This Isn't About Reya

NOTE:

// A BRIEF NOTE ON THE NEW SOVIET UNION, AQUILO-NIX, AND THE GREAT CITY OF DRAGOTSENNOST' //

The New Soviet Union, founded on Earth in the wake of a pandemic that had wiped out most of the poverty-stricken country of Russia, had been slowly expanding through the cosmos for nearly fifteen hundred years. Its dominion spanned hundreds of star systems, rivaling the vastness of both the Quoc Quyet Empire and the American Federation.

Upon its capitol planet of Aquilo-Nix - a snow-blanketed world, harsh and unforgiving, chosen for its similarity to Old Russia as it had been remembered on the abandoned planet Earth - civilization had gathered itself into a mere handful of tight and highly-fortified clusters. Of these towering metropolises, the city of Dragotsennost', seat of the ruling council of the New Soviet Union, was certainly the most awe-inspiring. In Old Russian, the word "dragotsennost'" meant "jewel" - and against the bleak tundras of the planet, its looming magnificence gleamed brighter than any gem.

Dragotsennost' was a city built as a testament to the ideals of the Union, an embodiment of the Soviet tenets and doctrines. Its tiered levels kept the social classes of the Union's pseudo-communist foundation separated and in check: the highest levels reserved for the ruling elite, the middle level teeming with the mediocrity of the middle class's percentage majority, and the lowest levels infested by Soviet dregs, criminals, rejects, and of course, the poor.

The city itself was further divided into sectors, each representing one of the five Tsars who ruled over all of the Union. The corporate and industrial sector was managed by the Tsar of Industry, the religious sector by the Tsar of Worship, the education and research sector by the Tsar of Learning, the military sector by the Tsar of War, and the political sector by the Tsar of Rule. And at the center of the city, five towers soared above all else, reaching into the low-hanging, ever-present blanket of gray clouds that drifted across the skies of the planet, carrying snow with them as they wandered. The towers also numbered five, one for each of the Tsars, and encircled each other at the heart of Dragotsennost'; they were the Tower of Labor, the Tower of the Winds, the Tower of Regency, the Tower of Knowledge, and the Tower of Victory.

Dragotsennost' was renowned for two more aspects that made it a welcome sight in the midst of the northern tundras of Aquilo-Nix. The first was the great worldship which hovered above its Five Towers, a massive ring station that opened its wormhole gateway to other cities on other planets in the New Soviet Union's vast expanse of cosmic territory. Its space-time connections were scheduled and unfaltering, and thousands of starships docked and departed from its titanic inner ring every hour, carried along by the rifts of energy that the worldship dragged through space in order to keep its Union connected to itself across such monumental distances.

The second revered aspect of Dragotsennost' was its colossal ring of defensive outer walls, which totally encompassed the city, reaching hundreds of feet into the air and protecting the lowest levels from the threats of the Nixan wilderness. As the Russians had adapted themselves to the harsh environment of the planet through generations of gradual immersion, surgically-precise genetic tampering, and careful selective breeding of its strongest and most resilient citizens, so too had the introduced Earth flora and fauna been altered to survive amidst the merciless climate. While the planet's ecosystem had been stabilized, it had also transformed Old Russia's most feared biology into even deadlier versions of themselves. The Nixan wilderness was home to hulking tundra bears, great herds of multi-antlered white elk, packs of slathering direwolves, quilled Siberian tigers, and stout, four-horned mountain rams.

Perhaps the most deadly, however, were the mysterious pale spiders - hybrid creatures grown from the genes of arachnids and crustaceans, scuttering with swarm-like efficiency across the tundra, hunting and consuming whatever crossed their path. They had been grown as Soviet weapons, but had quickly infested both the northern and southern tundras of Aquilo-Nix. The walls of Dragotsennost', often, were the only things keeping them and the other dangers of the wilderness at bay.

The citizens of the New Soviet Union were no strangers to blood and destruction; their government's expansion across the stars had been marred with war and conquest for hundreds of years. Since 1700 RV, however, the Union had adopted a new policy of terraforming planets to expand its empire, and war had decreased significantly in that time. The year 1886 RV was still an era of conflict, though, as the New Soviet Union dealt with terrorist attacks in its outer colonies and territory disputes along its border with the Quoc Quyet. Relatively speaking, though, the century 1800 had been almost a full hundred years of peace.

In the stead of warfare, it had begun conflicts within its own borders, as the citizens that had generally accepted its iron-fisted rule began to question the ideals of discipline, strength, and victory in favor of freedom and independence. Thus, as 1886 drew to a close, the New Soviet Union and its Five Tsars faced a slowly-growing rumble of intolerance and dissatisfaction within their massive empire. At the same time, the Redeemed terrorist group began to increase its raids on the outer colonies, and diplomatic outreaches to the Quoc Quyet steadily renewed, ending in failure and animosity each time.

For the citizens of the New Soviet Union, it was apparent that change was needed.

Little did they know how quickly - and violently - it would come.