OBT Forum

The Rim Worlds Republic and Elysium
“A whole new world, where the great are not held back by the meek, where hard work and ingenuity result in a symphony of wealth and prosperity!”~ official RWR Colonization Department advertisement
“We came to this planet seeking wealth and opportunity, not to be discarded like garbage” ~ Prime Minister Darius Santiago to the orbiting 47th Amaris Dragoons


   The year was 2603.  The Inner Sphere was trying to rebuild from the destruction of the Reunification War.   The Rim Worlds Republic was particularly ravaged by uprisings, coups, and of course the Star League.  The crushed, resource-poor Republic was desperately clawing its way out of the rubble.  Many planets were scouted by AsRoc survey teams that would become part of the Rim Worlds Republic’s Finmark province by 2750.  Some were earmarked for navigation purposes, others were barely viable dustball worlds.
One, surveyed in 2603, was deliberately kept secret.  Far beyond the farthest border of the Finmark Province, they had located a treasure trove. The initial spectrometry reports were astounding.  The planet appeared to be the motherlode of palladium, iridium, platinum, and most importantly, germanium.  Radioactive elements were abundant.  The only thing that wasn’t present was carbon.  The crust of P3R1757 had â…“ as much carbon as Terra - just barely enough to support life.  P3R1757 was placed in a priority line for development, though Richard Amaris had little desire to surrender the new find to Star League exploration.  The planet’s development was made top priority, and its colonization was placed under the control of AsRoc.   
The Bureau of Star League Affairs had received requests for construction, mining, and farming equipment in the aftermath of the Reunification War.   Equipment flooded in to the hardest hit areas of the Republic, was used on-site for a while, and then vanished.  By the time the BLSA agents set foot on Finmark, Tall Trees, and Apollo to audit the work and survey the repairs, the equipment was long gone.  BLSA auditors, trying to locate the equipment, found a dizzying paper trail that led only to dead ends.  The mighty Star League simply didn’t have the time find out why so much equipment, much of it regarded as disposable anyway was disappearing.
A great deal of this “appropriated equipment” made its way to P3R1757, along with a large group of refugees.  After losing loved ones, homes, and livelihoods in the war, many entire communities (selected by AsRoc) packed up what little they had and emigrated to “a new colony”.  Among them were political prisoners, malcontents, and adventure seekers.  Given the strong Greek heritage espoused by the Republic’s founders and the fertile conditions, many of the settlers took to calling the new planet ‘Elysium’, as it was a sanctuary from the lifetimes of woe they had escaped.

Citizens of Elysian Republic do have certain rights bestowed upon them at birth or upon successful immigration.  The right to vote in federal matters is restricted though to citizens who have performed some variety of civic service.  the easiest and most common route is a two year term of military service, however other avenues exist as well.  push comes to shove, some EDF citizens have even gone as far as paying a substantial fine for sovereign franchise, a route not commonly known about but available to any willing to pay such a fine.  So called Teir 2 Citizen ship not only guarantees the right to vote and run in federal elections, but also gives access to special tax rates and social safety nets.

Sidebar: Inalienable rights
the preamble to the Elysian Republic Constitution of 3070 guarantees five rights to all Elysian Citizens regardless of status, station, or place of birth.

1) No Citizen shall be denied  life, liberty, or property without due process under the law
2) No Citizen shall be denied free and fair access to information about the State of the Republic.
3) No Citizen shall be denied to worship the faith of their choosing, nor denied the right to not worship at all.
4) No Citizen shall be denied the right to impartial jurisprudence in matters criminal or civil
5) No Citizen shall be denied access to the full might of the Elysian economy, and the benefits contained therein, as long as one is willing to reach for one’s own potential.

Religion:

The People of the Elysian Republic are constitutionally granted freedom of, and from, religion within the republics borders.  The Freedom From Religion is a distinction almost unheard of, and is designed to prevent harassment and proselytizing.  Still the number of religious evangelists is higher then most government officials would like, and has been an issue of litigation for decades.  The debate of where one person’s constitutional right to “spread the good news” as their faith calls, and where it impedes on an other’s right to “not hear it” presents more problems in the legal system than was originally intended.

Below are the list of faiths common in the Elysian Republic.
Judaism -  From Babylon to Egypt, Egypt to Canaan, Jerusalem to the Diaspora, and Terra to the stars, Jews of one division or another form the single largest religious bloc in the Elysian Republic.  Beginning in the mid 25th Century, Jews fed up with antisemitic outbursts in the Rim Worlds Republic settled on the newly colonized world of Megiddo, quickly becoming the majority on that world.  Despite the Jewish majority, the ultra-orthodox Megiddo Rabbinate refused to recognize Reform, Conservative, and reconstructionist Jewish immigrants as Jews, mirroring what happened in the State of Israel in the 21st century.   

At least half of Megiddo’s Jewish population (about seventy million people) left for a new deep periphery colony, leaving only the ultra orthodox and the orthodox who were content with the marginalization of liberal Jews.  Jews once again found themselves the majority on Elysium, but vowed to never again allow any one group to be marginalized. 

Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, and Hasidic divisions still remain, though antagonism between the branches has disappeared.  Elysian Jews place a strong emphasis on community service, which leads to a huge percentage of Elysian Jews serving in the EDF.

Despite being the single largest religious bloc in Elysian space, the nearly three thousand year old ban on proselytism is still in place, gaining Elysian Jews the most respect afforded by the very vocal Elysian atheist community.


“Paganisim”- brought about by a combination of more political dissidents, as well as an influx of Canopian and Lyran Immigrants, the term “Pagan” is a catch-all for Wiccans, Odinites, Gardanians, and various other “old religions.”  Seeing the unity that the blanket title gives, the various Pagan communities have accepted the title and used it to become the second largest religious group in Elysian space, so much so that the 90 day cycle of seasonal change has been recognized as a federal holiday.  Contrary to the “witch hunt” attitudes of other states, Pagans are open of their faith and have sparked quite a secular following among other Elysians. This has reach the kind of popularity that  what was once religious festivals becoming large secular spectacles of Elysian unity. 

Christianity- as constant as the morning sun, followers of Christ spread afar and wide throughout the galaxy.  Christian philosophy tends to follow a Presbyterian line, encouraging the whole community to be responsible for theology rather then religious leaders.

Islam: Unlike Christians who sought to bring the word of God to the stars, Muslims were reluctant to leave Terra, and thus has become a minority religion in the galaxy.  Currently  most Muslims in the Republic are either on Elysium itself or oddly, Tel-Aviv, and most of that number are reformist Muslims who sprung up near then end of the 21st century.  Elysian Muslims place a high value on national service despite preaching pacifism as an official doctrine.  Some 65 percent of Elysian Muslims have spent time in one or more forms of public service, be it the Military, police, fire and rescue teams, or public education. 

Smaller faiths: Hindus, Buhddists, and Sikh’s while common enough in other powers are simply few and far between in the Elysium Republic due to lack of strong roots when the planet was first colonized, and little to no immigration.  one other religion that is of note however is the Druze Minority which has managed to tick nearly a full percentage point of the Republic’s total population this past decade.  Often mistaken as an offshoot of Islam or Judaism, this esoteric and misunderstood religous group maintains large colonies on Elysium and smaller settlements on Tel Aviv.

Media and Arts:
The prevailing architecture style that is not related to commercialization, or neo Victorian or 20th century housing is called Neo Utopian.  The style makes use of exaggerated curved lines, and “perfected” human forms.  Wide spaces and higher than standard ceilings can prevail in even the smallest neo utopian buildings.

One of the current trendsetters in modern art is holographic sculpture.  Rather than projecting into an ionized field, Holosclupture relies on  method of projecting images into glass or spun crystal spheres flooded with nano-imperfections.  By reflecting light off of those nano scale air bubbles, fully realized hyper definition images can be rendered.  Most famous of the artists in this field is a man who calls himself Janus. His “Children of Chaos” series has several spheres showing a human being who will change into a primal angelic or demonic form and back.

Perhaps the strangest relic of mass media in the Elysian republic is the survival of the FM and AM Radio bands alongside digital Tri-D broadcasting.  Thanks to technology allowing more efficient broadcasting, Radio station broadcast regions are now 10-15 times larger then they were in the 20th century, allowing information to be spread wide, fast and more cheaply than other forms of broadcasting.

Currently the number one rated radio news show, “Three Dog Mornings”, is a Galaxy News Radio Broadcast that runs in the mornings on Elysium and is uploaded to other planets via HPG the following afternoon.  A combination of big band and jazz music, along with loud and proud political commentary and calls for civilian activism has made the show popular The program has entered its 39th season with the now 65 year old “Three Dog” Williams considered the undisputed king of talk in the Republic.