Solar Dynasty

**Solar Dynasty** is one of the six playable factions in *Pandora: First Contact*.

## Abilities

* Industrious: +50% production from workers
* Fertile: +25% growth
* Exploitive: free Former
* Reckless: +50% pollution

## History

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*People need guidance. Without control and authority there is anarchy, and the masses would simply consume themselves. It is the duty of the enlightened few to lead, to give them a purpose, to channel their strength. Unified they are priviliged to serve in a dynasty that will shake the very foundations of this new world.*

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-- Prime Minister Yun Xi, Leadership of the State

The prevailing theme of the short twentieth century [1914-1991] was the clash of authoritarian ideologies. Communism, fascism and capitalism fought throughout the century, with none of them emerging with its reputation intact. Indeed, the only 'isms' that did emerge succesfully were authoritarianism and pragmatism -- both as practiced effectively by the Chinese Communist party from the late 1930s. By always acting in the interest of the individual, the Chinese state emerged with a brutally effective economy by the late 20th century.

But, as Plato observed, regimes always decay towards tyranny. Chinese communism was no exception, though the efforts of the National People's Congress to execute and subjugate overweening leaders to their authority until the early 2060s were impressively effective. It was only with the appointment of Sheng Xi as Chariman of the Central Guidance commission for Building Spiritual Civilization that they made a misstep.

Like Caesar and Napoleon before him, Sheng Xi made carefully-brutal steps towards the suppression of resistance. The early steps are of little interest -- his birth in Xiamen, his rapid rise through the party and accession to the Politburo. However, his own business is of note -- a firm specializing in genetic manipulation [essential for progress in the ranks] used by the elite to guarantee children and sons [whispered to involve cloning technology for the more infertile cases]. By the time of the final National Congress in 2062, Sheng was General Secretary and powerful -- too powerful in fact, so that rumors rumbled in the state that the Congress would take him down a peg.

What happened at the final National Congress, no-one really knows. The state media blames the detonation of poison gas bombs on Uighur and Nepalese separatists, but we do know that after the vent, Sheng's authority was unchallenged. He changed his title from General Secretary to Prime Minister and, to prevent further attacks on the new Congress, had them all shipped to a new Congress, had them all shipped up to a new Noxium-built habitat in orbit about Saturn.

This habitat was, in fact, his pleasure palace, where complicit members lived a life of bliss. [No-one knows what happened to any dissidents, but there was always a large supply of shipboard protein.] With the consent of his Congress-slaves, Sheng changed the name of the country to the Solar Dynasty, and died in bliss, while his people suffered.

His clone-son, Yun Xi, became Prime Minister after him and it was he who took the Solar Dynasty to Pandora. Yun's people slaved in the shipyards of the asteroid belt for Noxium, turning the rare ores into the refined metals needed. His people also built every last interstellar transport, working long hours in leaky spacesuits, until they dropped. Togra had the designs, Noxium the resources, and Yun had the manpower.

Yun Xi, like his father, is concerned with the greatness of his people. They only know him as father of the country, the spiritual and physical successor to his father. But he seeks to remake the state in his image. His clones are seeded throughout the state, in positions of authority; indeed, the majority of the colonists taken to Pandora and Yun's clones too, with the other passengers just there as make-weights, in case genetic diversity is needed.

Yun's aim on Pandora is to build a perfect state, in his image -- strong, resolute and clear in purpose. He has already sold his state and his people to reach Pandora -- if every other living thing has to suffer for the greater goal too, so be it.