Primer: DEFROST.exe

#### Author's note:

> [The Primer is necessarily written from the perspective of a soulless corporation trying to acclimate an unmodified human to a very different world. The viewpoints espoused below are not objective.]
>
>

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{(1) new notification}

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{Update from MICRONET received. Pushing update...}

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{Pushing patch "thaw.exe".}

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{
Checking customer status...
  "customerAccount": "OK",
  "customerHealth": "OK",
  "podHealth": "DAMAGED",
  "primerStatus": "READY",
}

```

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{Loaded "Primer 11-3-90.pdf" to RAM. Ready for customer distribution.}

```

Valued customer, it is time to wake up. Move slowly as you exit your long term cryogenic storage pod. All cryoxin has been pumped from your body and approximations of natural fluids have been reintroduced, including but not limited to: blood, stomach acid solution, pleghm (with dust particles placed into suspension, sourced from our nearest moon), pleural fluid, peritoneal fluid, sinovial fluid, etc. Your account has been automatically charged for the volume and installation of these fluids - no need to worry about it.

Find a place to sit, as the following information has been found to trouble some {65%} of customers upon exiting cryogenic sleep.

Are you sitting?

Good.

#### The year is {2590}. You have been asleep for {545} years.

Once you have processed this information emotionally, press the green button on the table in your decompression room. An approximation of food appropriate to your culture and time period will be vended through the slot. A warm beverage has also been provided - while this has no physical effect on recovery, its psychosomatic effect cannot be understated.

You may have many questions. In this document we have prepared a list of questions commonly leveled at us by recent defrostees, and a response appropriate for each of them.

### A short primer

The Solar System you fell asleep in is still the one you woke up in. You are in the care of Microcryotronics LTD., INC., on the space station MCT Starlounge orbiting Jupiter's smallest moon, Europa. Gravity is being provided by way of centripetal force. You are on the outer disc of the station, designed to rotate at a speed approximating slightly less than Earth's gravity (0.95 G).

Humanity has officially spread as far as Neptune, though colony ships have been traveling away from the core of the Solar System for decades, with the intention of reaching the star system Alpha Centauri and reporting back. Our "Inner Bodies", as they are so often called, carry the most life, totaling over 20 billion between Venus, Earth, and Mars.

However, humans did not spread so far on their own. Soon after you went to sleep, genetic engineering led to the development of the Awakened, who have been by our side every step of the way. The Awakened take the shape of animal species you might be familiar with, though notably, there are no primate Awakened.

#### What are the Awakened?

Hybridized animals with human DNA, able to stand on digitigrade legs. The latter generations are roughly as intelligent as the average human, and while almost all can speak, read, and write what we now call Solar Standard, the major species have their own languages. If you can name a non-primate, it likely has an Awakened counterpart.

Awakened are massive compared to their progenitor species. Even Awakened mice from Callisto are at least half a meter tall in adulthood, with the largest being two meters tall. Larger still are Awakened canids and felids, native to many worlds. The biggest Awakened species most commonly seen is native to Europa - the crocodile. Nile crocodiles are two to three meters tall, between 100 and 1500 kilograms, and the average African elephant, also from Europa, averages four meters in height and weighs several metric tons. They were first made to involuntarily assist in the terraforming of new worlds, and are generally separated into three generations of development:

1. Generation 0: Semi-intelligent massive insectoids first engineered in 2048. These later were culled, or in the case of the earliest terraforming of the Jovian moons, evolved to be intelligent and dangerous all on their own. Often standing two and a half meters and weighing over 600 kilograms, these creatures are called by the region they're from and the species they were derived from, despite sharing little in similarity beyond their eusocial behavior.
2. Generation 1: Fully intelligent (and notably smaller) insectoids, and the first reptiles, engineered in 2100. These put the effort to colonize the Jovian system into full swing. Insectoid, reptilian and amphibian stock today is still derived from the early modification of Generation 1, and genetic defects regarding hormonal balance are not uncommon. They are considered medically treatable and are generally of little concern.
3. Generation 2: Fully intelligent animals of nearly every other type, from birds to canines to rodents to sharks, engineered in 2254. Hormonal issues with Gen 1 mostly smoothed over. Generation 2 Awakened are the most numerous and versatile. A new species, the Scuttlers, derived from updated reptilian stock, also finds their home on many space stations as engineers.

Other new hybrids include the Uplifted, intelligent speaking animals that look and move like their original, and the Shengxiao, a small Chinese government program that occasionally produces humans with some animal hybrid parts, such as tails, ears, and modified limbs. Wild populations of Uplifted can be found on Titan, where they live semi-tribal lives in and around the itinerant cities.

#### Did we find aliens?

Yes and no. Mostly no. The intelligent, flying-saucer-piloting little green men humans dreamed of do not exist, as far as we are aware. Not in our system or the surrounding ones. Instead, we have found squidlike beings underneath the ice on Europa, which display some sort of latent psychic ability. They are available as a meal if you'd like to try some, alive or fried. It's similar to calamari.

Humans have gone so far and are now so different, along with the existence of the Awakened and Uplifted, that the average person might consider them identical to aliens. However, this couldn't be further from the truth - they're only your new neighbors!

#### How do people get around space?

Subphotonic travel, or space travel at a speed greater than 1% the speed of light, is the new normal to get between worlds. Our fastest vessels can travel at 10% the speed of light, and get you from Earth to Mars in 30 minutes. Earth to Jupiter in 9 hours. This isn't the average jetliner flight you might remember - to travel so fast, you need to strap yourself into a body-encompassing voidsuit and climb into a subphotonic isolation chamber, or SIC. Gelatin fills the chamber and reduces the pressure placed on your body to a reasonable level. For this reason, vessels are on autopilot in subphotonic. Upon exiting a SIC for your first dozen or so flights, you may experience an array of symptoms, including but not limited to:

* shortness of breath.
* headache.
* lightheadedness.
* loss of appetite.
* trouble sleeping or sleepiness.
* dizziness.
* nausea.
* vomiting.
* lack of energy.

Please be aware that these symptoms are to be expected of a first-time subphotonic traveler, and carry anti-pressure sickness medication if you find these symptoms debilitating.

#### Who are the major players?

Most of the countries and political structures you remember do not exist anymore. After humanity hit peak oil, many things changed. Today, most power in the Solar System is divided between the Inner Bodies and Outer Bodies, separated by the Asteroid Belt. Instead of oil, hydrogen and helium energy dictates who has power in the System. Secondly, labor unions developed much more power following the fall of oil, and now with government and corporate entities like our own, form a three way balance of power.

##### Governments

* **United Syndicalist States:** The rise of unions brought with it a new American continent. Spread across much of both Americas, the USS is the name for a collection of syndicated governments with a similar mindset regarding free association and collective defense. As such, it functions much like a confederation, with its central structure limited to calling up national defense from regional militias, and calling meetings in their capital city of Denver.
* **European Union:** The EU was the backbone of Europe for decades when you went under, and remains much of the same today. It boasts a robust economy, each member nation providing its own piece to the European puzzle. It is still a looser alliance than the USS, with member countries having separate militaries under one joining code of laws and ethics.
* **West African Union:** A Nigerian-led coalition of resource-rich African nations. It emphasizes industrialism and progress, and in the post-scarcity world, this is easy to achieve.
* **People's Republic of China:** The PRC retains its name, but has changed a lot. It citizens boast more liberties than you might remember, and they can be found throughout space, being the most numerous at nearly 5 billion.
* **League of Lunar Arcologies:** The first wave of ultra-rich fled to Luna to escape an Earth that was slowly bettering itself and outmoding the need for their class at all. Many execs that base their business on Earth live on Luna today.
* **Spacers' Association:** The term "spacer" has become somewhat of a generic trademark in recent years, but *the* Spacers resent that. The Spacers are an organization of ultra-rich aristocrats that spend 90% of their years in the void, on ships and stations far above terra firma. They have a deep resentment for ground-born individuals, Awakened especially. Spacers are sent to the surface as children to develop their bones and organs properly, but besides that, they stay in the sky, letting robots serve them.
* **Confederation of Mars:** A smattering of very different nations all across Mars. Their differences provoke civil wars somewhat often, but they are united in their greater disdain for Spacers and Venusians.
* **Cytherean Paradise:** The other concentration of plutocrats in the Solar System, on Venus. A hot, super-tropical world is perfect for the hedonistic fantasies of the billionaires here, who frequently have their brains surgically removed and put into whatever cloned creature tickles their fancy. They heavily fetishize Awakened and their bodies.
* **Jovian Union of Governments:** Taking after other confederations, the JUG incorporates three out of four Galilean moons: Io, Europa, and Callisto. With the most fearsome quick-response special forces team in the System, J-SOC, the JUG is considered a military powerhouse in the Outer Bodies. The JUG derives most of its power from its holding of Jovian energy supplies, such as hydrogen and helium-3, and fiercely defends (or pays contractors to defend) them from anyone seeking to illegally gather them.
* **Titanite Council:** A unified meritocratic commission that oversees Titan's itinerant cities, and technically "owns" all of it. It evolved from corporate entities that first colonized Titan, doling out land rights to new cities built as Titan shifts through it seven-year seasons.

##### Unions

* **Security Contractors' Union:** The largest organization of security forces in the System, offering up their services on almost every station and every world. Considered mercenaries by some, the SCU's legions of trained professionals are often preferred over local police because of their impartiality.
* **Jovian Cargo Haulers' League:** A union of teamsters and pilots stretched out around Jupiter. With that planet being the center of energy commerce, the League brings in quite a substantial amount of money.
* **Interstellar Miner's Guild:** Asteroid and gas miners from across the System. Their base of operations is on the largest asteroid we know, Ceres, and they do much of the sanctioned gas-scraping and asteroid-cracking everywhere.
* **Cassini Research Division:** A union of scientists based far away on the cold world of Triton. Much of their research is freely accessed, and they provide a variety of planetary data cheaply.

##### Corporations

* **Microcryotronics LTD, INC.:** That's us! After the merger with Micro Systems in 2299, we have been the major company in charge of freezing customers who are sick, or just want to wake up in another time. As you can see, the process is safe and reliable, with no ill effects! (See Form 389-D for list of long-term effects.)
* **Wegner Heavy Industries:** The largest industrial manufacturer in the System, building ships, robots, cars, weapons - you name it. Wegner, along with its main competitor Tokugawa, have their copyright on almost every piece of hardware in the system.
* **Tokugawa Machine Works:** Originally Japanese, most of Tokugawa's manufacturing is done on Luna, Mars, and Io. They prefer clean lines to Wegner's boxy modular components, which also means their products are rarely user-serviceable. Not to worry - a Tokugawa Tinker Shop can be found in most major cities throughout the system!

That's about all we can tell you while you're just sitting here. Once you've decompressed, take the shuttle (and a few emesis bags) to the surface of Europa and head to the beaches. A few days' stay has been booked as part of your defrosting package. Thanks again for choosing Microcryotronics LTD, INC. - even if you didn't when you went under.