Commonwealth of Aschere

The Aschere Commonwealth (officially the Commonwealth of Aschere) is an advanced stellar nation encompassing the planet Isus and numerous smaller bodies in the Seirios system. It is the oldest independent extrasolar nation, founded in 2178.

## Flag and Etymology

The name *Aschere* is an ancient Kermanic name for the star Seirios, the brightest star in Kerbin's night sky. It is believed that this name originated from the Karabic *al-shira*, meaning "leader", which evolved into the Kermanic name. The individual elements *Æsc* (meaning "ash") and *here* (meaning "army") have also been attributed new meaning, in reference to the stellar remnant (or "ashes") of Seirios B, leading to the colloquial name of "Ash Army".

The flag of the Commonwealth resembles the twin worlds of Isus and Apophis, with the stars Seirios A and B in the background.

## History

The Commonwealth traces its origins as a terraforming expedition.  Around the mid-22nd century, the Kazagol Energy Institute was pursuing muon-catalysed nucleosynthesis, and selected the planet Isus as a strong terraforming candidate for the development of this technology. Due to the impracticality of interstellar governance at the time, the planet was not considered a colonial state in the traditional sense, but rather a coordinated scientific and terraforming expedition of public and private enterprise.

The Institute intended to produce deuterium and helium3 cheaply - the expensive fusion fuels of the time - by fusing hydrogen in a muon-catalysed fusion reactor.  Such a reactor would provide a valuable export for the developing planet and provide large amounts of energy for terraforming efforts. By 2193, the project was beyond successful. Gargantuan, floating reactors were built across Isus' oceans; each one fusing hydrogen to deuterium and helium3 - and generating enormous volumes of heat and electrical power on the side.  This heat was used to split water via the sulfur-iodine cycle, providing yet more hydrogen fuel, and releasing oxygen to the atmosphere.  This simultaneously cooled the reactors, and thus began the exponential growth of the largest and most profitable power plants in history.

As the world grew larger, the cities expanded.  Buildings reached higher, and roads stretched longer.  And yet, the world grew smaller, with businesses, tech companies and manufacturers flocking to the rapidly congesting planet. Seeing that the planet had far outpaced its initial goals, the federation of Isus was achieved in 2178, after decades of planning, constitutional conventions and referendums, which established the Commonwealth of Aschere as a nation and entered into force the Ascherean Constitution.

By the 2300s, the rising oxygen levels made the atmosphere breathable, and the near-limitless availability of energy spawned an antimatter industry.  Continent-sized particle accelerators spanned the equator, and great orbital collectors harvested antiprotons from radiation belts of the system.  The creation of the first industrial-scale antiproton-initiated fission plants soon followed, where heavy elements underwent controlled fission upon being bombarded with antiprotons.  This technique allowed fissioning nuclei that are normally non-fissile, such as Lead, and created valuable elements and nuclides that as-yet have not been synthesized via any other method.  The ability to synthesize elements as rare as Rhodium with materials as cheap as Lead rapidly re-revolutionized industry yet again. Aschere reached Kardashev 1.0 on July 11th, 2405, after an expansion of the Alrai Transmitting Nucleosynthesis Station in the northern hemisphere of Isus.

## Economy

Aschere's high-income mixed-market economy is rich in knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to advancement in technical and scientific innovation. There is less reliance on physical input and natural resources, and there is a high level of competitiveness and economic freedom.

### Energy and Nucleosynthesis

The energy and nucleosynthesis sector occupy a major share of Aschere's economy, with a vast majority of the nation's energy both produced and consumed in nucleosynthesis facilities. In 2442, Aschere consumed an average of 22.5 petawatts, ranking it at Kardashev 1.04. The nation's primary energy source is aneutronic muon-catalyzed fusion (>99%), which allows for cold reactions normally too slow or hot for traditional fusion reactors.

Approximately half of Ashere's muon-catalyzed fusion reactors are light nucleosynthesis reactors (LNRs) and are run in a staggered p-p chain. Almost all of the hot fusion fuel used across Sector 7 is produced on Isus in this fashion. Much of the remaining reactors on Isus operate on the CNO cycle, which is focused on pure power generation. The remaining minority function as heavy nucleosynthesis reactors (HNRs), operating based on the alpha process, p-process, or γ-process, which typically consume net energy to synthesize valuable heavier elements.

A significant amount of nucleosynthesis is carried out by the antimatter industry via antiproton-initiated fission. The enormous neutron flux within such reactors is used to synthesize superheavy and ultraheavy elements via the s-process and r-process.

## Demographics

### Education

School attendance, or registration for home schooling, is compulsory throughout Aschere. Education is the responsibility of the individual states and territories, but in general children are required to attend school from the age of about 5 until 17. Children aged 17-18 are required to either attend school, or participate in vocational training, such as an apprenticeship. There is a state-funded system of vocational training, known as TAFE (Tertiary and Further Education), and many trades conduct apprenticeships for training new tradespeople.

University-level education is globalized and receives significant industry funding. An individual course is usually taught online via pre-recorded lectures, and students have the ability to find the lecturers whose style they prefer. Oftentimes, classroom software can recognize when a student is confused or distracted, and either restructure the presentation to elaborate on a particular topic or bring up a lecture with a different presentation style. Since these recordings are not live, students communicate with their professors virtually. Assistance is available all day, every day, since thousands of professors across Isus nominally teach any given course, and study groups for doing homework are likewise spread across the planet. Questions and progress monitors are injected into coursework from time to time, giving the ability to assess, with solid accuracy, how knowledgeable an individual student is at any given time on a subject, which sets the pace of the course. Therefore, a class is only finished when a student demonstrates proficiency, whether that takes a week, or a year.

Paying a couple dozen professors to prepare an instructional segment on a topic everyone around the planet can pick and choose from is a lot more time and cost effective than paying one professor to stand in a room repeating the same lecture every semester, to students that may not be receptive to his presentation style. The performance and cost-effectiveness of the Asherean higher-education system attracts millions of international students every year, with Aschere having the largest number of international students in Sector 7 by a wide margin. International education therefore represents one of the country's largest exports and has a pronounced influence on the country's demographics, with a significant proportion of international students remaining in Aschere after graduation on various skill and employment visas.