C.R.E. branding, and lead to the entire act being primarily known under its A.C.R.E. name except for official imperial documents, where it is still referred to as the *Atto Imperiale di Sostentamento*.

For the centuries of its existence, many of the lowest paid employees of the A.C.R.E. corporation relied on L.O.A.V.E. rations. Their corporate scrip would often not be enough to afford proper meals. Poor nutrition is a common health risk for the poorest Demnophi, and struggling Demnophi corporations rely on L.O.A.V.E. rations to keep their employees fed. To this day, Demnoph is still the largest consumer of L.O.A.V.E. rations in the sector.

Though the program went through its rough patches during the Second Imperial Civil War, it endured and would be continued by successive Emperox’s up till modern day. Even in the period when revolutionaries resisted imperial rule on Yakiyah, L.O.A.V.E. shipments continued to be sent from the planet to receiving worlds. With the dissolution of A.C.R.E., the whole program is now managed solely by the Eridanii agricultural guild Acti Mehar, in the Emperox’s name.

In the year 3201, House Eridanus managed to bring the breadbasket planet of Yakiyah back into the Imperial fold, and repressed a decades long revolutionary presence on the planet. This has greatly increased the stability of food production on Yakiyah. House Eridanus has since committed itself to increase the public perception of its role as caretaker and producer for the sector, and has committed agricultural capacity on Yakiyah in support of the L.O.A.V.E. program. The program is now better funded, supplied and marketed than it has been in decades.

## Application and Delivery Proces

    The applicant for L.O.A.V.E. rations must be a noble or legally recognized organisation (the latter including, for example, planetary governments, corporations, ex-miscellanea, etc.). The application and ration delivery proceeds via the following three step-process:

1. The applicant submits a formal request for imperial L.O.A.V.E. rations with the House Eridanus Office of Imperial Allotments, Atto Imperiale di Sostentamento. This application primarily contains:

	* Proof of the applicant’s identity and legal status (in this case of individual nobles, this is simply a signet seal).
	* Documentation establishing the number of serfs under the applicant’s responsibility and their places of residence.
	* Documentation establishing the applicant’s inability to otherwise feed the aforementioned serfs at what are considered reasonable imperial food prices. (I.e., lack of local food production, overpopulation, poverty, etc.)
2. House Eridanus reviews the application and, if the application is approved, allots a certain amount of rations based on available supply and demonstrated need. The applicant is informed of the results of this process.
3. Information regarding the new allotment is passed on to the responsible entities, formerly A.C.R.E., currently the Eridanus Actii Mehar and Moure, who then deliver the rations to the addresses submitted by the applicant in their application. It is considered the applicant's responsibility to manage further distribution of rations amongst their serfs, and failure to do so may be penalized as misappropriation of imperial rations (provided someone bothered to check and report it, of course).

Allotments are typically granted for time periods ranging from three months to three years, with the longer time periods mainly being granted to applicants dealing with large structural deficits, such as planetary governments or megacorporations.

## Serapis-class Freighters

The immense scale of L.O.A.V.E. shipments has required the construction of its own infrastructure, in particular in regards to planet-to-planet shipments. For smaller and local shipments, existing trade infrastructure usually suffices, but for the truly big allotments, specialized material is needed.

The Serapis-class freighters are amongst the most impressive ships in imperial space. Larger than virtually any other ship in service, these freighters are the ones used to ship billions of rations daily.

The crew of these ships rivals the size of small armies, and a captain of an Serapis-class freighter commands more men and material than many a vice-admiral.

Due to their titanic size they are, naturally, a prime target for piracy. To counter this, not only is the crew the size of a small army, it actually includes a small army, along with fighter and armored escorts.

Tales have been told of entire week-long campaigns fought across and within the hulls of these massive ships.

## Recipient Worlds

While L.O.A.V.E. shipments can be requested by any valid applicant on any imperial world, some planets are consistent recipients of L.O.A.V.E. shipments to fill structural deficits in local food supplies. The below lists includes some of the net recipients of L.O.A.V.E rations.

* *This list is incomplete; you can help by adding lore on how your worlds makes use of the L.O.A.V.E. Program!*

### Demnoph

For the centuries of its existence, many of the lowest paid employees of the A.C.R.E. corporation relied on L.O.A.V.E. rations. Their corporate scrip would often not be enough to afford proper meals. Poor nutrition is a common health risk for the poorest Demnophi, and struggling Demnophi corporations rely on L.O.A.V.E. rations to keep their employees fed. To this day, Demnoph is still the largest consumer of L.O.A.V.E. rations in the sector.

### Cabina

Ever since the biosphere collapse due to the planetary bombardment that took place during the Aquilan-Cah Binn Conflict, Cabina has been a wasteland with the vast majority of its soil and waters polluted by dioxins.

Biosphere restoration has resulted in numerous farming communities and extensive planetary agriculture in these pockets of life, but the cost of maintaining and expanding these restoration projects is so high that using the hard won fertile land to grow simple food crops is highly inefficient for all but the largest and most self-sustaining of Cabinan communities.

Instead, the vast majority of Cabina agriculture is centered around cash crops, such as tea or coffee, with L.O.A.V.E. shipments providing a significant portion of food imports.

### Hallger

Between its temperature, technology level, and billions of inhabitants, Hallger is one of the most structurally deficient planets in the sector. L.O.A.V.E. rations are a key factor in preventing the planet from being in continual starvation. A good thing, since the cyclical dooms give the populace enough to worry about already.

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