A political space opera roleplay combining elements of geopolitical tension, court intrigue, class warfare, and moral explorations in a post-feudal setting among the stars.
Our Discord is now open! Please join here: https://discord.gg/vZrCcCz
Once you join the Discord, you may post one portrayal reserve in the #buzz-reserves channel. If the portrayal is intended for a noble house, please also indicate the house. We encourage communicating and coordinating with other people who are interested in the same house. We will update the list on Tumblr accordingly.
Some notes:
Noble reserves are not a reserve to claim the house.
Once the site is open, claiming a house is first come, first serve. Whoever submits an application and is accepted first is considered the claimer.
Your reserve will last for one week after site opening.
We accept only living actors, actresses, and agency-signed models as portrayals. We will not accept musicians or other media-related figures (e.g. influencers), no exceptions.
For anyone interested, we’ll be hosting a few writing sprints on our Discord before the site opens on Friday. The first one is scheduled for 8:00 PM EST tonight. Come work on your apps with us!
If you can’t make it tonight, we’re looking for other times to host sprints that are more convenient to people outside of the US and who may work during the evenings. Give us your suggestions and we’ll try to host a sprint that works for you!
When humanity left their motherland of Gaia, capable of stepping foot on other satellites and celestial bodies, the Athenic Standard became the common language. Dialects and vestiges of the old lingua franca still exist, with scattered vocabulary kept as slang or colloquialisms. However, the full forms are less commonly heard, tucked away in the remote pockets of the planetary system.
Despite their faded use, improved technological means have made the comprehension and preservation of different languages fairly trivial. For even more convenience, apparatuses are often outfitted with language receptors that allow for instantaneous translation, those they are very rarely needed in the modern day.
Education
Public education and higher education are centralized by the Consortium, overseen and optimized for the continual betterment of Athena’s citizens.
Public primary and secondary schooling are typically conducted online, aided by holograms and virtual reality.
For the noble and the wealthy, private tutelage and direct instruction are more common, as tradition favors personalized and in-person teaching.
In higher education, the most prestigious universities, Khandava University and Belenus University, are located on Corinth, which are heavily supported by House Sikandar and its sworn minor houses.
Despite the social stratification that keeps each class at arms' length, there is very little to no discrimination regarding one's appearance, gender, or sexual orientation.
Individuals are recognized as equals when entering into a union and this society does not view marriage through a heteronormative lens that restricts who can be married to whom. There are no societal expectations of who should be the “breadwinner” and who should be the “homemaker.” Unions may exist when all parties involved agree to one, but in order to be recognized under Consortium law the union must be registered with the government. There are no customs dictating last name traditions, therefore it is up to the consenting parties to decide themselves (and/or with family and/or with lawyers) whether any changes to their surnames are required.
Read more for further information about sexuality and marriage.
POLYGAMY:
Polygamy was a tactic first used centuries ago in order for noble families to gain and consolidate power and as stronger houses emerged, the practice began to fall out of fashion. Today, it is frowned upon by the more traditional and stronger houses, but can be seen in a few of the minor houses. Similar to history past, the minor houses utilize these polygamous unions to consolidate power by marrying multiple other minor house members or by marrying upper class members and absorbing their business ventures into the minor house. Non-noble members of society also utilize polygamy as a means to strengthen access to resources, making it most commonly seen on the outer planets of Hyperion and Tartarus.
NOBLE AND NON-NOBLE UNIONS:
The exception to being seen as equals is unions between a noble member and a non-noble member. The noble individual will always be viewed with higher stature than the non-noble. Traditionally, the non-noble individual will take the noble individual’s last name. Any hyphenate containing a noble family name and a non-noble family name is viewed as lesser in society and by the Consortium because it is seen as diluting the strength of the house.
In divorces between a noble individual and a non-noble, it is generally agreed upon by noble society that the noble member may keep all assets obtained from the marriage whether or not they originally owned them. Under the law, non-nobles are to split all assets evenly in a divorce.
NOBLE MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE:
When two members of nobility decide to marry, a marriage contract must be drawn up. Marriage lawyers facilitate the union by negotiating these terms, which include which name the family will take (e.g. if a Ladon marries a Sikandar and the Ladon takes on the last name of the Sikandar in the union, traditionally, the Sikandar family must provide something in return for the surname change). For nobility, surnames are seen as tantamount to further strengthening the house, as the children produced from the union (whether biological or adopted) will carry on that name.
In the event that the noble individuals divorce, each member leaves the marriage with the assets that they brought to the marriage and joint assets are divided evenly. In the event that one of the noble members dies, the families are still bound to complete the terms of the marriage contract.
A note on the Sikandar tradition: It is socially acceptable to arrange unions between Sikandar cousins (preferably second cousins or further out). With this practice, the individuals can thus trust the family they are marrying into and use the union to strengthen their house further. While this practice has slowly fallen out of fashion, it is something to note as characters are created for Sikandar-loyal minor houses because they likely followed a similar cultural evolution.
The planet on which an individual is born is a significant marker, an identity to which one is tethered to for life. Many will inquire of an individual’s origin planet, though its conjecture is mostly mundane, as normal as remarking upon the day’s weather. Though answers normally draw from the three main planets—Gaia, Corinth, and Erebus—some may be from Hyperion or Tartarus, though their backgrounds may be less scrupulous and more illicit.
Birth on a moon will be attributed to the planet that the moon belongs to.
All births require a CIN implant, which supplies the individual their Consortium-issued identification number.
One’s planet of birth may not be their planet of permanence. Immigration is a keen possibility, though the sheer cost and multitudinous layers of paperwork are the main deterrents. Transport and shipment of possessions notwithstanding, many individuals have been known to accrue tens of thousands of dollars of debt to immigrate their families.
Naming Conventions and Titles
HOUSE NAMES: Each Major House is coded with several Earth-equivalent cultures, and each Major and Minor House is named after a mythological figure or deity that corresponds with a specific culture. An individual's house name is the same as their surname.
REGIONS: Planetary regions, which are overseen by major and minor houses, do not have specific names. Instead, they are referred to as the region that is overseen by the house, such as Region of Ladon or the Sikandar Region.
HONORIFICS: Nobles are addressed by Lord or Lady. There are no other titles.
I know reserves open tomorrow on the discord but is there as list we can view before then? Some of the canons are already listed as claimed so I was curious if they also already had fcs reserved too.
Yes, you can now view the canons and reserves on the Reserves page.
Do you guys not think that it's a bit tone deaf to have an entire law enforcement page in the middle of the "defund the police" movement? Like I get if it's a dystopia or whatever, but does it need to be a focus?
First, we as the admins want to say that Black lives matter. For anyone reading this ask, donate to your local organizations that are supporting these causes, read about the #8toabolition movement if you have not, and continue to demand justice for Breonna Taylor. Please be safe at rallies and wear your mask.
As far as law enforcement as a focus on Natura, we apologize that you have gotten that impression, but the focus of this fictional roleplay centers on class struggles as a whole. Law enforcement exists in the lore—as do multiple other things such as marriage etiquette, the court systems, the fictional governing body that we created for the site, and a number of opposition groups—but it is not something that players ever need to engage with if that’s a sensitive subject. We are not forcing roleplayers to engage in content that could be sensitive or triggering to them and we urge roleplayers to talk about their limits and triggers among each other when planning out plots, threads, comms, and anything else requiring the participation of more than one person.
Natura is a political space opera that focuses on exploring the themes of class warfare and dwindling resources. We’re hoping to build a community around roleplayers who wish to explore those themes and who want to contribute more to the lore and world-building as the collaborative story progresses, but we understand that these themes may not be a fictional, creative outlet for everyone.
If you would like to discuss this more, we’d be happy to speak with you off anon.
We will allow access to our Discord tomorrow, July 1, at 3:30PM ET (12:30PM PT and 20:30 BST).
Once you join the Discord, you may post one portrayal reserve in the #buzz-reserves channel. If the portrayal is intended for a noble house, please also indicate the house. We encourage communicating and coordinating with other people who are interested in the same house. We will update a list on Tumblr accordingly.
Some notes:
Noble reserves are not a reserve to claim the house.
Once the site is open, claiming a house is first come, first serve. Whoever submits an application and is accepted first is considered the claimer.
Your reserve will last for one week after site opening.
We accept only living actors, actresses, and agency-signed models as portrayals. We will not accept musicians or other media-related figures (e.g. influencers), no exceptions.
Before and during the war, the armed forces consisted of conscripted service members who fought on behalf of the Major Houses whether they wanted to or not. The end of the war put an end to the need for house-specific soldiers and caused an overhaul of the law enforcement industry as a whole.
Conscripted soldiers were freed from their contracts, though many without other job prospects opted to stay within their lucrative roles and adapted to one of the new positions available to them. There is some overlap between the three job titles, though a position within the Consortium Envoy is coveted. Law enforcement officers at all levels can pursue further specialized training on Parime as long as their employers sponsor it.
Continue reading for job titles for law enforcement officers.
Regional Deputies
Regional deputies are primarily hired by minor house nobles to assist in the policing and enforcement of laws for their specific region. They handle protection details for minor house families, investigation of crimes committed in their specific region, as guards for jails, and for general protection of the population.
The size of the police force depends on the size of the region and the amount of funding that the Minor house cares to dedicate. Regions on a planet can be as large as a continent (very rare) to the size of a small country. It is also common for minor houses to use regional deputies as their own private law enforcement, guards, and militia for their own protection.
Some Possible Jobs: Patrol, Special Protection, Detective, Captain, Chief of Deputies, Traffic Enforcement, Crime Scene Investigation, Forensics, Fugitive Recovery, Border Protections, Parole Deputies, Witness Protection, Guard Duties, etc.
Planetary Constables
Planetary Constables are generally hired by the major house families to assist in the policing of an entire planet or across multiple regions. Their jobs are very similar to regional deputies except that their jurisdiction spans across more than one region and also into the atmosphere around the planets.
Some Possible Jobs: Patrol, Special Protection, Detective, Captain, Chief of Constables, Spacecraft Inspections, Port Inspections, Jumpgate Regulation, Crime Scene Investigation, Forensics, Fugitive Recovery, Witness Protection, etc.
Consortium Envoys
Consortium Envoys are hired specifically by Consortium members to serve and protect at their behest. At any point, Consortium Envoys can be dismissed by their employer. These law enforcement officials receive mandatory specialized training on Parime to ensure that they are highly effective in their positions.
While no Consortium-mandated military exists, teams of Consortium envoys are considered trained, equipped, prepared, and knowledgeable enough to quell cases of insurrection through traditional means and guerilla warfare. If regional deputies or planetary constables request additional resources to solve a crime or if a region is experiencing civil unrest, the Consortium envoys can be deployed to help.
There are two specific branches of Consortium envoys: naval envoys, who patrol space and act as escorts for Consortium members, and planetary envoys, who patrol lands and regions and act as protective details for Consortium members.
Some Possible Jobs: Special Protective Detail, Witness Protection, Fugitive Recovery, Interrogation, Jumpgate Regulation, Crime Scene Investigation, Naval Consortium envoys, Planetary Consortium envoys, Spies, Cybersecurity, Digital Forensics, etc.
Sikandar: technology (computers, tablets, nanobots, ships, CINs, from recreational to military), medicine (pharmaceuticals, machines, medbays, panaceas), energy (terra victus, alternative energy), education (universities, research facilities, scientific labs), terraforming (a dying industry)
Lazarevic: lumber, stone, precious minerals (gems, jewels), metals (iron, copper, steel, gold, and silver), liquor, energy (terra victus), public service (prisons, law enforcement)
Large Enterprises
Corporations are free to seek partnership or investments from citizens, families, or major and minor houses.
However, most large corporations either anticipate or experience heavy Consortium involvement, as many shareholders will be from major or minor houses.
Large corporations with heavy Consortium investment are often deemed “too big to fail,” so they occasionally receive publicly funded bail-outs or subsidies to mitigate risk.
Similarly, the Consortium will protect these corporations from threats, such as fast-growing private companies within the same industry. In this scenario, the Consortium would either force the company to merge with the existing corporation or increase its individual tax burden.
Though plenty of well-known opposition groups exist within the Athena planetary system, there are also a multitude of smaller, less prominent groups located across all planets that primarily terrorize non-noble citizens.
Gangs
Primarily planetary-based and usually regionally located when on the home planets, gangs are groups of people who have banded together to intimidate, harass, and commit crimes against the local non-noble population. Each gang has their own set of rules to follow and their own ideas for how to gain membership.
Gangs located on the home planets have a harder time operating because of the prevalence of law enforcement, with many members ending up jailed or worse. Gangs that operate on Hyperion and Tartarus generally get by on the strength of their numbers - the larger the gang, the more power they possess - and law enforcement hardly ever bothers with arrests on either of those planets.
Pirates
Much like gangs, pirates band together and earn their reputation by breaking laws and persecuting non-nobles—but rather than harass people on planets, pirates have taken to the skies, the seas, and the vastness of space to find their victims. Pirate crews can be as small as a single ship and as large as a fleet and are more likely to run afoul of law enforcement due to their propensity to target supplies moving between planets.
Pirates generally find welcome docking stations on Hyperion and Tartarus, where law enforcement has a more difficult time tracking down criminals, but have been known to land on the home planets in emergency situations. As long as they don’t get too unruly or successful in their crimes, the Consortium pays little attention to piracy, often writing off the losses.
White Collar Crime
Arguably harder to track than any of the more blatant criminal enterprises that have already been mentioned, non-nobles in high standing are commonly able to get away with white collar criminal acts against the Consortium and non-nobles alike. Typical criminal acts include bribery, wage theft, fraud, forgery, labor racketeering, embezzlement, money laundering, theft of trade secrets, and identity theft.
Should one get caught committing white collar crimes, the quickest way to clear one’s name without a fuss is to commit another white collar crime: bribery. Given that law enforcement and the court systems are highly susceptible to bribes, most criminals that fall into this category can afford to sweep things under the rug with a large sum of hush money.
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