Intelligence Services
Kulu’s intelligence-gathering activities are divided between three agencies, all of which are funded by taxes paid to the court, and controlled by the most senior privy councillors. The King himself chairs the interagency management council. The three agencies are as follows.
1. Internal Security Agency (ISA)
This deals with threat assessment and threat elimination within the Kingdom itself. Contrary to public opinion and tabloid media speculation, it is the smallest and least active of the three agencies. It monitors all senior politicians and their parties for signs of disloyalty, as well as monitoring radical groups and any other organization or individual that could conceivably threaten the stability of the Kingdom or pose a physical threat to the senior Saldanas.
It has agents operating on every planet, and in every asteroid settlement within the Kingdom. Their primary task is the collection of information and, unlike the police, they do not require a warrant to search public or private data cores, or to intercept communications.
Threat elimination is conducted with as little fuss as possible. The Saldanas do not favor trials, which give their opponents needless publicity. In political cases, direct evidence of unsavory activity, or data carefully leaked to the media, is nearly always successful in halting the career of subversive individuals, neutering the threat they pose. In the case of radical groups, particularly those sanctioning and practicing violence, deportation to a Confederation penal planet (from which there will be no return) is the preferred option. In these cases, deportation orders are issued directly (in camera) by the Lord Chancellor upon request by the ISA chief, and are not subject to appeal or judicial review, the offender being simply removed from public life as quietly as possible. The secretive nature of their forbidden activity means they are unlikely to have a large collection of colleagues querying their abrupt decision to “emigrate.”
Actual assassination of the state’s internal enemies is a last resort, and practiced only on people who have already killed for their cause, or are known to be in the process of sabotage.
2. Fleet Intelligence
Basically this is an anti-piracy operation run by a senior admiral. Its members are Royal Navy officers who go undercover by signing on as crew on likely trader ships, i.e. those fitted with antimatter drives (see Starships, page 65). Their principal task (along with the CNIS office) is to locate pirate antimatter stations as well as the suppliers of illegal combat wasps, and those networks through which pirated cargoes are distributed.
A second function of Fleet Intelligence is to monitor the developments in naval technology by other governments.
3. External Security Agency (ESA)
The largest and by far the most active of these three groups, the ESA has agents working on every planet in the Confederation, hundreds of independent asteroid settlements, and the five independent bitek habitats, gathering strategic, political, and commercial data. Station heads in the Kulu embassies run networks of recruits, who infiltrate every aspect of their host government’s civil service, including, where possible, its intelligence arm. As with the Saldanas, who take a long-term view in their policies, the ESA prefers to recruit university students and junior politicians and then allow them to work their way up the promotion ladder (often with covert assistance), rather than target established officials for purposes of subversion. The influence which this agency exerts upon foreign governments is immense. In several instances even a foreign government’s head of state has been secretly working for the ESA.
A special effort is made by the ESA, whenever carrying out its investigations in the star systems immediately around the Kingdom’s boundaries, to ensure that policy remains non-confrontational in terms of the Kingdom itself. Several principality leaders have been toppled by the ESA once they showed signs of “standing firm” against the Kingdom in the matter of trade (the Kingdom being a vigorous exporter) or diplomatic policy.
There is no Confederation planet exempt from ESA activity, and the exposure of any of its agency “assets” has occasionally led to diplomatic incidents, which the Saldanas inevitably ignore until the fuss dies down several decades later. Only the Edenists are immune to manipulation by the ESA, as it is impossible for the agency to turn any Edenist into one of their assets.
3. The Principality of Ombey
Ombey, a planet fifty-seven light-years from Kulu, is the most distant—and newest—planet in the Kingdom, discovered in 2467, confirmed as terracompatible and opened for immigration in 2470.
Star System Physical Data
The system is composed of eight planets, four of them solid and four gas giants, as well as two asteroid belts. The star is a G4 type.
There are four solid planets.
There are four gas giants.
The first asteroid belt orbits between 59m and 65m km out from the star. It is a narrow but dense belt, with 321 asteroids over 150km in diameter, and 18 asteroids 1,000km plus in diameter. The largest asteroid, Gamow, is 1,350km in diameter.
The second asteroid belt orbits between 325m and 560m km from the star, with a more normal density distribution. It has no asteroids over 50km in diameter.
The Planet Ombey
Colonization was funded entirely by the Kulu Treasury and the Kulu Corporation. It held protectorate status from its discovery in 2467 until the population reached 10,000,000 in 2512. It is now a fully fledged principality of Kulu, and enjoys full constitutional rights, with an elected Parliament to advise the Princess.
The planet has a rotational period of 24 hours 17 minutes. Its axial tilt is 2.6°; however, because of its proximity to the star, there is little seasonal variation. The equatorial zone remains hot throughout the year. The tropics extend to latitudes of 50° north and south of the equator, and beyond that there are small bands of temperate climate between 50° and the polar circles. Its year is 346 days long, and the traditional months have been shortened to either 29 or 30 days. Every sixth year is a leap year.
One-third of the planet’s surface is land, and this is divided between six continents: Mario (the largest), Esparta, Xingu, Blackdust (a desert straddling 20 percent of the equator), Uatuma, polar (north), and Guarico. There are four oceans, containing a large number of islands and archipelagos. The moon, Jethro, produces moderate tides.
The capital of Ombey is Atherstone, on the eastern shore of Esparta, 5° south of the equator. Its population is 4,000,000. Kirsten, the Princess Royal, was enthroned in 2608, and holds her court in Burley Palace with her consort, Edward, Duke of Soarhime (an industrial city in Xingu).
The total planetary population is now 95,000,000, and it remains open to immigration from other Kulu worlds, and to other Christians from across the Confederation. Public hospitals support a large exowomb project for families, and four to seven children is the norm, although this trend is now dropping. Free land grants, of forty hectares per couple, and the large zones enjoying a tropical climate make Ombey a popular world to settle on, its agricultural potential attracting many colonists. Fruit is a principal product, and distillation produces some spirits and wines suitable for export. Technological exports are minimal. Imports are also kept to a minimum, to help the trade balance and encourage local industry. High-technology items such as nanonics are imported from other Kingdom worlds.
Economy
Agriculture forms the major part of the economy. The manufacturing industry can now supply the planet’s farms with their complete requirements, and is beginning to expand out of its subsidized infrastructure core support activities. Many of Kulu’s larger companies have offices and factories on the planet itself, though more are setting up local divisions on asteroids to take advantage of the start-up tax incentives. While still being some decades away from repaying its investment loans, the Ombey government no longer requires subsidies from the Kulu Treasury or the Kulu Corporation. Taxes levied by the Princess (as the King’s representative) are paid to the King’s court, but they are all spent locally
on naval bases and government contracts, etc.
Comprehensive road links between the urban areas have been built, and the network is expanding. A global datanet has been established, and industrial and transport power supplies are available in all inhabited areas.
Asteroid Settlements
There are nine asteroids in orbit 120,000km above Ombey, all of them mining operations, besides a number of industrial stations owned by large Kulu companies. Now that the planet’s economy has begun to expand, their output is rising proportionally, and a considerable number of new stations are being planned. Ombey does not yet have a starship-production facility, but support contracts involving licensed spares production awarded by the Royal Navy base should ensure that a fully indigenous design and construction capability develops within the next fifty years.
As yet, only twelve asteroid settlements have been established in Ombey’s inner belt by Kulu companies. But the exceptionally rich mineral and metal reserves in these asteroids should eventually lead to a vast increase in activity. It was the potential wealth of the inner belt which was the deciding factor in King Lukas’s decision to make Ombey a principality, rather than sell the settlement rights.
Helium Mining
There is one cloudscoop, orbiting Nonouit, with an asteroid settlement supporting the mining operation. Both are owned by the Kulu Corporation. This level of activity is capable of supplying all Ombey’s current energy requirements, although capacity limits are approaching. A second cloudscoop is planned for construction starting in 2620, and major contracts will be issued to Ombey’s asteroid settlements for its components.
4. Tranquillity
Tranquillity is an independent bitek habitat orbiting 587,000km above the gas giant Mirchusko. It was germinated in 2428 by the then Crown Prince of Kulu, Michael Saldana. There are no other human settlements in the system.
Star System Physical Data
There are three solid worlds, three gas giants, and an asteroid belt. The star is an F3, 1.2 times the diameter of Sol, and hotter.
There are three solid planets.
There are three gas giants.
Principal moons:
Mirchusko has a ring of debris from wrecked alien habitats, in a 580,000km orbit called the Ruin Ring (see below). There is a second, inner ring, orbiting between 370,000km and 390,000km (shepherded by Dianthus), where the blackhawk eggs grow.
The asteroid belt orbits between 420m km and 630m km from the star.
Tranquillity
History
The star system itself is unremarkable, and was first visited in 2420 by a Kulu Royal Navy scoutship, theEthlyn. Routine survey probes revealed the Ruin Ring, which generated considerable interest among the xenoc researchers across the Confederation. There was no trace of the Laymil race who had lived in the habitats, nor was there any trace of them on any of the solid planets or gas giant moons. The combined Royal Navy and Nova Kong University team which was sent to investigate estimated that there were anywhere between 50,000 and 70,000 Laymil habitats orbiting Mirchusko, and that they all disintegrated at the same time: 2,400 years previously, plus or minus twenty-five years. Remaining particles range in size from dust motes up to habitat shell sections 200m in diameter, but fragments had been retrieved on a see-and-grab basis, and clearly any long-term archaeological investigation project would be required to reach full understanding of the tragedy.
Kulu filed a settlement claim on the system with the Confederation in 2422. It was at this point that Crown Prince Michael began to take a personal interest in the Ruin Rings. The motivation behind his interest was never fully explained, but there are two probable reasons.
The first possibility is that he became obsessed with the causes of the habitats’ disintegration. It is widely supposed that the Laymil underwent a mass suicide, since an accident on such a scale is virtually inconceivable for a race of their technological advancement, and fragments of records found since then have strengthened this theory, so it may well be that he wanted to know if the human race could ever find itself in a similar position.
The second reason suggested is that he deliberately used the Ruin Ring to initiate conflict with his own family. The prospect of a life of 160-plus years dedicated solely to public service, when one’s every second has been planned weeks or even years in advance, is not something readily acceptable to everyone, even someone enjoying the privileges accorded to the Saldanas. Prince Michael may have seen the discovery of the Ruin Rings as his escape from another hundred years of excruciating boredom. He was sixty-seven at the time and his father, King James, was already ailing. Whatever the reason, he instigated a vast research project into the Laymil. Against all tradition, and with near-total family disapproval, he ordered the cloning of a bitek habitat from Tropicana (even he wasn’t radical enough to approach the Edenists for one) and had it germinated on an asteroid orbiting 587,000km above Mirchusko. He also diverted considerable Kulu Corporation funds to construct a cloudscoop so that Tranquillity and its support stations would be completely self-sufficient.
While bitek is the logical solution to supporting a community devoted to academic research in an isolated star system, its use was a severe breach with accepted Christian ethics (because of its association with affinity). Michael then compounded his crime by using neuron symbionts to establish an affinity bond with Tranquillity. After this, he ordered a modified affinity gene to be spliced into the DNA of his own son, Maurice, so that the boy would also be able to communicate with Tranquillity. This last act, committed in 2432, the year his father King James died, was the last straw as far as the Saldana family was concerned. Michael, in so blatantly disregarding his role as defender of Christianity in the Kingdom, was clearly unfit to rule. He was thus never crowned, and his brother Lukas became King instead.
Michael and the infant Maurice were excommunicated, and banished to Tranquillity (Michael’s wife, Princess Ginevra, did not accompany him to Tranquillity but went into exile on Avon, supported financially by the Saldana family until she died in 2487), and the habitat was granted to them as a dukedom in perpetuity. In 2440, Michael declared independence from the Kulu Kingdom, and no attempt was made by Lukas to reclaim it (possibly a situation planned for by Michael, since it would have been politically difficult for the King of Kulu to reclaim a bitek construct, not to mention one owned by his elder brother). So Michael became known as the Lord of Ruin, a title Maurice assumed on his father’s death in 2513.
Cut off from the virtually bottomless funding of the Kulu Corporation and the Royal Treasury, and alone in a star system with no terracompatible planet, and with only eight industrial stations, financial expediency became paramount (certainly in the early years), and the original research project into the Laymil and their suicide was considerably downgraded. However, Michael went on to establish Tranquillity as an important trading station, a blackhawk base, outsystem banking center, and tax haven (see Economy, page 133), so that foreign currency earnings were maintained, which he could then continue to spend on the research to which he had devoted his life.
The Lords of Ruin
Michael 2440–2513
Maurice 2513–2601
Ione 2601-
Ione was gestated in 2593, in a womb-analogue organ similar to those used by voidhawks. Maurice is known to have had several other children (conceived naturally), all of whom left home to become Edenists. Maurice wanted to avoid the situation where several rival candidates would be eligible to control Tranquillity. But the modified affinity gene he carried (and passed on to all his children) is also capable of the Edenist general affinity.
Economy
Michael’s triumph in making Tranquillity financially viable is a feat almost equal to that of his celebrated forebear, Richard, which is a fact not overlooked by historians specializing in the Saldana family.
After the declaration of independence in 2440, Tranquillity’s population numbered 17,000, consisting of Michael’s personal retainers (who had remained loyal), t
he xenoc research staff (only 20 percent remained after the declaration, the rest going back to Kulu), the cloudscoop crew, and a skeleton crew manning the industrial stations, plus a few Royal Navy officers responsible for the strategic-defense platforms (most of whom had been blacklisted anyway). Turning such a motley collection of resources and people into a successful mini-nation was by any standards nothing short of miraculous.
With no outstanding debts on the cloudscoop, Michael offered He3 at a price 10 percent lower than the Edenists, turning Tranquillity into an important port for starships in that sector of the Confederation. He wrote a simplified version of the original Kulu constitution, which was enforced by the habitat consciousness. Such an Adamist-Edenist culture combination proved popular, especially with the relaxed banking laws Michael included in his constitution, and so immigration began. Low taxes and a guaranteed crime-free environment, as well as the notoriety of Michael himself, helped attract the wealthy to Tranquillity. The habitat soon began to prosper as a trading and finance center. Finally he offered Tranquillity as a base for blackhawk mating flights, an action which turned the habitat into the premier blackhawk port in the Confederation, eventually supplanting Valisk. Several prominent astronautics companies have established industrial stations to support the starships calling at Tranquillity, and most of the multistellar corporations have offices inside the habitat.