Culmai (World)

### The Discovery

As the potential of the newly discovered anti-photonic material was being explored, the most ambitious experiment was the creation of interstellar probes. The most interesting destinations were naturally star systems with identified exo-planets, with a view to discovering extra-terrestrial life, and worlds that humanity could visit, and maybe even colonise.

Many probes were sent, with disappointing results across the board. No ET's, and some exotic, but definitely inhospitable ecosystems on the planets they discovered. Ultimately the probes paid off, although it took nearly twenty years for the program to bear fruit.

The first habitable world was discovered by a super-optic probe launched by the PPB, who had a near monopoly on the refined anti-photonic propulsion beyond the light barrier. The discovery was kept secret by the PPB, who had very specific plans for how humanity might be permitted to colonise new worlds after having done such immense damage to the world that birthed it.

Two further probes were sent to establish just how hospitable the world might be before the decision was made to colonise.

The world was named "Culmai": an amalgam of the names of the two men responsible for discovering the world, Hardy Cullum and Solomon Maier.

### The First Earth Exodus

Withholding their discovery for as long as they could, the PPB set about their plans for the first interstellar colony vessel. Compartmentalised construction and secret facilities of their own meant the work was quite well advanced, even to the stage of having begun orbital construction, before the secret leaked that the space-works were not a giant orbital science station but a vessel to carry humans away from Earth. The vessel was named **Astrala**.

As soon as word was out, the clamor to be a member of the crew swept the world, with talk of lotteries, fitness tests, sporting contests, and many other selection methods being posited and exaggerated in a wildfire of speculation and excitement.

The PPB were keeping their cards close to their chests, not making their criteria public, but sifting carefully for skilled engineers, botanists, energy specialists, and a broad array of specialities that might make for a useful member of a colonial endeavour on a world where no help from home could arrive soon enough to help if the worst happened. The colonists would have to be able to handle anything a new world, and the long trip to get there, might throw at them.

There were some secret criteria that candidates did not know they were being selected for. The first was an explicit interest in non-exploiative and non-polluting industrial and agricultural methods. The second was the most closely guarded secret, that nobody would be allowed aboard if they had any religious beliefs whatever.

To the PPB, both the pollution of the natural world and superstitious and supernatural pollutions of the mind were the one thing they would not allow humanity to export to a new world. On this Hardy Cullum, Solomon Maier and Terence Baxter had always been steadfast, long before they even knew there was a world they could colonise. This was ultimately tragic for Solomon Maier, as sometime between the discovery of Culmai, and the completion of the Astrala, he had found God, denying him his hard earned place in the heavens and a new world that was partly named after him.

When the Astrala departed for Culmai, it did so without Solomon Maier.

### A Farther Course

The Astrala was a huge vessel, carrying a crew 3,000 strong, with supplies enough for a trip double the 7 years the exploratory probes had taken to reach Culmai, building material and prefabricated accommodations big enough for the crew and any extras that might be born along the way. Livestock, grains that could be planted in a vast array of soils and substrates, canned and dried goods to last out any crisis or failed harvests. Needless to say, the Astrala was huge, and when she left Earth, there was a measurable change to the tidal patterns that lasted for weeks.

As thoroughly as they has planned the course, an immense colony ship could not be expected to have an identical journey to the much smaller probes. The trip would have to include stops to gain their bearings, and initially, to attempt communication with Earth, which as the trip progressed would become largely impractical as the call-and-response transmission time would stretch to years.

With the trip expected to take over 7 years it was important not to stop too frequently, but it was deemed important that Earth should know their journey was successfully underway, and to receive confirmation. Their power output was set at a level just adequate to maintain a steady super-optic speed of just over 1C. After 1 week of travel they should be approximately one light-week from Earth, they would transmit, establish their location through stellar positioning and send back their findings for other colony vessels that were to follow in the years to come. A two week stop in total. A frustrating pause, but once they heard back from Earth they would be on their way, with scheduled stops each year on the anniversary of their launch.

After a week of travel they stopped, and they sent their message, and they took their readings from the stars, and something seemed very, very wrong.

The stars were not where they should be. The identifiable stars were so out of place that it took over a week to actually make a reasonable estimate of their position, and even then it so defied any rational expectation it took a further two days before they accepted their own calculations.

When no response came back from Earth nobody was surprised. Earth wouldn't even be receiving that signal for another six and a half years. Somehow they had been traveling at speeds vastly higher than any calculation had predicted. Though they didn't know it, they had been traveling in an energy stream, a galactic slipstream that allowed super-optic vessels to become hyper-optic vessels.

Culmai had been so distant there had been no point trying to get an actual fix from star positions, they had simply followed the course of the probes, as each one had arrived successfully. There were two possibilities: They had already hopelessly overshot the world and were now completely lost in deep space, or, Culmai was actually vastly more distant than they thought and that it still waited ahead of them.

The second theory won the day, and the trip resumed. Another message was sent back to Earth, which should arrive long before the completion of the second colony ship. Whether there was anywhere for that colony ship to actually go to was something they would have to chance themselves, as by the calculations of the navigation team, by the time they arrived at Culmai, any communications sent to Earth would take 350 years to arrive.

### The Arrival

At each successive stop along the way, it became clear those who believed they were still on course for Culmai were proven correct, and even the danger of overshooting the target was not likely to be calamitous, as the probes had gathered solid star positioning data which was starting to align with the observations of the navigators as the 7 year journey neared its end.

As the day drew near, a mix of excitement and dread filled the crew. Would it actually be a habitable world? Would they be able to adjust to planetary life after seven years aboard the Astrala? Would the crops take? Would the livestock thrive? All doubts and fears fell away as the Astrala made her final stop. Everybody aboard gathered to look at their new world.

Once the Astrala landed it could never lift off again. She was built in orbit and designed to land once and once only. Equipped with three landing craft, an advance party went to the surface to scout. In the absolute worst case scenario of Culmai being uninhabitable for some reason unknowable to the planners on Earth they could look for another world. It was a chance in a million, but once the Astrala made planet-fall, that chance reduced to zero.

Make planet-fall she did, and the colonisation began. The early days were rewarding struggle, with triumphs, failures, and some tragedies, but a true pioneer spirit made every day feel valuable of fulfilling. The first year packed in a lifetime of experiences, but also flew by with unseemly haste. There were temptations to take shortcuts, but the new governing council held firm to the principle that they should work in harmony with this world, not exploit and pollute it.

There were grumblings that they were making their lives far harder than they needed to be, but nobody could deny that the entire reason for leaving Earth was what a polluted mess it had become, and that the primary goal of the new colony was not to repeat those mistakes. While the grumblings settled down as time went by, regulations were quietly drafted by the ruling council to ensure there could be no backsliding, with harsh repercussions for anybody who thought they were above the rules.

Life was settling into a steady and natural rhythm with the seasons and patterns of Culmai's nature, but as the colony approached its ten year anniversary there were more things on their minds than how they would celebrate this milestone. The Astrala's successor ship was due to be completed 10 years after they left Earth. Earth would have received their first messages by now, over 6 years late. All began to wonder if the second ship's construction had been abandoned when the message hadn't been received on time.

Would the second batch of colonists be arriving at all, and what effect would they have on the colony if and when they did?

### Struggle and Stagnation

After successive governments regressed into more and more Luddite tendencies, many colonists decided they could not stomach the strictures and privations the escalating environmental extremism of the PPB was forcing on them. Most had not come out to the stars using the most advanced technology created thus far simply to revert to a pre-industrial society.

While some still lived who knew how to build spacecraft, the groundswell of opinion against the government turned instead to a new - citizen led - space program. While the government tried to prevent it, there were simply too many who wanted to leave and take their chances searching for new worlds for there to be any hope of preventing it.

The Culmai Exodus saw the true beginning of humanity's post-Terran diaspora, with the vessels that regularly abandoned humanity's first non-Terran colony having two overriding aims: to find new worlds to settle, and to make sure they were far far away from Culmai and the PPB Ruling Council.

### The Birth of the Navy

After the last vessel had fled, the remnants lived with a morose and bitter sense of betrayal, and no self-reflection on their own part in their abandonment. These feelings were soon replaced by paranoia, as Culmai's descent into a pre-industrial society, if fully realised, would see them a prime target if any of the fleeing colony vessels ever decided to return in force.

The Ruling Council re-branded those who had left as "exiles" to turn public feeling against them, and to alter perceptions about the reasons they left: banished from paradise instead of leaving by choice, which soon started to work. The government had assured those who had remained that these "exiles" would fail to find other worlds, or fail to thrive if they did, and so the logical conclusion was that they would return, not with humility, but with malice and hostile intent.

Preparations began for the manufacture of planetary defences, which, with yet more failures of self-awareness, created a burgeoning industrial capacity that was utterly at odds with the PPBs aims of living in simple harmony with nature.

Having manufactured a ground-based missile system which could be used to attack orbiting vessels, they could only be useful against ships with similar levels of agility to the ones used to emigrate from Earth, and those frequently crude ships used by those who had emigrated from Culmai. A burgeoning Defence Council who had grown in power and influence pushed for the creation of a fleet of craft that could stay permanently in orbit to defend Culmai.

With so much invested in planetary defence already, and with the new industry it had created reinvigorating the spirits of the colonist with a sense of purpose, the plan was agreed, and the PPB Navy - small though it was - was born.

They were first mobilised when a vessel arrived from Earth, named Varrid. The vessel was poorly constructed and everyone aboard was in advanced old-age. A trip that had taken the first colonists 7 years to make had taken the - fortunately incredibly well supplied - Varrid nearly 40 years.

There had been many theories about why Culmai had been so much farther from Earth than the travel time of the probe that discovered it suggested, with early theories about galactic streams being underdeveloped, but largely correct. It seemed that the energy stream that had allowed a journey that should have taken 70 years - which had taken the Astrala only 7 years - was collapsing or dispersing.

While no one had ever expressed any interest in returning home to Earth (at least publicly) it was quite another thing to realise that such a trip may soon be impossible. For the portion of humanity that had travelled to the orphan spur of the Sagittarius arm, it seemed Earth was lost forever.

The crew of the Varrid explained there had been times when the ship was travelling at great speed, and other where it was basically stuck at just below C, meaning anyone else on Earth wanting to make the trip may get lucky, or they may get stuck somewhere between and have to search for a new world wherever they found themselves.

As it happened, one final expedition from Earth did arrive some years later. These were the missionaries.

### The Missionaries

When the PPB had left Earth they had many criteria for those who would be allowed to join them. The most controversial was that adherents of any religion were prohibited from coming along. One form of pollution the PPB abhorred was the pollution of the mind with supernatural mumbo-jumbo that had caused wars, intolerance, and horror throughout history. This rule was enforced through batteries of lie-detector tests and background checks.

Accusations of racism dogged the process, as genuine and strongly held atheism was predominantly a feature of white, western societies, nonetheless, it was rigorously enforced to an extent that eventually led to the exclusion of one of the PPBs founders, Solomon Maier. Somewhere between the discovery of anti-photonics and their conversion into the drive for an interstellar craft, he had found God, and consequently found himself stuck on Earth while the technology he had pioneered and the interplanetary foundation that he had built left him behind.

Staying behind, Maier kept faith with the PPB too, taking charge of their Terran end of the closely guarded secret of the colonial corridor, ensuring Culmai never received any colonists who had got religion. Until he died. Then the missionaries left. Then the missionaries arrived.

Many aboard the three ships had cautioned the leaders to approach with caution, not to mention their goal of bringing God's word to the stars, and to ingratiate themselves and integrate before beginning to proselytise on an individual level at first. The leaders had other ideas, believing honest expression of their good intents was to moral way to proceed.

The fate of the three ships that arrived is not recorded in the official history of the PPB, and five of the twelve members of the PPB Defence Council took their own lives over the years that followed. Deaths that were reported as natural, but which were known to those in the upper echelons of government as being brought on by insurmountable guilt.

One of the missionary ships was severely damaged with huge numbers of casualties, the rearmost vessel escaped virtually unharmed, the other vessel, the lead ship remains buried under an artificial mountain on the far side of Culmai, a secret monument built to hide the crime of its destruction.

On the escaped ship that was severely damaged was a family named Duvalier, aboard the ship that escaped unharmed was a family named Garrett. Their fates would bring them together again.

Concealing the crime had been surprisingly easy, as the missionary craft had arrived when their small convoy was in occlusion on the far side of Culmai from any of its settlements, but those on the Defence Council and the Ruling Council knew what they and done to keep the old evil of religion from entering their society. Some recommended pursuing the surviving vessels, both to ensure the infection was eliminated entirely, and so they could never tell what happened. The majority, however, were sickened, knowing full well that the craft had been filled with families, and wanted to draw a line under the sorry episode, believing that the remaining ships, much like the exodus craft, would never bother them again, likely dying in deep-space in a vain search for a new world.

This stain on the consciences of so many of the PPBs ruling elite seeped into the wider society, who didn't know its cause but nonetheless felt its effect. The selection of a bright new student to the junior levels of the ruling council brought a breath of fresh air. She was both unaware of the fate of the missionary craft, and an optimist rather than an ideologue. Her name, Erica Baxter.

### The Baxter Era

That the PPB Navy had an orbital fleet it maintained at great expense, which, the blissful ignorance of the public suggested served no actual purpose most of the time, seemed wasteful to many. Some, without the approval of the PPB ruling class, had taken up an interest in star gazing, and in the hunt for exo-planets that might support life.

Erica Baxter was a firm believer that sitting around wondering what had happened to the exiles, and wondering if they would return with hostile intent, was a rather passive approach. She was a potent advocate for starting expeditions to new worlds, for scientific enquiry, and possibly to expand the PPB to new planets, if hospitable planets could be found. While her efforts would have previously met with a stern silence, many in the know wanted to send away the vessels which had been party to mass murder, and to turn them to more peaceful purposes.

After a hard won argument in the council, something unprecedented occurred, a referendum was held. For the first time since the very early days of the colonisation of Culmai, the people were asked to decide. Erica Baxter became the face of the campaign, and her name held a special cachet, as he was a descendant of Captain Terence Baxter, one of the founders of the PPB and the commander of the Astrala, the very first ship to leave Earth and arrive at Culmai.

Predictably, after decades of grinding toil unassisted by technology, the lure of the stars won the day, and this time with the approval of the ruling councils, as they would spread the methods and values of the PPB, instead of attempting to escape them. A new age of wonders of possibilities was about to open.

Both astronomers and explorers were the new celebrities, the hunt for new worlds was a worldwide obsession that made bleak days a little more magical. Ships of exploration were designed and built, and promising systems were marked out for investigation.

While dry and boring individuals had presided over the ruling council with unstylish and unaffected bureaucratic adequacy since its inception, there was a growing movement that wanted Erica Baxter to become the president, and to lead with her enthusiasm and vivacity. Her own desire was to board the Astrala II, the first exploratory ship which was reaching completion, and take to the stars.

She got her wish, and her absence only made her own star grow brighter in the minds of those back home. The triumphant return of the Astrala II after 20 months was a moment of mass celebration. She had visited three different star systems with astonishing records of their compositions, atmospheres, moons, and mysteries.

Two worlds in two different systems had spawned life, the first, a mesmerising world of deep black with luminescent purple clouds was swarming with extremophiles, some microscopic and some vast. The data gathered fuelled the public appetite for more exploration, and more scientific development, in turn finally burying any notion that Culmai should be a place where simple folk work the land with simple tools. Humanity's quest for knowledge and advancement was back in full force.

The second world that had spawned life awakened a very different reaction. It was a harsh place, but unlike the marvellous and toxic dark pearl that had captured imaginations with mystery, this other world fired a different desire, because it had an atmosphere that could support human life. It could be a second PPB colony.

As these revelations were rolled out for public consumption, Erica Baxter's celebrity was literally stellar, and was the undoing of her ambitions to get back into the stars to search for more new worlds. Her fame and adulation meant she had the pick of anything and everything she could desire, and one desire in particular meant her plans to leave Culmai again were put on indefinite hold. She was pregnant.

There was no question of the newly convened Interplanetary Exploratory Council allowing her to join any missions while she was carrying triplets. The public simply wouldn't allow it, they wanted her home, they wanted her babies safe, and they wanted to see them born on Culmai.

After the birth of Terence, Harriet, and Frederick the pressure mounted on her to take on the role of president of the ruling council, both from the public and the council themselves, who were not a popular group and needed some dazzle, and maybe someone high profile to take the blame when things when wrong.

After taking on the role she surprised the council who expected her to be a smiling front for their actions, quickly consolidating a huge power base around her. She completely realigned the global efforts towards exploration and finding new worlds for colonisation.

She presided over a golden age where the number of colonies jumped from *two* to *thirty four*, while the PPB Navy grew to a significant collection of exploration ships which, at the insistence of the Security Council were all armed to a level adequate for combat should the need ever arise, mindful that somewhere out there might be worlds occupied by the exiles, or even the missionaries.

At her 50th Birthday Erica baxter announced she would step down as her strongest desire was to return to the stars. She had never loved Culmai and had only served as long as she had out of a sense of duty, and to ensure the progress of science and exploration was restored to a world whose aspirant rulers seemed, deep down, to always wish to return to peasantry.

Her children had all been afflicted by her desire to explore, and all had long since left Culmai, meaning the Baxter Era was drawing to a close.

In the years that followed, the growth of new colonies, much of it driven by the exploration of Frederick Baxter, who had discovered more habitable worlds than anyone else, meant the centre of gravity of the PPB was shifting away from the - once again tired - bureaucracy of Culmai's government.

A major shift in the power base happened when Baxter discovered a magnificent world, ripe and ready for colonisation. Temperate, fertile and well positioned to function as a hub for other nearby PPB settled worlds. For the first time Baxter took the job of naming the world himself, and after himself, or more accurately for his family. The world was Baxter's World.

Up until this point the PPB had not encountered any of the "exiles" from the Culmai exodus, many believing the propaganda that they were doomed to wonder the stars until they died of hunger. Frederick Baxter certainly could hold on to that illusion with the quantity of habitable worlds he had discovered, the simple fact was, the exiles had all proceeded in the direction of the galactic hub whereas the early days of the PPBs explorations had been directed broadly and widely toward the rim. Frederick had decided that he was interested in going the other way, and in seeing if he might ever encounter colonies founded by the exiles.

He didn't really fear conflict, but the Security council had ensured every explorer craft was loaded for bear, and could likely hold their own if it came to it.

Baxter's World was the furthest the PPB had reached towards the hub, and as it began launching its own expeditions they eventually came across a world that was already settled. The settlers were terrified of the new arrivals. Though they had never been attacked, the tales of marauders and invasions had reached them, and Frederick was suddenly grateful the Security Council had made there insistence all those years ago that the Navy, and each and every vessel in it, should be capable of combat.

Frederick Baxter had to consider carefully what this meant for Baxter's World, and for the PPB. He was duty bound to inform the ruling council and the security council, but when he returned to Culmai he found they were at odds with one another. With more than enough colonies with access to minerals and materials to produce more ships of exploration, the ruing council wanted an end to the industrialisation of Culmai, and in fact wanted to reverse it. The security council were worried that with so many worlds to protect the PPB Navy needed expansion, not an reduction in their capacity to build ships when Culmai was still had the most advanced industrial facilities and the most skilled workers.

The schism was only widened by news of the discovery of the first exiles, and their tales of marauders and pirates. The ruling council wanted all further exploration cancelled, and the defences of existing colonies consolidated. Most wounding for Frederick Baxter was their wish for Baxter's World to be abandoned, being clearly to close to enemy territory.

The security council were adamant this proved the Navy needed to increase its numbers as fast as possible, and to occupy as many new worlds as possible to prevent enemies getting a foothold. Their view of Baxter's World was as a first line of defence that should be fortified and militarised.

Neither view pleased Frederick, but at least the plan of the security council didn't involve abandoning what was by far the best world the PPB had yet to find.

The acrimonious deliberations were dragging on interminably when finally word was received from an exploratory vessel that the PPB were no longer the only interplanetary grouping, word had reached them of a nascent protectorate of worlds forming to protect its members from pirate attacks, and more worryingly, from undeniable reports of actual full-scale planetary invasions.

The ruling council finally had to concede the need for increasing the Navy's capacity for defence, and pre-emptive attack, the integrity of everything they had worked for ever since leaving Earth was now at risk.

The security council did not get to revel in their triumph, as the ruling council had decided they themselves were also right, and that Culmai should again be the purest representation of the ideals of the PPB, and the purpose of the Navy should be to protect it with ships, but those ships must no longer be built on Culmai. There was only one choice, it had to be the most plentiful world they had yet discovered, Baxter's World.

### The Building of a New Capital

The task of moving all manufacturing capacity off Culmai was immense, but was begun immediately. It was not the only that needed to move. If Baxter's World was to be the new forward base of the military manufacturing, it needed to be the new forward base of the military itself. The security council would be moving too. Mindful of the potential to lose influence over the military, the ruling council decided a sub-committee of the council would need to be present on Baxter's World, both to oversee, and to report back on events, plans, and progress.

Constance Adair, the president of the ruling council decided her deputy, Lawrence Carmichael, whom she worried was plotting to replace her as the president, would be best off out of the way on far off Baxter's World, leaving her to rule without his troubling proximity.

This was a staggeringly naive plot, as Carmichael was being placed in charge of a vibrant new world that would have the full might of the navy, and the full attention of its industrial sector to turn it into a political powerhouse while Culmai returned to its accelerating slide back into a pre-industrial backwater.

Within a year the tactically foolish and burdensome name "The PPB Ruling Council's Sub-Committee With Responsibility for Oversight and Development of Baxter's World" with which Carmichael's department had been saddled was, obviously, abbreviated by all who needed to refer to it. Firstly to "The PPB Sub-Committee for Oversight and Development," then, "The PPB Ruling Council's Sub-Committee," then "The PPB Committee."

As time went by, and Culmai became more irrelevant, Committee Chairman Carmichael's allies started seeding alternate variants, such as "The PPB Oversight Committee" and finally, "The PPB Ruling Committee." By this point there was no doubt who was in charge of the activities of the PPB and its Navy outside of Culmai, and nobody challenged the name, except for Ruling Council President Adair, but by the time these name changes had made their way back to her, the centre of power had been shifted so far from her sphere of influence she was powerless to do anything about it.

Word came down from the Chairman, the only name he now required, that the role of President was to elevated to an exalted, and also entirely ceremonial position. President Adair was to be a very highly paid, and entirely decorative head of government, serving on a world that no longer mattered. Baxter's World was now the de-facto capital of the PPB.

### The Reconnection

The security council's network had been travelling far and wide to discover all they could about the developing multi-world alliance they had heard of, finding that it all centred around a world called Focus, reputedly even more fertile and plentiful than Baxter's World. Claims were wild because life had been brutally tough for the exiles, lacking in skills and resources needed to start new colonies, and living in constant fear of marauders taking what little they had.

Some of the nearer worlds were open to the idea of allowing the PPB to act as protectors, but baulked at the notion of re-adopting the strictures that had caused them to leave Culmai, even though it was often their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents who had been the ones to flee the PPB. Some did agree, however, having little left to lose.

It seemed the intelligence networks of the PPB were not the only ones who had their eyes and ears open, as the Focus government had caught word of the existence of the PPB Navy. Before long an approach was made, and a deal was offered.

The grouping were calling themselves The Focus Protectorate, and they too had been building a navy. It was certain there efforts would not have yielded results as rich as the PPB, who had been preparing for conflict ever since the "exiles" had left, while the exiles would have been searching for new worlds, and devoting their energies to settling them without a thought for external threats.

The Focus Protectorate were reluctant to reveal their numbers, but assured the PPB Chairman's negotiators that the vessels that they did have were tough, built to fight and built to win. While the PPB Navy were numerous now, over 200 vessels strong, the truth was, they were all built to the original pattern, vessels of exploration that carried defensive armaments.

A vessel built entirely for combat would be a different order of threat, and both the Chairman and the security council were very reluctant to commit to helping the Protectorate take on their pirates, marauders and invaders, and reveal the weaknesses of their own ships. The Focus Protectorate may want an alliance now, but they could change their minds once their own problems were eliminated. That said, refusing to help could make them look weak, a potential easy target, and also make a new enemy they may not yet be ready to take on.

They needed to project a position of strength, and also to protect the integrity of their own systems and goals. If the Protectorate wanted their help, then they too would need to agree to re-aligning with the goals and values of the PPB, the same goals and values they had fled to escape. Any joint security agreement would need rules, costs, and consequences for delinquency by either party.

This was inevitable going to lead to long negotiations, which was the plan all along, as the time would allow the PPB to turn its ship-building over to vessels designed not for science, and not for exploration, but designed for war.