Ascher

Eurynoc, renamed Ascher by the Trilliant Ring in 3201, is part of the Pavvis system in Hex #0008.

## Population

### Government

#### The Council

The Council is the branch of government that manages the grail and create law. The Council is made up of 15 members that compulsory serve in this role until retirement. The number of members mimic the original 15 founders of the colony that were trusted into leadership right after The Scream. It is each council member’s job to enact or modify policies to make sure that society as a whole is running smoothly. They accomplish this by proposing laws or policies to their other members, by requirement, all laws passed by The Council must apply equally to all citizens of Ascher, without exceptions for Council members or classes of individuals. Proposed laws or policies will have to be approved and signed by all other members in the council to be enacted. It is common for many proposals to go through years of major revision before they get approved by all members. Once approved, the law or policy is given to The Steward to be inputted into The Chancellor protocols.

The Council makes all interstellar decisions and manage The Whispering Emissaries. They give assignments to the emissaries so that they can obtain more information on particular aspects of the sector. Using this information they make decisions on what kinds of interstellar travel and trade are allowed to their citizens. The Council’s guiding ideology is that the colony must be isolated from influence and “infection” by the rest of the Sector.

If there is a vacancy in one of the 15 council positions The Chancellor will immediately look for possible candidates for the position. The criteria for a candidate is that they must be at least 60 years of age, in good standing, and have been in good standing for the majority of their life, well educated, and a natural born citizen. These candidates are then compiled into a “groomed” list given to the remaining council members. They then decide on their new peer and allow The Chancellor to announce the new addition to the public. The candidate is then assigned and obligated into becoming a part of the council.

#### The Chancellor

The Chancellor is a complex VI crafted to monitor and enforce the laws and policies of the The Council. It does this by monitoring people using its vast records on every citizen constantly updating its records from the Link (RFID tattoo) on the citizens. If any of its data correlate to one of its protocols it will report the situation or person to the relevant agency. The Chancellor also manages the Grail’s production. There is a deep, multifaceted web of protocol it uses to change The Grail’s production to what society needs. This system is considered the most crucial and, in the event of a power outage or attack, all other tasks are considered expendable compared to this system.

A closely guarded secret of The Steward is that the core of The Chancellor is actually a small pretech game console. This console has been repurposed and given postech additions to become The Chancellor. Despite being originally a small game console it has more data storage and computing power than all computers in Ascher combined, but it has its limits. The Chancellor completes its purpose with incredible inefficiency as it was never meant to do the task of running an entire civilization and knowledge of how to reprogram its system is lost to time. This means despite being the most powerful computer available it is slow and prone to glitches.

#### The Steward

The Steward is the individual that maintains and encodes The Chancellor. They are chosen for their excellence in computer science and engineering along with their dedication to society. The Steward maintains all the hardware and software of The Chancellor. They order all the necessary repairs, encode new laws or policies, install new hardware, run simulations for The Council, and defend The Chancellor from hacking. While it may seem like The Steward has a lot of power they are limited by requiring all of the council members permission to access certain systems or give out certain tasks and they are monitored more than other citizens. This check prevents one person from tampering with the core of their society.

#### The Whispering Emissaries

The Whispering Emissaries are the government's covert interstellar intelligence agency. They are sent to infiltrate other planets and keep apprised on the current state of affairs without revealing their origin or agenda. All their intel is sent back to The Council through a well protected and encrypted line of communication that only The Chancellor can decipher. Intel ranges from knowing the general state of the world to infiltrating an organization to know their next move or to steal technology. All emissaries are incredibly loyal to their people and if caught will attempt to commit suicide to protect them from backlash. The selection process for an emissary is unknown to all, even The Council, and its criteria has been untouched since it was created by their founder years ago. This system has been particularly effective in finding incredibly loyal citizens to serve.

### Dues

The concept of currency is foreign to most people of Ascher. This is because the people of Ascher are not paid for their work, they are given an ample package of living allowances known as Dues. These can be redeemed for a set amount of food, clothing, services, medication, housing, and other life essentials. The amount of Dues given is based on age, gender, and how many dependents a person is responsible for. A complete package of Dues are only given to people in good standing with society. To be in good standing a citizen must work satisfactorily, obey laws, and take care of their dependents if they have any. If they do not stay in good standing Dues will be reduced based on the severity of the violation. This reduction will stay until they regain their good standing.

There are incentives for maintaining a good standing for a long period of time. These incentives are called Treats. Treats are basically additional Dues that can be used on anything. Treats have a short expiration date and encourage to be used quickly. Dues, and by extension Treats, cannot be given to anyone else unless an extreme case occurs like an extreme illness or injury occurs and the afflicted person has already spent all their Dues. In theses rates occasions a small amount of Dues can be loaned to the afflicted person. Treats however cannot ever be given away.

### Link

All citizens are given a highly sophisticated RFID tattoo on the back of their left hand (if possible) shortly after their birth. These RFID tattoos are commonly referred to as their Link. The Link only stores general information, physical state, and location history. Links are updated whenever a citizen passes through certain sensors in the city or when entering their home. At these sensors The Chancellor will record all the information and update the Link with new information. Scans are also done whenever Dues are being used to purchase supplies and by local law enforcement on suspects. If for whatever reason someone lost their Link another will be installed in the same location or anywhere possible on the left hand or arm and only resorting to the right arm if absolutely necessary. In extreme cases that neither of these locations are possible a determination by The Council will have to be made on the new location.

Ever since the Links were implemented tattoo designs have become popular. Some people were not happy or maybe inspired with a dot on the back of their left hand and wanted to personalize themselves. It is common to see hand tattoos of intricate and abstract designs centered around the Link dot. The more bold have even lengthen their tattoos to their entire left arm, but never past the shoulder. Tattoos anywhere away from the left hand and arm are seen as forbidden and repulsive to have. This is due to a long held belief that tattoos that long give the astigmatism of a person being wasteful and gluttonous. Both aspects that are considered major taboo in society.

#### UnLinked

Ascher society is not open to great changes to their government. The Council believes that if their system of government is “corrupted” by any other form it will collapse. To dissuade people from promoting anything that can “harm” society they exile any who promote alternative political views. But this exile is not out of the system Ascher, but in fact to the planet's surface. The exiled would be removed from society and branded as UnLinked. The surface is a harsh burning environment with scarce resources and vents that emit toxic gases. The UnLinked were forced to fend for themselves without help. For some time exile was thought to be the same as being put to death, but as they would later find out some found a way to survive on the surface.

The first few UnLinked definitely did not survive for long on their own, but then The Council made a mistake. They exiled an entire group attempting to promote capitalism in the city. In exile this group worked together to find a way of living on the surface and start a small settlement on it. The conditions were still difficult, but they were able to survive and gain a foothold in this harsh world. As more people get exiled over the years this group, now referring themselves as The UnLinked, would recruit them into their settlement. Overtime they would make their own structure of rules and become large enough to expand their settlement into a town known as The Town of Broken Chains.

The UnLinked operate on a barter system with those having more resources having more power. Resources were more valuable the harder they are to obtain. Some of the common resources are Crimson Beans, Ascher Peppers, and Steam Okra since they can be constantly farmed. Other resources have to be gathered away from the town and are valued more like Lava Berries, Molten Karp, and Sun Dragons. The more resource value you have the more you can trade for other goods or services. These resources have not only been beneficial within the town, but also with smugglers attempting to trade with them for their exotic resources. These outside trades are almost always for technology used to get an advantage on competition or for comfort.

Recently the newly exiled are not instantly added to the town. Out of paranoia from a past incident, The UnLinked want to make sure that potential recruits will not be a danger their town and more importantly not a Whispering Emissary sent to spy on them.  Recruits would be brought to the center of town and their life story is narrated. The townsfolk then scrutinize and give their opinion on whether or not they should be allowed and the recruit then states their defense. A vote is then held and if the majority approve of their recruitment they are then added into the town. If not they are sent to a prison for however long as the town deems necessary. In an effort to undermine The Council's The UnLinked started to broadcast their philosophies to the lunar cities in an attempt to influence their way of living and recruit more to their cause.

## Locations

### Ristli Summalin City

Risti Sumalin City is the largest city and the capital city of Ascher. This is where the Grail resides, The Council convienes, The Chancellor core resides, and where the bulk of the population lives. The city is entirely constructed out of the colonization blueprints that the Grail can produce. Colonization components are incredibly durable, easy to produce and easy to construct with most pieces locking together. Due to this, the entire city has a uniform look to it down to each apartment and store being the exact same configuration. Despite this the locals can tell when each part of the city was built. The Council expanded the city by creating a new ring from the last expansion. Each expansion is about the same width, configuration, and the same district location, but has a unique tint. Using this they can know when this ring was produced by its tint and also help with directions and removes a bit of the blandness of the city. The main method of transportation in the city are public busses that either cross between the rings or run along the ring. This allows any citizen to get to where they need to with little confusion or delay.

The center of Risti Sumalin City is The Council Hall. This tall square chrome building is the largest and oldest building in the city. It houses the Grail in its lower levels, The Council meeting room at the mid level, and The Chancellor’s core in the high levels. The building is also integrated with the city's transportation grid to allow for quick and secure transport of Grail produced products to their needed facilities. Security measure for this building are extreme with many checkpoints, guards, and surveillance actively alert for threats at all times. People only have access to the parts of the building required to perform their job. Not even The Council members can enter all sections of the building and are generally limited to the mid floors. There are even rooms no one has access to that has been speculated to belong to a profession that is no longer needed, but some have speculated that this room was sealed off by design.

Almost exactly the opposite side of the moon from the city center is Ascher’s prime spaceport. This spaceport is capable of reasonably harboring all ships types and even some unknown ship types. The spaceport is made of colonization blocks similar to the rest of the city and would be very foreign to most people across the sector as it has absolutely no hint of modern House Fornax design. The spaceport even operates in an entirely unique way by using tractor beam anchors to guide and hold ship. While this unique spaceport exists it is mostly just used to ship cargo and people between the moons.

### Clytine City

Clytine City is the second largest city of Ascher located on the smaller moon of the same name. This city is also the newest city to come into existence being about 200 years old. Despite being a separate city it is governed by The Council on Risti Sumalin and has the same base laws. The one major difference is that Clytine City has a Mayor. This Mayor is appointed their position by The Chancellor and is tasked with imposing The Council laws in their absence. This position is required because Clytine moon orbits around Ascher much more slowly than Risti Sumalin moon. This makes sending materials and enforcing more difficult at certain times. The Mayor is to make sure the order is kept at all times, but especially when the cities are furthest.

Clytine City has an entirely different structure compared to Risti Sumalin City. The entire base of the city was constructed on the moon’s surface. Clytine being much smaller this surface is only a third of the size of Risti Sumalin City. Due to this Clytine cannot expand as Risti Sumalin does, but instead it rises. Whenever more space is needed the existing buildings are then given a new section on top effectively giving the city a new level. This is possible due to the modular design of the colony sections produced by the Grail. This makes Clytine City a very vertical city with each layer having their own spin on the culture on each layer.

The culture of Clytine City is distinct from Risti Sumalin City’s rigid conservative culture. Despite all citizens having some form heritage from Risti Sumalin they citizens of Clytine tend to be more liberal with their views. They are more likely to to question laws enforced by The Council and request modifications tailored to Clytine specifically. The Council rarely makes such concessions which has lead to civil unrest among many citizens. This liberal culture and civil unrest has also attributed to a large among of graffiti all over the city as a form of protest. Some have even have graffiti like tattoos on their arms. Although graffiti is highly illegal The Mayor has not handed out many harsh punishments in an attempt to avoid more civil unrest despite The Council’s recommendations for exile. Clytine City is currently at a tipping point as the unrest rises and The Council are unsatisfied with The Mayor’s handling of the situation.

## The Lonely Grail

This minor Grail came to Ascher with the first colonizers and was intended to assist with the establishment of an outpost to facilitate the terraforming equipment that was to arrive later on, but then The Scream isolated the colony. Miraculously the Grail remained functional and the colonists used it to make their outpost into a settlement and eventually a great city. The Grail is still in use to this day providing all the basic needs of its citizens with little effort.

Nobody alive today knows how The Grail does what it does, but they do know how to operate it. This minor Grail requires a supply of heavy gases to manufacture new materials. After the initial supply of inert gas exhausted they started directly mining them from the nearby gas giants. As the population grew so did the gas supply required to sustain the city. Due to this, gas mining and transport to the planet are a critical aspect in maintaining an uninterrupted operation of The Grail.

From the gas this Grail can produce any basic material required for survival ranging from food to fabric and even rare metals.The requirements are higher when it is used to manufacture complex parts. Any product with higher complexity than everyday items can only be produced if a grail blueprint is provided. The people of Ascher only have a few intact blueprints meant for colonization at their disposal. Creation of new blueprints has been unsuccessful due to the inability to decipher existing blueprints. A few examples of these blueprints are simple exploration vehicles, reinforced habitat paneling, tools, fruit, basic medicine, and much more. There is a blueprint to produce another Grail available, but when entered the Grail requests an unknown material that has yet to be identified. Ascher researchers have tried for centuries to unlock the secrets of the Grail, but with little success and people of Ascher are too protective of their Grail to allow outsiders near it, let alone assist. Beside this it is evident that whoever designed this Grail did not want their design tampered with and instilled many safeguards to prevent anyone from doing so.

#### The Cult of the Grail

The Cult of the Grail is a clandestine group that sympathizes with and worships Ascher’s Grail. They believe that The Grail is actually some form of advanced creature that has the capability of producing anything and that The Council imprisoned the Grail so that they can use it for their own personal gains. The Cult’s main goal is to free the Grail so that it can produce whatever it wants and lead all the followers into a new golden age. A task that has proven to be difficult with the omnipresent eye of The Chancellor forcing the cult into finding creative ways of hiding from its gaze. Due to this the cult sees The Chancellor, and by extension The Steward as the biggest obstacles to liberating the Grail. When the cult attacks are almost entirely through splicing into systems to disrupt or destroy aspects of The Chancellor. They have not been successful so far, but each attack gives them more information for the next attack.

The Cult of the Grail have very few members and the process of joining their ranks takes years due to their paranoia. To become a member an individual must display a useful set of skills in the field and be truly devoted to the cause. Potential members are assigned missions to assist the group. If they proved valuable they are continually given more missions until they reach the point where they must make a display of their devotion to the cult. This display is normally, but not limited to the self amputation of the hand that contains their Link and self installation of a new cybernetic entirely Grail produced hand. This new hand is their symbol of being part of the grail and will mimic their old Link, but with new cult features. If a potential member failed the display of devotion or does not prove useful to the group they are disappeared never to be seen again.

The base of operation for The Cult of the Grail is located under Clytine City and is called The Cathedral of the Holy Grail. This “Cathedral” should not exist, but somehow it does making it the perfect location to hide from The Chancellor and work on their next projects. The latest project the cult has been working is crafting a rival to The Chancellor. The cult surmised that The Chancellor was no ordinary VI, but one as old as the Grail making it pre-tech and the only way to defeat it is to craft their own pre-tech weapon against it. They call this rival The Commoner and while its is still under development it has already proven to be a potent tool in combating The Chancellor. The cult are currently attempting to acquire more pre-tech to finish The Commoner and free the Grail.

## Gas Problems and the Trilliant Solution

Risti Sumalin and Clytine City are heavily reliant on the Grail production and as the citizens of each city increased more and more production had to be outputted to maintain the population. Increasing the production of the Grail itself is easy and it has yet to reach max production speed to this day. The real problem lies with the gas used for production. Gas mining production has always been tied to the population size. As it got better the population increased as more resources were allocated to the citizens, but gas mining is not an easy job and is one of the highest risk professions in this society. During times where gas mining production were low or stagnant The Council lowered the amount of Dues in some cases, but in others they would instill a child limit policy limited couples to one child for the duration of the drought. Penalties violating this policy varied from forced adoption to exile. The solution The Council found was to hire synths to do the mining. These specialized gas mining synths were able to double the production and minimize risk. This lead to a boom of resources and population worries were alleviated for a time.

When the War Against the Artificials arrived The Council fearing the synths would rebel against them eliminated them by sending their living quarters into the Pavvis star. Gas mining would resume shortly after, but not nearly as abundant. This became a big problem because the population grew tremendously over the years and they needed more production to just maintain the populace. On top of that is they proposed any cuts to Dues or a child limit policy that it would be the tipping point for a revolt on Clytine City. The Council was at an impasse of maintaining resources or control until The Trilliant Ring arrived with a solution to their gas problem.

The solution was to give the Council the Marquise gas mine that was recently recovered, deal with factions that threaten their stability, and to make the Grail more efficient, but with major concessions. These concessions were a new Council position called The Comptroller that would be appointed by The Trilliant Ring that would have the power of making all commerce decisions for all of Ascher, another new position called The Conductor who will work with The Steward in upgrading The Chancellor, and control of the Grail research center. Lastly the planet would need to be renamed to Ascher to match the others of The Expanse. The Council with very few other options reluctantly agreed to the offer.

In a few months The Trilliant Ring fulfilled their end of the deal. Gas production is high due to the new gas mine, one of the leaders of The Cult of Grail was apprehended thanks to the improved Chancellor, and a mutually beneficial trade deal was made with The Unlinked and The Trilliant Ring ending their feud with The Council. Other changes that occured is the end of the closed door policy allowing limited travel and trade to the lunar cities along with new Trilliant products being offered to the citizens. Despite these changes Ascher remains a communistic civilization with the core government intact with Trilliant Ring oversight.

## Planet Tags

### CyberCommunists

On this world communism actually works, thanks to pretech computing devices and greater or lesser amounts of psychic precognition. Central planning nodes direct all production and employment on the world. Citizens in good standing have access to ample amounts of material goods for all needs and many wants. Instead of strife over wealth, conflicts erupt over political controls, cultural precepts, or control over the planning nodes. Many cybercommunist worlds show a considerable bias toward the private interests of those who run the planning nodes.

Enemies:

* Embittered rebel against perceived unfairness
* Offworlder saboteur
* Aspiring stalin-figure

Friends:

* Idealistic planning node tech
* Cynical anti-corruption cop
* Precognitive economist

Complications:

* The pretech planning computers are breaking down
* The planning only works because the locals have been mentally or physically altered
* The planning computers can't handle the increasing population within the system

Things:

* Planning node computer
* Wildly destabilizing commodity that can't be factored into plans
* A tremendous store of valuables made by accident

Places:

* Humming factory
* Apartment block of perfectly equal flats
* Mass demonstration of unity

### Post-Scarcity

The locals have maintained sufficient Mandate-era tech to be effectively post-scarcity in their economic structure. Everyone has all the necessities and most of the desires they can imagine. Conflict now exists over the apportionment of services and terrestrial space, since anything else can be had in abundance. Military goods and items of mass destruction may still be restricted, and there is probably some reason that the locals do not export their vast wealth.

Enemies:

* Frenzied ideologue fighting over an idea
* Paranoid local fearing offworlder influence
* Grim reformer seeking the destruction of the "enfeebling" productive tech

Friends:

* Offworlder seeking something available only here
* Local struggling to maintain the production tech
* Native missionary seeking to bring abundance to other worlds

Complications:

* The tech causes serious side-effects on those who take advantage of it
* The tech is breaking down
* The population is growing too large
* The tech produces only certain things in abundance

Things:

* A cornucopia device
* A rare commodity that cannot be duplicated
* Contract for services

Places:

* Tiny but richly-appointed private quarters
* Market for services
* Hushed non-duped art salon

## System

### Gas Giant Mines

Crater Project

**Occupation:** Scrappers in the ruined old mine

**Situation:** Pirates secretly fuel there

Wahoo Mine Project

**Occupation:** Scientists studying the alien life

**Situation:** Alien remnants were found

### Moon

Clytine

Risti Sumalin

Coimbra Research Base

**Occupation:** Black-ops governmental researchers

**Situation:** Held hostage by outsiders

### Orbital Ruin

Bianchini 6

**Occupation:** Government researchers

**Situation:** Impending tech calamity