Worldbuilding: Medea system

The world of Gunbunny: Medea, the Hysminai, and modern history.

Medea is the flashpoint of all the events unfolding in the plot of Gunbunny. Located roughly in the center of Core Republic space, Medea is the second charter system in the Core (Amaranth being the first/origin and the capital).

Its climate is temperate and it has no major oceans; its water is held in marshes and a system of large rivers driven by ice melt. The habitable land is mostly grassland plains, scrub desert, and tundra, and the more forested polar regions are made periodically survivable due to Medea’s very long orbit around its sun.

Medean people, believed to be one of the oldest, if not *the* oldest intelligent society in the Core, evolved to be herbivorous and nomadic, taking advantage of the long polar seasons and trekking in north-to-south cycles based on the season. As their society grew more advanced, technology allowed them to settle in place but farming is still semi-nomadic and that, coupled with clans and political differences, cause the concentrations of population, cityscapes, and territorial borders to be tall and narrow.

The climate and soil on Medea is envied as perfect for agriculture by neighboring star systems, and “if you can’t get it to grow on Medea, you’re an imbecile.” Likewise, Medea’s main export (other than cultural nomads who do well as migrant workers) is food and other agricultural byproducts.

Unfortunately, over the past 50 years, a grass blight has been causing crop die-offs on Medea (which has been a cyclical, and manageable, problem for previous generations), and at this point in their history the planet’s massive population  has exhausted its food reserves and there is widespread famine. This has caused a mass exodus of poor and starving Medean refugees to other star systems and put a strain on the conditions of other tightly-populated planets’ food supplies.

The exodus has caused social unrest against the Medeans, and, due to food shortages and issues of where to house and employ the refugees, most other Core systems have put emergency restrictions in place to limit or outright ban the influx of additional Medeans. Once a proud and widely accepted people free to move about the Core Republic for work, life, or pleasure, they are now a broken third-world society with no rights, viewed as beggars, thieves, and gypsies.

Expatriate Medeans are forced to live in ghettos and refugee camps with no rights and no local citizenship. A select few who escaped with riches have managed to work their way into other societies, but for the common Medean, life planetside is grim (but better than starving to death back on Medea). Life in space is roughly the same; racial discrimination allows them low level service jobs but not much else. Life on Medea has stabilized, but the blight remains, the ecosystem cannot handle population growth, and the devastation will take centuries to recover from, if ever.

As if things could not possibly get worse for the Medeans, a new crisis loomed on the horizon. Spread through the galaxy like dandelion seeds, the hibernating solar sail ships of the Hysminai rode the dying breath of their star’s supernova in search of a new homeworld. Guided by the friendly invitation in a long-lost space probe from Amaranth, the largest part of their fleet headed towards the Core Republic, believing they would be met by another intelligent society who could increase their odds of success or possibly welcome them in.

The Hysminai were sorely mistaken. Arriving initially at the Ceta system, the first contact scenario between the core and Hysminai established the tense reality for both sides. The Hysminai were clearly desperate; having ridden across the galaxy on slow ships incapable of FTL or subspace communication, their infrastructure was failing, they had no way of knowing if other fleets had success, and another long voyage would probably exterminate them. Their pleas fell on deaf ears, however, and the Core made it clear that contrary to the message in their probe, things had changed and they were unwelcome.

Back on Amaranth, the main points of discussion were whether to help them on their way with FTL technology, arm up for invasion, or immediately strike and exterminate them.

Meanwhile, the Hysminai split up their fleet, many sailing off for other systems in the Core; most remained in orbit around Medea, but their ailing flagship which contained the Hysminai Allmother, their ancient queen, made the desperate choice to land and take up residence on the most thinly-populated southern desert of Medea (where Reese is from).

The Core viewed this as a particularly unwelcome invasion but as Medea had no particular strategic or economic value to them, and the Core Republic’s economy was in tatters, they left the Medean Hysminai alone for the time being. “Let them starve, it costs us nothing.” 

That said, they prepared their other systems’ defenses and were fully prepared to meet the Hysminai with hellfire when they arrived in other Core systems years later. The wandering Hysminai fleet, lacking FTL deepspace communication, had no idea what was in store for them and would be ripped to shreds.

On Medea, the Hysminai colonists made a point to be helpful to whatever locals they came in contact with, offering trade and outright charity with what little they had; fortunately they were centuries ahead in biotechnology and medicine, which went over well with the locals, but that was about all that they could offer. They were simply too alien for meaningful trade or integration with the Medeans, and vice versa.

Tensions rose over the ensuing years as more Hysminai landed and came out of hibernation on Medea. Unrest and fighting broke out over territorial disputes in the southern regions. The Hysminai were not “in the way” or causing any negative impact on Medea’s ecosystem (in fact, they had managed to find a cure for the blight, hoping it would be their ticket into acceptance, and began dispersing it with some success), but their presence was increasingly unwelcome and they were convenient targets for the angst that plagued Medean daily life. 

The Core Republican Navy was sent to watch over the situation and keep the peace. Military posturing on both sides slowly and uncomfortably escalated. The healing ecosystem on Medea caused some stir among the scattered refugees and many began to head back in hopes of rebuilding their lives. Things were looking up. But then war broke out on Medea between the Core and the Hysminai. It is unclear who struck first, but the Core Navy was decisively sent home this time…

Characters from Medea:

Aurora Juno (AJ/Gunbunny) was born as an only child (rare for Medeans) in a refugee camp on the Core capital planet Amaranth II, during the height of the Medean exodus. She was uniquely gifted with zero-point abilities and saw the Core Navy’s open offer for citizenship in exchange for service as an opportunity not only to benefit herself and her parents, but to increase the acceptance of her people by the surrounding cultures.

She is not the only person with zero-point abilities; there are many others like her, from many other races. The incidence of zero-point in Medeans, though, tends to be higher than other groups.

Due to her powers, AJ was immediately accepted into the draft and trained in forcefield shield and thrust mechanics, field containment, and warp engineering. She showed no aptitude as a pilot, a source of humorous jabs by her friends.

Reese was the daughter of a caudillo (informal clan/regional political leader) who ran Medis Notios, the southernmost region of Medea. She dealt directly with the Hysminai ranks conducting trade for her family, so she understands fairly well how their society works and thinks. 

When violent skirmishes began to be the norm, her hometown was evacuated and, separated from her family, she stowed away on a ship bound for Amaranth. On arrival, she lied about her age in order to join the Core Navy for revenge, adding her knowledge about the workings of the Hysminai as extra leverage.

Reese had extremely limited zero-point abilities but not enough to warrant further testing or training (“latent but insignificant”), nonetheless she was put in a ZP combat unit and trained as a disposable groundpounder.

Iakobos Fens was from a high-ranking family on Medea; his presence in the Core Navy was tolerated due to political favors but nonetheless he was no slouch on his duties— quite the opposite. He was probably the most decorated and least appreciated Commander in the Core Navy. The ship he was assigned, the Makhaira, was destined for the scrap-heap but he and his crew (also considered the reluctantly-accepted trash of the Navy) whipped it into shape, much to the chagrin of political rivals who would have preferred to see him lose face.

He was then “swept under the rug” on assignment to the Ceta system (“where careers go to die”), an ice planet with an uninhabitable frozen surface and a habitable warm ocean beneath, where the natives live in underwater cities, and the non-natives must make do in freezing underground shelters or isolated bubble habitats deeper down.

He would play a pivotal and important role when the Hysminai arrived at Ceta; he was there for the first contact meeting to assess them, then recalled to Amaranth to report to the Navy on the potential threat. Then he was assigned to train troops about Hysminai technology, dealing with hostile environments, and zero-point tools and tactics. AJ, Reese, and Marie were trainees of his.

At the height of the war, he was sent to negotiate a ceasefire with the Hysminai representatives he met on Ceta, but his ship and crew were never heard from again. 

——-

Shortly thereafter, AJ, Reese, and Marie would be sent on a fateful strike mission to destroy the hive of the Hysminai Allmother. This strike ultimately failed and resulted in the death of Reese, something AJ blames herself for personally. In response, the Hysminai deployed an orbital defense grid which has yet to fail in deterring any incoming or outgoing ships or communications, effectively isolating Medea from the rest of the Core. 

The Navy manages to keep a listening post on one of Medea’s moons, but has not heard a peep in years. The Core’s budget is on a shoestring at this point, and they cannot afford any additional fighting. Telescope reconnaissance shows greening from the cure of the blight, but not much else going on.

The trauma of Reese’s demise eventually led to AJ’s discharge from the Navy (causing a fractured relationship with Marie), her citizenship being denied, and her scrambling to help her parents survive by any means necessary. It was a hard few years and they are impoverished and hungry. By chance, AJ runs into an old Navy friend with similar issues, who found solace in the merchant marine, and he finds her a job working in the warp core of a cruise ship. And so begins the game storyline…