SOL-IV ASSIMILATION PLAN

During 12 A.L, a notorious intranet leak made the rounds from an small café within Vance, later spreading out to Kytheria, Free Russochina, Zaibol and the UTCE through Vance's liftport. Disseminating worldwide, curiosity only faded when multiple officials from the UTCE later announced that the entire thing was a fabrication of *'exhaustive, if imprecise'* details, and multiple governments denied that the report ever held a realistic basis.

Although copies of the report have sold for considerable sums, they are mostly regarded as a curious relic of entertainment instead of historical basis, and although the Urban Defense Department mounted several campaigns (likely as the the result of certain internal interests) to verify the contents of the report, all nations queried refused to open their private archives, resulting in brief public condemnation and a small power struggle between the UDD and Lambda Seat.

Rubin Locke is considered the prime suspect as the 'whisleblower', even by actual historians, most of whom have written extensive opinion pieces that claim instead of steering public attention toward a supposed 'Martian Colony', it was intended to draw positive public sentiment towards the newly-created Reclamation Authority and usher public opinion towards the violent dismantlement of the Transhuman Underground.

**Aaron Leonard** is featured heavily in the report, which again draws historical ire, as he was declared dead in 2017 as the direct result of a dropship crash. Heavy reliance on dead figures and missing documents is one such reason that decades later, it remains only seriously considered by transcendent fascists and conspiracy theorists.

## Outline

Supposedly, Mars was the joint-venture of City 17 (Kyiv), City 8 (Tokyo) and featured heavy assistance from City 492 (Brisbane), with the key aim of formulating a colony on elsewhere in the Sol System for three key aims:

* Permanent habitation of certain key personnel, even in the worst-case scenario of full planetary destruction, starvation or annihilation.
* Permanent storage of sensitive Union documentation, assets, materials and budgetary records.
* Permanent isolation of classified research, development and institutional manpower to ensure absolute secrecy.

Tangeshima Island provided a waypoint between another off-world colony ("Xen") and the Martian Colony, using a tri-purpose teleporter network to beam supplies from Earth, to "Xen", to Mars, and vice-versa. Supplies would be shipped to Tangeshima through City 8's extensive dockyard facilities, with resources gathered from all over the world. The initial Colony was finished in late 2017, and operational in 2019. Aaron Leonard, Rubin Locke and a cabal of twelve high-ranking Union officials were the founders, with Locke providing both the security and architectural achievements, while Leonard handled the vast majority of scientific achievements.

Funding for purchased materials was leeched from several cities through undisclosed connections, among them corrupt Civil Workers pocketing aerospace budgets and private interests specifically created to foster representation of the hidden Martian influence on Earth. High-ranking officials within Union Laboratories allegedly cloned several databases, transferring copies of their contents towards the Colony out of ideological good-will, bribes or plain cronyism, as did several Office of State Intelligence leaders, thus (allegedly) ensuring Mars never befell the same state as most cities, filled with insurgent spies and anarchist elements. Even among the prestigious cream of the elite, being transferred to Mars was a sign of utter luxury and confidentiality, as none ever returned to Earth. Or so the rumors go.

Eventually, SOL-IV would out-wait the inevitable mass-transformation of Earth's populace into early generation transhumans, and bask in the luxury offered by the colony while their foreign brethren would be sent as pawns to fight the Union's other dimensional wars. If a mass-uprising occurred, they would simply watch from the sidelines, incite occasional instability and ultimately starve the rebellion out.

Supposedly, when the initial signs of the Liberation occurred, Mars immediately severed all it's remaining connections with Earth-bound officials and operatives, leaving them in the dark and easy picking for post-Union states. Many of those featured in the report were found murdered by their own transhuman guard detail, or executed by street partisans long before they could talk. Rubin Locke was reported, *according to the theories*, to be the last remaining link to Mars outside the planet, and (likely) why he leaked the document and enacted a one-man crusade against the planet, *if you believe those wacky theories*.

Of course, no government does, at least officially. The records remain sealed, and fifty years later there have been no further releases of information from the archives. The Assimilation Plan remains regarded as a hoax by virtually all official channels, historians, and most of public opinion. Those who think otherwise normally end up warned by the state (Free Russochina), imprisoned for creating dissent (UTCE, Zaibol) or exiled to the outer fringes (East Lambda). Although Kytheria officially does not consider the report to hold substance, it is held in high regard by brief pockets of the limited populace, even as a 'what-if' piece.