2300AD - Tanstaafl Nights: Things Everybody Knows

You are on Aurore, a moon of a gas giant in the Eta Bootis system, almost forty light years away from Earth, out on the ragged edge of human settlement. The gas giant Tithonis sits in the sky to the north, reminding you that you are on an alien world. Daytime is 30 hours of sunset, bright enough to read by but not enough that you will ever need sunglasses. Night is 30 hours of twilight, often lit by distant green aurorae. It’s dark, but never pitch black. The native vegetation is blue-gray, and the animal life is…. Alien and inedible. Some of it is dangerous. The hostile aliens known as the Kaefer invaded Aurore in early April of 2298, clearing the system of human starships and bombarding settlements from orbit. Troop landings happened shortly afterwards. The bombardment is over, but landing ships are still observed in the distance.

Tanstaafl City is in chaos. The power went out when Rectenna got rocked, and the city of Kingston was nuked. Both caused a panicked flight into the countryside, mainly to the south since the landings were happening in the north. With the police and EMS services heading north to the fight and crowds heading south to avoid the expected bombing, the city's streets are emptier than usual. The people who remain in town are either unable to leave or unwilling to leave, and there are a lot of break-ins and violent crimes. Most stores are either closed or have been looted. The entire city has an apocalyptic vibe to it. Lots of empty streets, gunfire in the distance, sirens, kind of “early in the zombie movie” vibe. The wind turbines still work, but their power is routed to the government buildings, the military, and the homes of the wealthy - now armed fortresses. The city is largely dark and empty between the few lit areas. Weirdly, Red Sky and its clients still have power. There is a stark line between the haves and the have-nots just a few days after the bombings.

GENERAL INFORMATION: The year is 2298, and things aren’t too bad. There was a nuclear war in the 2020’s. Earth was a mess for decades following it, but things got better. Earth is not a perfect place; there is still overpopulation, poverty, and war, but it isn’t a dystopia, mostly. Humanity is not united, but most of the countries you know are still around in some form, and there is no threat of apocalyptic wars anymore. 

The rate of technological innovation stalled for a long time and has been slow for a long time, so much of the world of 2300 would be familiar to a 21st-century American. The wild Transhumanist predictions of the biotech future never came to pass - cybernetic enhancements and human genetic engineering are both possible and well understood but remain limited outside of certain subcultures. Both are rare, expensive, and widely stigmatized. The technology is there, but humanity remains wary of it. FTL was perfected in the 2130s, and humanity has expanded about 50 LY in every direction. There are dozens of colony worlds aligned along three major arms of exploration: The French Arm, the Chinese Arm, and the American Arm. Traveling to nearby stars is usually only a matter of days and comparable to ship travel in the mid-twentieth century. Humanity is not alone - there is life in abundance in the universe. We have encountered several sentient alien races, and only the most recent one, the “Kafer”, seems dangerous. The others are either primitive or friendly enough to not be considered a serious threat.

KAFER: The Kafer (the German term for the race) were encountered first in Arcturus, which is a primarily empty system, in 2295. There was sporadic contact only, with little actual communication. What is known is that the Kafer are a bipedal, human-sized race slightly reminiscent of “Prawns” from “District 9”, and their ships seem comparable to humans in technology. In 2297, contact was lost with the French outpost in Arcturus, and several civilian ships have reported hostile encounters with the Kafer when in that system. As a precaution, a joint French and Ukrainian task force was sent to protect the colonies at Aurore, including the mighty French battleship Ste. Jeanne d'Arc as flagship.

Timeline for Kaefer Contact on Aurore

• Mid 2295 - First contact with the Kaefer in the Arcturus system.
• Mid 2297 - Contact lost with the French research base in the Arcturus system, human vessels attacked by Kaefer warships.
• Late 2297 - Joint French/Ukrainian Squadron under Adm. DuBois and Adm. Borodin dispatched to Eta Bootis, with BB Ste. Jeanne d'Arc as flagship.
  
  
• 4-7 APR2298 - Battle of Eta Bootis, Kaefer fleet destroys and scatters the Joint Squadron, survivors fleeing to the German colony at Hochbaden.
• 8-9 APR 2298 - Kaefer forces bombard surface colonies on Aurore from orbit.
• 10 APR 2298 - Kaefer forces land and begin the ground assault of major settlements.

AURORE: The colony world you are on is called “Aurore”, a habitable moon of a gas giant in the Eta Bootis system… about 40LY from Earth out on the frontier. It is a strange place, tidally locked to the gas giant, with a “hot pole” and a "cold pole”. The habitable zone is the ring in between the two poles. Aurore is next door (in interstellar terms) to Arcturus, where the Kafer were first encountered several years ago. There are three colonies - a French, a Ukrainian, and the independent, "Tanstaafl”. Aurore is a hard place to live. The weather is extreme, the ground shakes a lot, and the local life is often aggressive and always toxic. 

TANSTAAFL COLONY: Named after an old pre-WW3 acronym, "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", Tanstaafl is a free-wheeling, Wild-West place where the law is often “flexible”. But fortunes are being made, and lives are being started there, and if you want to be free, Aurore is a fine place to do it. 

PDF Map of Tanstaafl Colony (Post 2298 Kafer Landings)

PDF Briefing on Tanstaafl City