Astrea (space colony)
The Federated Interstellar States of Astrea, or more generally just Astrea, is a space colony made up of McKendree cylinders. The location of the star orbited by Astrea is a closely guarded secret from the general universe.
Astrea is most notable for being the home world of Astreans, a race of genetically-enhanced women.
History
The Great Scattering
The precursor of what would eventually become Astrea dates back to the Great Scattering. After decades of interplanetary war, unchecked population growth, and unconstrained resource depletion, the Home System was at the breaking point. Interplanetary society might have collapsed, and technology might have regressed to the days when humanity was unable to even traverse the Solar System, if it hadn’t been for the invention of the Jump Drive.
The early Jump Drives were flaky, requiring extensive resources to initialize and often missing their targets by light years. They also only allowed a single jump, because the singularity could not be practically reinitialized. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of colony ships – each usually carrying several thousands of people – attempted jumps to establish worlds on other stars.
Most of the colony ships that made those risky jumps during the Great Scattering were crewed by fanatics, either of the religious stripe – those who believed their god or their faith would lead them to a promised new land – or techno-fatalists – those who believed humanity was doomed in the Home System, and so they were going to start over and “do it right this time” on another world. Of those tens of thousands of colony ships, only a few hundred managed to find any kind of success. Some others were found floating cold and dead in interstellar space, having exhausted all of their supplies before reaching a system they could settle in. Most of the rest were never heard from again.
One of those colony ships was the Per fide ad astra (Latin for “by faith, to the stars”). Its crew was a religious cult with a syncretic faith that borrowed elements from several old Earth religions. Their leader had had a vision that the world observed orbiting a certain star was a paradise, that the gods had granted to him and his followers, should they make the “jump of faith”. And so, almost 20,000 people did.
The Per fide ad astra missed its jump target by more than 2 light years – not atypical for jumps of that period However, that was close enough for its ancient nuclear pulse drive to get it there. It would take almost 50 years, which would immensely strain the supplies, but if they lived at the bare minimum of survival, they could make it.
The collapse of the faith
It was less than 5 years into this journey that the first problems became apparent. Now close enough to the “promised world” that they could do proper spectrographic analyses of its atmosphere, it was plain to see that this would be no garden paradise planet.
The Prophet tried in vain to convince his flock to continue to have faith in him. Since they were facing the rest of their lives in squalor and hunger, and now they could not even promise their children a good home but rather even more struggle, his efforts met with middling success. The ship’s crew began to split into two factions: the Believers that still trusted the Prophet, and the Doubters that thought he had suckered them.
The Doubters were primarily female. They were the ones who were being asked to bear the brunt of the Prophet’s folly. In his faith-based social structure, the women’s role was as nurturers and providers. That meant that in the current situation, it was they who had to struggle to feed the crew with barely enough resources, while at the same time acting as baby factories to ensure a robust population come planetfall.
The Believers were primarily male. Their role in the Prophet’s social structure was to lead the silly and fickle women along the true path – the path of the Prophet – and so it was their responsibility to stifle the doubts about the Prophet’s vision in light of the spectrographic data. They had little success. As for the Prophet himself, he surrounded himself with a small cabal of fanatic Believers, and stopped his public appearances. That only served to sharpen the divide between the factions, and the women’s distrust.
Over the next few decades, the situation worsened. The Believers faction became even more fundamentalist and extremist in their religious devotion, to the detriment of everything else – including the maintenance of the ship. They also became far more rigorous in their control over the women. Dress and behaviour codes were drawn up and strictly enforced. Women were restricted from going most places without a male escort. They were even restricted from gathering socially with other women, though this was transparently a ploy to discourage the rumblings of dissent.
As the Believers – who were most of the men – became increasingly fanatical, and less interested in “worldy matters” like maintaining the ship or managing resources, those tasks increasing fell to the women, who were mainly Doubters. The pitch of the quiet whispers of dissent began to change. No longer were they merely complaining about their terrible situation. Now they were starting to come into a growing awareness that they might have the power to change things.
The martyrdom of Sophia
It was around 40 years in to the journey that the incident occurred.
A woman named Sophia did a survey of the ship’s supplies, and discovered that the Prophet’s inner circle had been falsifying inventories, and using far more supplies than they should have. The ship’s population would no longer be able to reach their destination. They would starve within the next 5 years.
As if the discovery and the revelation weren’t damning enough, Sophia made a point of laying the blame squarely at the feet of the Prophet and his followers. That was more than they were willing to tolerate.
At the time, even though the ship was bitterly divided, the Prophet and his inner circle were still officially in charge. They promptly arrested Sophia for treason and heresy, accusing her of fabricating her data about the supplies. This prompted outrage amongst the Doubter faction, and they immediately set about trying to verify Sophia’s claims. But while they were attempting that, without warning the Prophet’s men dragged Sophia out into the main public area, and burned her alive, pointedly routing the video to all parts of the ship.
At first, this display seemed to have the desired effect. It terrified the Doubter population. There had only been a handful of public lashings in all 40 years of their journey, and in all those cases the punishment was just retribution for real crimes. This case was unimaginably gratuitous, and most still harboured doubts that Sophia’s claims had been true. The Doubters were immediately cowed into silence.
But a woman named Callista realized that the Prophet had become a monster, who would kill them all. And the only way to defeat a monster... was to become a greater monster.
The First Gender Revolution
Callista recruited some of the younger, more attractive girls into her scheme. She had them surreptitiously offer themselves as sex toys to some of the Prophet’s inner circle, and while satisfying their depraved desires, they quietly slipped a number of spy cameras, listening devices, and monitoring software into key places. For the next six months, Callista watched, and waited.
When the time came, she enlisted a group of three women for a suicide mission. Their names were Amity, Unity, and Valeria. In later Astrean lore, they would be known as the Three Blades of Callista.
The three woman staged a coup where they seized control of the ship’s control systems, and demanded the surrender of the Prophet. As Callista expected, their coup was unsuccessful. The Prophet used a secret override command he had had built into the ship to foil the woman’s plan, and seize them all. All three were sentenced to death by burning.
But it had been a ploy. Callista had been secretly watching every move the Prophet made from her now numerous spy cameras, listening devices, and monitoring software. She had watched him enter his secret, personal override code. And now, she knew what it was.
Callista herself led the second coup – the real coup. It was ten times bigger than the decoy coup of the Three Blades, and openly violent and savage. And when the Prophet tried to use his secret code to reassert control... he found to his horror that it no longer worked. He had been overridden, and locked out of his own starship’s systems. He was defeated. He and his supporters quickly locked themselves in a few small sections of the ship, taking the Three Blades and every hostage they could grab, and tried to negotiate a truce.
Callista simply sent them a list of names – the Prophet, all of the Prophet’s inner circle, and many of his most ardent supporters. When asked what it was, she told them: It was the list of people who must enter the airlock, and be ejected into space.
This sparked panic amongst the Prophet’s supporters, and even some of Callista’s supporters were queasy about it. But Callista coolly published the equations all over the ship, showing that the only way to survive the journey would be if that many people were removed from the ship. And the ones who where chosen were specifically those who had taken more supplies than they should have.
Naturally the Prophet and his supporters balked, and they threatened to start killing hostages unless Callista relinquished her control of the ship, or was overthrown.
Callista responded by naming one of the sections held by supporters of the Prophet, and a time. At the specified time, she sealed all bulkheads in that section, then pumped out all of the air. 57 people died – 22 of whom had been named on Callista’s list, another 15 of whom were other supporters of the Prophet, 5 of whom were supporters of Callista being held hostage, and another 25 of whom were undeclared bystanders, some of them children. As the shock of that was echoing through the ship, Callista named another section, and another deadline.
This time, those in that section who weren’t on Callista’s list revolted, taking the section, and leading those on the list into the hands of Callista’s supporters. They were duly cast out of the airlock, as promised. And Callista named the next section and deadline.
Ultimately, two more sections were evacuated, killing all within – whether they were on the list or not, whether they were supporters of the Prophet or not. But the remainder of the sections either surrendered, or – more often – the occupants not scheduled for the airlock revolted, and turned over those who were. All told, almost a thousand people were thrown out into space.
That business done, Callista declared amnesty for the remaining supporters of the Prophet... provided they surrender all weapons, hostages, and sections that they held, and acknowledge the authority of the new ruling council of the ship. Most acquiesced. The few that didn’t were simply thrown out the airlock.
Callista then renamed the ship, announcing that they had moved past the age of “perfidy” (a deliberate reference to “per fide”, or “by faith”). The ship would now be known as the Ad astra, which was Latin for “to the stars”. It would now be administrated by an elected council, which, following from the name of the ship, she whimsically named “Councilium Astrī”, or “Council of the stars” or “Star council”.
The next generation would slur the two words “astra” and “astrī”, and pronounce both as “astria”... or “astrea”.
The division of the species
The years following the First Gender Revolution were tense, but peaceful. There remained much bitterness about the Revolution, and though Callista had pointedly tried to set aside the old factions, old allegiances persisted.
There had always been a sharp division between the womenfolk and the menfolk, as the Prophet’s religious rules encouraged strict roles for each. And arguably, the men got the better deal when it came to roles, with the women stuck shouldering most of the burdens of society, while seeing the least rewards. That simmering discontent had exploded during the First Gender Revolution, and never quite subsided. And since so many of those who had been ejected during the Revolution had been men, the women were now the majority. They remained bitter and distrustful of the men, who largely retained an affection for the old religion, often boldly continuing to practice.
As they approached the “promised planet”, the mostly women council started having discussions about whether or not landing was even worthwhile. The Prophet had misled them; the planet was a dud. Trying to eke out a survival there would be a desperate, wasteful gamble, and unlikely to succeed.
A better idea was to simply settle in space. The colony ship could be repurposed into a McKendree cylinder, and a sister cylinder could be fabricated out of asteroid material. Asteroids could also be harnessed to produce farming satellites. It would mean a decade or so of hardship, but once built the colony would be comparatively luxurious. It was an attractive and logical option.
However, it sparked immediate outrage from the remaining supporters of the Prophet. They were incensed that the women “heretics” would now manage a final insult of his legacy by not letting them settle the promised land. They asserted the council was simply doing this out of spite, and started labelling them “witches”. They insisted on splitting up – those who wanted to settle on the planet could land, those who wanted to settle in space could stay. Supporters of the council argued back just as bitterly, pointing out that if they let a significant fraction of the population go down to the planet, along with all the resources and terraforming equipment they would need, those who wanted to settle in space would now be lacking in resources.
It was the ageing Callista who settled the feud. She proposed to the council to just let the Prophet’s remaining supporters go. Let them land on the planet. Give them all the terraforming equipment, and whatever supplies they need to establish a colony. The “astreans” – the “star people” – would make do with what space provided: asteroids and sunlight. When the council objected that many of the equipment the “landers” would be taking was functionally irreplaceable, Callista replied succinctly: “Don’t worry. We shall reclaim it when they are all dead.”
And so, about two fifths of the population of the Ad astrea (as it was now popularly called, though its official name was still Ad astra) – almost all of the males – took the lion’s share of the remaining resources, and all of the major terraforming and mining equipment, and went down to try to tame the Prophet’s promise world. Those who remained in space – almost 95% of whom were women – set about converting their colony ship into a space colony. Without the resources that had been sent down to the planet, what should have taken a decade would now take a century.
But it didn’t. Within 10 years, the “astreans” started getting increasingly desperate radio messages from the “landers”, asking for help. The “astreans” gave technical advice when they had the urge, but by and large simply ignored the messages – they were in no position to help; by that point the colony ship was no longer mobile, and the shuttles were necessary for the conversion to a fully-livable colony.
After 20 years, the emergency messages and pleas stopped.
25 years after the division of the original colony population, Callista’s prediction came true. The “astreans” recovered the heavy planet-forming equipment from the corpses of the failed “lander” colony.
With that equipment, the construction of the orbital colony accelerated, and rather than a century, it was done in 40 years. Since the name of the colony ship had been (in its final years) Ad astrea – or “to astrea” – the name for the colony was self-evident:
Astrea.
The science of sex
While the colony was under construction, the “astreans” (for they were not yet Astreans) had a serious predicament. Almost all of the males had gone down to the planet, leaving far-too-few males for a viable growing population among the “astreans”. There was also the problem of living in space: once they stopped the colony ship’s spin (because they couldn’t do construction with it spinning), they would all be living in zero-gravity. The human body does not do well without at least partial gravity. If solutions were not found, the entire population was going to die off quickly from muscular and skeletal degeneration, then slowly from genetic degeneration due to inbreeding.
Any form of biological or genetic manipulation was strictly forbidden by the religion of the Prophet. But he was dead now, and the “astreans” were only too pleased to trample on his legacy. Though the knowledge was heretical, the information hadn’t been expunged from the library when it was just dump-downloaded from the technical libraries before leaving Sol System. There had been no motivation to go through the exabytes of data and picking out the bad bits. Thus the “astreans” had complete libraries about biological and genetic modification, and little else to do while their small robotic probes mined asteroids, brought material to the construction site, and built the colony frame. They very quickly became experts in genetic manipulation.
Research split along two major lines. One group, not believing Callista’s promise that the construction of the colony would not take a century, wanted to focus on increasing the chances of surviving a life in open space. This group focused on ways to make the next generation’s bodies stronger and more adaptable, and more resilient to vacuum and cosmic radiation. But their primary goal was to improve the brain, so that the next generation would be several times smarter than the current. Then they would have an easier time of making even further advancements.
The other group did believe Callista, and set about finding a way to deal with the population problem. With so few viable males, how could they create a stable breeding population, and how could they do it in a generation or two?
The first attempts were mainly about making “astreans” want to have much, much, much more sex. To that end, they made the men incredibly handsome, and virile. They reduced the refractory period down to seconds, and increased the volume of viable sperm released with each ejaculation tenfold. That would make the small number of males they had much more effective breeders. On the other side, they made the women jaw-droppingly attractive – to encourage the men to seek out sex more often – and exceptionally sensual and sensitive – to encourage the women to do the same. Had their been any survivors of the “lander” colony, they would scarcely have believed the gods and goddesses that came down from the sky to reclaim the equipment were their relatives.
There remained one crippling problem, though. Lifespans were already being extended through hardier bodies, but women were still only in possession of a finite number of eggs, all created before birth. Menopause limited their breeding span, and any injuries that damaged the ovaries were catastrophic. If only there were a way to produce new eggs after birth, at any point in a woman’s life....
Not long after Astrea was finally completed and settled, the breakthrough occurred.
No one could have imagined the implications. Having the technology to “undo” menopause meant that Astreans were now able to “reverse” a woman’s “biological clock”. In other words, they had discovered a means to make an old woman young again. Not only that, they could even “reverse” the death of certain kinds of dead cells – meaning they could even cure death itself, to a limited degree.
They had discovered immortality.
Not literal immortality of course, but rather extreme, theoretically open-ended longevity. The first advances only promised a thousand years or so of life at maximum before the DNA was so brittle further extensions failed, and they would start failing much earlier unless great care was taken all through one’s life to avoid certain radiation and chemicals. But still, Astreans were now being promised a few centuries of life – and those would be centuries of healthy life, with young, fit bodies (which were already genetically modified to be far superior to human norms).
But only Astrean women. The first advances were all based on studies of ovogenesis, and so were all specifically for women. Astrean men would not get the benefit of immortality, not unless someone put the effort into researching it specifically for them, and there was little motivation when they were only a tiny fraction of the population.
Eventually the techniques were extended to men, but not for many, many years. During that time, the old bitterness between the sexes began to rear its ugly head again. Once again, males – now facing death while the women were being promised immortality – turned to religion as a way to defy the women. Once again, the women – now accused of meddling with life and death itself – were called witches.
Rejoining the human universe
A few decades after the construction of the colony, a probe jumped in to the system. Then, to the shock of the Astreans, it promptly jumped right back out again.
This was impossible, from the perspective of the Astreans. A Jump Drive used a singularity, which had to be painstakingly constructed and was then used up during the jump. Jumping was a one-way trip.
Not anymore, as was proven with the Home Star Empire’s exploratory cruiser Marco Polo jumped into Astrean space. A technique had been discovered for practically regenerating singularities, so a single ship could jump thousands of times. Jumping no longer meant a one-way trip. The universe was now open. It was time to reconnect humanity. This was known as the Resumption.
At first Astrea was thrilled to reconnect with the rest of humanity, and become part of the now grand expanse of civilization that spanned a significant part of the galaxy. They soaked up all the new knowledge and technology that had advanced elsewhere, and offered their own significant contributions.
But the Council wisely decided to keep the information about potential immortality, and the cure for age and death itself, a secret. Their wariness was mainly spurred by their familiarity with the way the male Astreans had reacted to the knowledge – by accusing the women of “playing god” and condemning them as “witches”. From their perspective, the men had merely been an irritation... but what if the vast population of the universe responded similarly? What if they came in force to punish the “witches” for their meddling? Or if not, what if they came in force to seize the technology for themselves?
Another thing that unnerved the Council was the rest of the universe’s reaction to the incredible beauty and physical and sexual perfection of Astreans – particularly the women. Numerous Astreans had simply vanished while visiting other worlds. Numerous stories were leaking back to Astrea of markets fetching high prices for Astrean sex slaves.
So Astrea started to withdraw, and keep only very careful relations with a very limited number of world states. This had the effect of marking them as a “trouble” spot – a world state that wasn’t fully integrating with the rest of the universe. Astrea started to gain enemies. But Astrea had no means of self-defence whatsoever.
The war of immortality, and the destruction of the First Colony
Despite their best efforts, knowledge of the Astrean’s secret “immortality technology” began to leak into the wider universe. For the most part, the vast majority of the universe dismissed as a silly myth – just one of many myths spread about the astonishingly beautiful and mysterious Astreans. But some believed. And some didn’t just believe, they knew.
There were always a few Astreans who were secretly giving very powerful and rich outworlders immortality treatments, in exchange for wealth or power. Not all of them were males – in fact, very few were – but after a few high-profile arrests of males smuggling the technology, the old gender feuds lit up with a passion.
It was inevitable. Usually when a smuggler was caught, their client would simply find another smuggler. But it was inevitable that one would not be able to, and would simply not be content to age and die.
Without warning, Astrea found itself surrounded by a small fleet of a half-dozen attack ships. The defenceless colony was issued an ultimatum: Hand over the immortality technology, or die.
There was mass panic. Many wanted to simply hand over the technology, but the Council knew that would only save them in the immediate. Right after these invaders left, the next would arrive with the same demand. And once they had given up the technology, they would have no bargaining position whatsoever.
The invaders reiterated their demands, and to prove their point they captured some of the Astrean ships that were trying to flee and gruesomely executed the passengers, sending the images to Astrea. Once again the Council was pressured to acquiesce. Once again they refused.
And then it became clear why they refused.
When others who had been secretly benefiting from the immortality treatments heard that this one group was trying to steal it for themselves, they quickly intervened. Ships started jumping in to defend the helpless Astrea, and in short order, there was a full-scale secret war waging in the space around Astrea.
The combatants were mostly powerful gangs or business cartels, or the private fleets of the very rich and powerful. They were all fighting to prevent the Astrean immortality technology from being ripped from their grasp. Some wanted to claim it for themselves, and have absolute power over it – it would make them the richest and most powerful organization in the universe. Others were content to leave it in the hands of Astrea, assuming that if they successfully defended Astrea, the Astreans would be generous with a reward.
But Astrea realized that none of the combatants fighting around them was really on their side. This was a war between jackals, fighting over who would feast on Astrea’s corpse. No matter who won, Astrea would lose.
So while the fighting raged around them, Astrea conducted a massive evacuation. Tens of thousands of ships made hundreds of trips, ferrying Astreans away from their colony world home, to anywhere else in the universe. Almost 10 million Astrean refugees escaped this way.
Then they called for a cease-fire among the fighting factions, and requested a meeting on Astrea to discuss a solution to end the conflict. The war had escalated far beyond what any of the combatants had originally planned on, so they were ready for another option. Almost a thousand representatives from the various factions arrived at Astrea, and were met by the Council and the millions of Astreans who had not evacuated.
But rather than any form of surrender or capitulation, the Astrean Council announced that Astrea would never give the gifts of her technology to the barbarians of the universe. They would rather face oblivion. The gathered faction representatives laughed, calling their defiance ridiculous in the face of how overwhelmingly they were outnumbered and outgunned. Eventually, the representatives claimed, Astrea would submit. It was only a matter of the factions deciding who they would submit, too.
The representatives were still chuckling at what they thought was the Astrean’s audaciousness, when the Chief Councillor in charge of the science and technology panel stepped forward, announced that she would never give up Astrea’s secrets to barbarians... and then jammed a knife into her gut, and sliced it open, and reached up into her chest and pulled out her own heart. She managed to remain standing for several seconds, holding her heart aloft, and cried out with her last breath: “For Astrea.” Then she fell, dead.
The next Councillor stepped forward, and picked up the knife. She asked the gathered factions if they would leave in peace. The faction representatives were startled, but stubborn. So she, too, cut out her own heart before them.
By this point the faction representatives were irate. They mocked the Astreans’ arrogance and said that a few acts of dramatic defiance by a handful of individuals would change nothing.
Then they watched in horror, as the tens of thousands of gathered Astreans – and millions more across the colony – all calmly produced knives, and all cut out their own hearts and held them aloft.
The faction representatives were in a panic. Yet they still insisted that the Astreans were mad, and would lose in the end. They swore that they would simply scour the colony for the technology over the dead bodies of every single Astrean if necessary. To which the surviving members of the Astrean Council calmly replied, “then you will be scouring through ashes,” as they triggered a self-destruct sequence, then cut out their own hearts.
The self-destruct of an entire space colony is no small deal. It took several days to complete. Most of the faction representatives present were able to escape the slow-motion death of Astrea. None of them ever forgot what they saw that day.
As Astrea burned, the surrounding fleets looked on in despair. None of them had believed the Astreans would go this far. Now the secret of immortality was lost to everyone, for ever.
The Astrean diaspora
The Astreans who had escaped the colony’s destruction were arguably worse off than those who died in it.
With no home world, and an entire universe bitterly enraged with them, they were the subjects of widespread bigotry and discrimination. Worse, they were still possessed with their perfect, utterly desirable bodies. There was a large and very lucrative black market that sent out waves of hunters to capture Astreans, and force them into slavery. It was easy to justify, as with their genetic modifications, Astreans arguably didn’t quite qualify as fully human, and no world was interested in extending their laws to cover them. During this period, Astreans were often seen as vermin – preternaturally gorgeous vermin, but vermin nonetheless. Their strange beauty and cultural practices ended up with them being widely labelled as “witches” once again. And there was no-one who cared, or made any effort to protect them.
Or, so it seemed.
Virtually no one was watching over the scattered Astreans, but the very few who were began to notice something very peculiar. It began 20 years after the Astrean evacuation. During that period, Astreans had been treated like second-class citizens, when not hunted down like animals and forced into slavery. But then Astreans started mysteriously disappearing.
Astreans had always been prone to mysteriously disappearing – either taken by slave traders or simply murdered out of bigotry. But the scale of the disappearances became staggering. And they never showed up at slave auctions, or as unclaimed bodies.
In fact, thousands of Astreans disappeared from slave auctions... and everyone else who had been present were all slaughtered. Entire slave markets were eradicated – everyone who wasn’t Astrean was simply murdered, but the Astreans all vanished.
It was happening all over. Even the Astreans who had not yet vanished had no clue about what was going on. But it was like the despised Astreans had found themselves a guardian angel. A brutal, violent guardian angel, but a guardian angel nonetheless.
In less than a decade, the once widespread Astrean diaspora was now almost completely vanished. Anyone looking for an Astrean had no idea where to find one.
For the next century, Astreans became almost a myth. If recordings didn’t exist of their astonishing beauty, most of the universe would have believed them to be entirely imaginary. Indeed, many did, regardless.
The second colony
Almost immediately after the destruction of the first colony, two groups of militant, extremist Astreans began planning a new one.
One group was a radical military faction, the ideological descendants of the original Doubters. They believed Astrea’s future was only possible if Astrea toughed up, and accepted that Astreans were not merely pretty goddesses, but warriors goddesses. The traced their lineage back to Callista and her Three Blades, and the Astreans who had given their lives in defiance of the marauders during the fall of the first colony. Famously, their motto was: “Strength is beauty”.
But the second group was a more religiously-based faction. These were people who had crafted an entirely new – entirely Astrean – religion, to completely replace all traces of the original Prophet’s faith. They had canonized Callista and her Three Blades, and elevated them to the level of saints, and created a faith that touted the divine perfection of Astreans, basically describing them as goddesses above the rest of humanity. They embraced the anti-Astrean slur “witch”, and made witchery and witchcraft part of their mythology. It was a religion specifically for Astrea.
The two groups were closely allied, and both considered themselves the legitimate descendants of Astrea – merely two sides of the same coin. While the general population of Astrea was scattering across the universe, the leaders of the two groups formulated a plan to build a new, bigger, better space colony.
The problem was resources – everything Astrea had had been lost with the destruction of the colony. To that end, the two groups decided to do things a little differently from the previous Council. The previous Council had simply decided to withhold the immortality technology from the outside universe. But these new groups realized that it would be much more useful as a bargaining chip. The technology would still be kept completely secret outside of Astrea, but rich and powerful people could be promised treatments. They could have effective immortality, in exchange for providing support and protection for Astrea. And because Astrea had already demonstrated how far they would go to protect their technology, there would be no shenanigans. If you wanted immortality, it would be on Astrea’s terms.
It worked magnificently. The promise of immortality was too seductive to resist. Those who received the treatments kept them strictly secret – for their own benefit – and gave the Astreans anything they wanted: finances, materials, technology, and the promise of military protection.
The two groups split up and each – in communication with the other – built one of the two giant McKendree cylinders that would eventually make up the new Astrea. The cylinder built by the religious group would be called Ætheria. The cylinder built by the military group would be called Valkyria.
The old Astrea had been slapped together quickly, in desperation, with very few resources, largely by cannibalizing the original colony ship. The new cylinders were fifty times the size of the old ones, capable of holding populations of billions, with technologies and luxuries the original builders could not have dreamed of. Most importantly, each had a massive Jump Drive, making the entire cylinder capable of interstellar space travel.
Both cylinders were constructed in strict secrecy, in uninhabited systems far from the public eye. Resources were provided by the rich and powerful who were secretly getting immortality treatments, but even they did not know the location or design of the cylinders.
When the two cylinders were near completion, and capable of habitation, the two factions began secretly collecting the Astrean diaspora. The religious faction primarily dealt with seeking out free Astreans, who were usually living in fear and poverty as second class citizens of other worlds. They seeded religiously-tinged hints of a new Astrea, and waited for the faithful to follow the trail. Those that did were gathered up, and brought to the cylinder.
The military faction, meanwhile, focused on Astreans who were in captivity or slavery. They began organizing commando raids to recover Astreans, and at the same time, punishing those who had exploited them. Compared to the religious faction, they were shockingly brutal and ruthless. They even exterminated Astreans who were reluctant to join the new colony. They wanted no trace of Astrean genetic perfection outside the walls of Astrea.
Their campaign worked. Within a few decades, Astreans were extinct from the rest of the universe, and because no one but a select few knew of the existence of the cylinders under construction, many believed Astreans were completely extinct.
The latter years of the Astrean repatriation were aided by the outbreak of a massive intergalactic war that lasted almost a century. In the chaos of the early years of the war, the missionary and commando units were able to sneak around almost unseen. The growing scarcity of Astreans also went mostly unnoticed.
During the entire course of the century-long war, Astreans were widely thought to be extinct. But at the war’s end, when the peace accords were being drafted and a new universal body was being created to maintain peace and society, the two giant cylinders jumped – without warning – into the protected space. Astrea announced her return to the universe.
The Federated Interstellar States of Astrea
In the first years after the fall of the original Astrea, the two factions who each built a cylinder were completely allied. But over the years, disputes about the methods they used to repatriate the Astrean diaspora led to tensions.
One of the issues that caused tension was the question of who would form the unified Astrean Council when the two cylinders finally connected. The old Astrea had had a single Council, but this new Astrea was fifty times bigger, and each cylinder already had its own Council that wanted to things their own way.
The solution they settled on was a federation. Each cylinder would be a largely independent state, but both would be subordinate to a unified federal Astrean Council, which would also handle affairs outside of each cylinder. At first the Federal Council would be made up of an equal number of representatives from both cylinder-states, but the plan was to ultimately make them directly elected by the populations of both cylinders.
And so, when the two cylinders appeared without warning before the council of all human world-states, they identified themselves as the Federated Interstellar States of Astrea. The demanded to be legally recognized as a sovereign world-state, and to have representation on the council of human world-states.
At first this prompted outrage, partly at their audacity, but there was a significant amount of anti-Astrean bigotry remaining in the wider universe. But Astrea had been cultivating powerful friends – via their immortality treatments – for the better part of a century now. The objections were overruled, and Astrea officially became a legally-recognized, independent world-state in the council of human world-states.
And then the two cylinders promptly jumped away, and were never seen by non-Astrean eyes again.
The failed crusade, and the Second Gender Revolution
The two cylinders jumped to a pre-planned location around a star in an otherwise uninhabited system. The location of that star would become one of Astrea’s most closely guarded secrets. If it were ever discovered by non-Astreans, the cylinders would then jump away to another secret system.
It was in this new system that the two cylinders connected for the first time, and for the first time in a century, Astrea was whole again.
There was widespread jubilation. The celebration lasted almost non-stop for months. But at the apex of the celebration, the men of Astrea formed a group demanding equal rights.
At this point there were still male Astreans, though they made up only around 10% of the population. Astreans had known how to create children from pairs of women since around the time of the development of the immortality technology, and most Astreans were born this way. Most Astrean mother-pairs naturally also opted for daughters, and because each could carry two children at a time – one in each mother – they bred much faster than male-female pairs. Male-female pairs also only rarely opted for a male child, so males were always a very small minority among Astreans.
They were also heavily discriminated against. A lot of the bias extended all the way back to the days of the Prophet, but there were many laws that discriminated against males that were of recent origin.
The situation was especially bad on Valkyria. The population of Valkyria was mostly made up of Astreans who had been traded as slaves then rescued by military commandos, and Astrean women were far more popular in the slave trade than the men were. The rescued former slaves were particularly averse to males, due to their treatment as slaves.
The religious faction at Ætheria sensed an opportunity. They encouraged the males’ uprising, with vague hints about reforming the religion to be more welcoming to men. At the same time, they tried to whip up a religious fervour among the women, against the viciousness and brutality of the military, which they ironically described as “mannish”.
The ultimate goal was a coup to take Valkyria and the Federal Council away from the military faction, but it never got that far. After the first outbreaks of violence by religious supporters, and by males, the neutral population of Astrea fell strongly on the side of the military faction. Part of the reason was disgust at the idea of a group of Astreans starting a fight with another. However, most Astreans were also somewhat disdainful and distrustful of religion in general. That had been ingrained in them since the days of Callista. They were fine with the religion being a cultural practice, with entertaining myths and rituals to bring Astrea together. But the moment it started generating fanaticism, it needed to be reined in. Another factor was the perceived alliance with the male revolution, which was largely looked down on with contempt.
The military faction in Valkyria seized the opportunity the swing in public sentiment provided to do two things.
First, they completely crushed the religious faction. They played upon old fears and imagery, comparing them to the Believers of the Prophet, to further drive the public against them. They rounded up the leadership and all outspoken extremists, branded them as traitors to Astrea, and executed them all. But at the same time, they made a point of putting on a show of being merciful and reasonable. They designed the executions to be gladiatorial combat, arguing that if they were really strong enough to claim Astrea, they should have no troubles in the arena. Naturally, of course, the religious clerics stood no chance against trained military opponents. The military faction also allowed the religion to continue to exist, albeit now only as a shadow – only for cultural and ritual purposes, with no more real power – and now with doctrines that openly supported a strong military.
The men, however, got no mercy.
They were wiped out, and their executions were pointedly brutal and spectacular. There were no honourable gladiatorial matches for them, they were simply butchered like animals – in fact, that’s how the executions were billed. It didn’t even matter which men were active participants in the revolts. Males, the warrior faction argued, had always been the cause of problems for Astrea. It was a mistake to have included them in the original modification program, once the development of woman-only procreation was complete. There was no further need for them, and no need to tolerate their presence or any further problems they might cause.
Thus, all Astrean men were eradicated. Astrea became woman-only.
Modern history
In the century after the Failed Crusade and the Second Gender Revolution, Astrea has been peaceful and harmonious. The philosophies of the warrior faction are now universal Astrean philosophies. Their motto – “Strength is beauty” – is now the motto of all Astrea.
The religion still exists, but only as cultural flavouring. Virtually no Astrean is actually a true believer in its mystical claims, though virtually all celebrate its rituals and holidays, and enjoy its symbolism. The religion still uses the imagery of goddess and witchcraft, and this has been adopted by Astrea at large. Even the military uses the imagery of witchcraft for its warriors.
The relationship with the outside universe is also mostly unchanged. Astrea is only a tiny world-state, with no real economic, military, or social influence. It is not on friendly terms with any other world-state, and does not cooperate in any galaxy-wide initiatives. In fact, Astrea is openly disdained and disliked by most world-states. However it has no real enemies, because anyone who might threaten Astrea becomes the target of very powerful and wealth groups intent of keeping Astrea intact and safe, so that they may continue receiving immortality treatments.
Of Astrea’s population of 20 million, around 17 million have never seen a male – not even once in their lifetime. These are women who were born after the Second Gender Revolution and the purge of Astrean males. Most Astreans never leave Astrea, and outsiders never visit. For the vast majority of younger Astreans, the only way to see a man is either via recording, or by witnessing one of the executions that take place from time to time of men who were abducted and brought to Astrea for punishment for various reasons. But even these executions are not widely watched, as most Astreans would rather not see a male, even if they have a chance. They are considered base animals – embarrassments to the human species.
By the same token, only very few people outside of Astrea have ever seen an Astrean, giving rise to many myths about them. There are actually large numbers of people who believe Astreans don’t really exist, or that they’re actually literal witches who consort with demons. The Astrean immortality technology is almost universally believed to be one of these myths, dismissed by anyone who thinks themselves a reasonable person. The only people who know of it are a small group of very rich and powerful people, who secretly get treatments in exchange for providing Astrea with resources, technology, and security.
Structure
TBD
Government and politics
TBD
Astreans
TBD
Culture
TBD
