Aleae Iaciens

One of the inevitabilities of colonizing alien planets is that any given planet is significantly unlikely to have rotational and revolutionary periods that coincide with the orthodox years and days.  Eiluphates Gamma - that is, Federal Frontier Colony 1079 - is no exception to this, although its periods are much closer to the Federal measurements than some other colonies.

The Federal calendar was made up of twelve months of thirty days each, for a total of 360 days per year.  A day was exactly 24 hours, an hour was exactly 60 minutes, and a minute was exactly 60 seconds. (The second was defined by properties of certain radioactive elements, which are beyond the scope of this document; suffice it to say that the reader may assume that the Federal second was roughly the same as that with which he is familiar.)

By contrast, FFC1079's year is, using Federal units, 356 days, 6 hours, 43 minutes, and 12 seconds long; by its own units, it is exactly 372 days long.  The colonists used the Federal system to determine their hours, minutes, and seconds, so each day has 24 hours, each hour 60 minutes, and each minute 60 seconds; the 12 months, however, are 31 days each.  Unlike the Federal system, whose official measurements were in multiples of the second, the Frontier system uses fractions of the year - such that a day is officially 1/372 of the year, an hour is 1/8928 of the year, and so on.  (It is an interesting bit of trivia that by chance, the difference between the orthodox year and the FFC1079 year as measured in orthodox days - 3.72 days - is exactly 1/100 of the FFC1079 year as measured in local days.)

A side effect of this difference is that the Frontier hour is slightly shorter than its Federal counterpart; one Federal hour is 1.044 local hours, or 1 hour, 2 minutes, and a little under 39 seconds.  (A Federal second is likewise 1.033 local seconds.)  As a rule, people on FFC1079 use local time measurements; however, the Federal supply ships ran on orthodox time, and anyone who interacted with the ships needed to keep the differential in mind.  Because of this, most people on FFC1079 used digital calendars and clocks that display both orthodox and local measures, although these have recently fallen out of favor - largely because without the supply ships, the clock manufacturers have had no reliable way to synchronize their clocks with the orthodox time.

One important detail of FFC1079's calendar is that it begins on the winter solstice; this is done for largely traditional reasons.  It also starts with the year that Dodge and his colonists arrived on FFC1079; the winter solstice before they arrived was the first day of FFC Year 1. Because of the 3.72-day difference between the FFC1079 year and the official year, the local year goes farther out of sync with the orthodox year with every revolution.  Specifically, the Federal year begins 3.88 local days earlier with each year that goes by; the two measures return to rough  synchronization once every 96 years.  (This first occurred in FY602/LY13.)

This can lead to confusion when discussing dates; for example, the day on which Council president Peter Marratt was inaugurated, the first day of FY614, was actually in the middle of the eleventh month of LY24.  By FY625 - LY35 - the Federal year had fallen out of favor as a record-keeping tool, since those actually recording events preferred to use a dating system that was consistent with the actual years that they were experiencing.  (LY35 is commonly chosen by historians as the turning point because it was during that year that the FFC Council passed a bill changing the council president's term to four local years.)

Posted by Chris Anthony at 05:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been busy enough that I haven't been checking my referral stats as compulsively as I usually do, so I hadn't noticed that Aleae Iaciens is edging up on 1,000 pageviews!  (That's right - 1,000 views in just over a year.  Maybe if I were to post more often...)

So I have a couple of questions for you guys, since you all seem to be relatively on top of things.

First, what is a "gamist"?  Ever since selentic linked to a few gaming weblogs, I've been seeing this word pop up; I assume it arises from The Forge, but I can't figure out what it means.  Brian tells me that it's someone who falls between pure simulationist and pure narrativist, which terms I actually do understand, but I keep feeling like there are connotations to gamist that I'm just not getting.

Second, what do you all want to see me talk about?  I honestly want answers here; I'm not just asking because I'm blocked.  I think I have ten readers now (!!), and it behooves me to talk about the things that people want to read about.  Should I work on the system more?  (The more I think about it, the more I wonder if I shouldn't actually work out two systems for the game - one with cards, and one with dice.  I like the card-based system, but it's not easy to get until you've played it through once or twice.)  Should I keep talking about the history of Frontier, or should I talk more about where it is "today"?

Seriously - tell me what you want to see in this space, even if it's just "keep doing what you're doing" or "I don't have any suggestions, I'm just enjoying the ride" (or "you really should give up on Frontier and work on something else", although I'd like to hear why).  And, as a reminder, if you're reading this from an RSS feed (like the Livejournal feed), I only see comments that are posted here, so please click through before you leave a note.

Okay, enough chatter for now.  Barring overwhelming response as to what I should talk about, I'm working on a side piece about the geography of Frontier which should settle some questions that have been asked.  With any luck I'll be posting that early this week, although with a midterm to study for and a paper to write, it probably won't be before Tuesday...  (Some of you may also notice that the setting is changing as I nail more of it down; obviously, the more that gets nailed down, the less will be retconned.  But if you have questions about that, or concerns that I've forgotten something I wrote earlier - hey, it happens - feel free to let me know.)

Posted by Chris Anthony at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

That less than three quarters of the colonists did not leave Dodge City with the Separatists does not mean that the remaining population universally favored Michael Spader's policies - or his new militia.  In fact, it is safe to say that most of them did not; the choice was not as simple as staying and agreeing with Spade or disagreeing with him and leaving, and within those colonists who stayed in Dodge City there was still a range of political opinions.

Although the distinctions between the original colonial groups had become less clear over the preceding twenty-one years, especially with the prevalence of marriage between the groups and Dodge's vision of a unified Dodge City, the group with which Spader had arrived on FFC1079 was fully united in its members' support of his policies.  (Whether this is due to genuine approval or simple loyalty is unknown; the Federal government never asked, and there are no extant private records to shed light on the matter.)  Other than that, however, very few of the colonists publically supported Spader, and none publically opposed him - those who did were jailed for sedition.

This is not to say that there was not semi-public and private opposition. A coalition of colonists who wanted to see Spader removed from office and the militia disbanded began organizing late-night meetings, both to bolster their sentiments and to consider methods of opposing Spader without being seditious.  Eventually this included almost a tenth of the remaining citizens of Dodge City - many more stayed away out of fear of discovery - including quite a few members of Spader's militia, who resented having been drafted.  For several years this group attempted to change Spader's ways through protests - pseudonymous pamphlets, ransacking the shops of those who publically supported Spader, giving aid and comfort to Separatists, and similar acts, though never anything by which individual members of the coalition could be recognized - but when these failed to work, the coalition began considering more serious opposition.

In the beginning of FY613, coalition leaders began drawing up a plan to use the weapons at their disposal - which consisted largely of handguns and rifles - and the training of those coalitionists who were in the militia to stage a siege on the council chambers until Spader agreed to relinquish power or the council voted him out of the presidency.  These plans were in their final stages when the Federal Police arrived and removed Spader from power, neatly abolishing the reason for the coalition's existence, and the oppositionists faded back into Dodge City's general population.  (The ringleaders of the coalition, however, remained close throughout their days, and their children after them.  It was not until two generations later that an ideological rift - between expansionism and consolidationism - tore that circle apart.)

It is worth noting that Spader was aware, through spies in the coalition, of the plans to lay siege to the council chambers, and was planning to have the remaining members of the militia corner and force the surrender of the oppositionists when they attempted to bring their plans to fruition.  He was, say the memoirs of one of his confidantes, looking forward to the first executions on FFC1079 in the twenty-five-year history of the colony.

Posted by Chris Anthony at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Some of you, particularly Selentic, have asked about the details of the Separation War.  I hope this provides some useful background and detail on this important part of Frontier's history.

It is worth noting that the Separation War is not merely significant in that it is the only real war ever fought on Frontier; it is also a turning point for the colonists.  FFC1079 had, before this point, operated largely under the benign neglect of the Federal government.  With the arrival and intervention of the Federal Police, however, the colonists began losing more and more autonomy to the Federal government, and a century later the Federales were pretty much running everything - which made it even harder to make the transition back to self-government when the Federal government disappeared in FY722.

The Separation War

Dodge City, the primary colony on Frontier, was relatively stable through its first twenty years, under the capable leadership of the charismatic James Dodge.  Dodge was neither an elected leader nor an appointed one; he became the guiding voice of the colony largely through momentum.  He was already the man to whom the colonists on his ship looked for guidance when they arrived at FFC1079, and as his was the first ship to arrive, by the time other colonists set foot on the planet, Dodge had already established the foundations of what would become Dodge City, and none of the other colonial leaders, such as they were, wanted the fundamental divide among colonists that they saw as inevitable if Dodge were removed from power.  Dodge was, however, astute enough to not claim leadership over all colonists openly; he met with the other colonial leaders and formed a central council, of which he was selected to be president by all but one of the new councillors.

All of this came to an untimely end in FY609, however, when James Dodge suffered a fatal heart attack.  Since Dodge had been largely a de facto leader, and each of the colonist groups had its own methods for choosing successors, there was no real machinery in place to determine who would be the next president.  After two weeks of nearly constant debate - the councillors returning home only to eat and sleep - a new leader was chosen from their ranks: Michael Spader. Spader had served in the Federal Navy, and rose to the rank of Leftenant before his tour of duty ended; it was thought that his military background would be an asset to his presidency.  (That he was the councillor for the largest group of colonists after Dodge's - who did not send another councillor until after Spader was elected - was undoubtedly also on the minds of those who elected him.)

Spader, however, turned out to be a better officer than he was a statesman.  It soon became apparent that he saw the council presidency as a dictatorship, with the other councillors as mere advisors, and that he expected those under his ersatz "command" to obey his mandates without question.  One of his least popular decisions was to establish a standing militia for FFC1079, including a mandatory draft and an income tax to support the cost of maintaining such a militia.  Spader explicitly intended this to be a supplement to the Federal military, and his stated goal was "to provide for the Defense of our Colony in such case as a Threat arises to which the Military of our Father Government cannot respond in a timely Manner".  Many of the colonists, however, saw the establishment of this militia as Spader's attempt to assert his independence from the Federal government.

Spader also continued some of the less-popular economic policies that had been established during Dodge's presidency.  These policies included a tax on income and on property held outside the confines of Dodge City, in order to help maintain the everyday operation of the colony and later to build the northwest railroad through Madera, and a tax on the sale of any item produced using colony property; the colonists generally agreed that these were fair and necessary taxes, but disliked them anyway.  Spader added not only the aforementioned militia tax, but a tariff on any goods imported specially by individual colonists, and a low property tax on property within Dodge City itself.  These new policies, along with the establishment of a colonial militia and the mandatory draft that accompanied it, were enough to cause colonists to begin actively protesting, and near the end of FY609, two councillors - Teresa Ligne and Cyrus Clark - submitted a declaration of secession and left the city, along with three thousand colonists.

The Separatists, as Spader and, eventually, the rest of the colonists called them, established the town of Duligne as a base south of the city, and claimed twenty thousand square miles surrounding the base as a separate colony, which they called Clark County.  Spader's immediate response was to send the new colonial militia into Clark County to round up or kill the Separatists, but the militia was too new and untrained - and had too many reservations about firing on their friends and former neighbors - to make much difference, and in the first month of FY610 they were driven from Clark County.  In the meantime, scouts from Duligne snuck into Dodge City and appropriated food and supplies - some by stealing, some by purchasing from sympathetic Dodge colonists - and returned to Clark County.  This pattern was repeated every few months for the next three years, with the militia not making much headway against the Separatists, until the Federal Police arrived.  The Federal Police were much better armed and trained than the colonial militia, and within months - that it took so long was a credit to the tenacity of the Separatists - they had taken Duligne and killed or driven away the Separatists in Clark County.

The Federal Police took this opportunity to establish their first permanent base on FFC1079, in the terraforming plant itself, which they called Precinct Zero.  They also forced the removal of Michael Spader from power, seeing his dictatorial approach to the colonial presidency and his establishment of a militia answerable to him - as had many of the colonists, including the Separatists - as an act of treason against the Federal government.  Spader was removed from FFC1079 and imprisoned for life, and the Federal Police assisted the colonists at large - not just the councillors - in choosing a more suitable council president. On the first day of FY614, councillor Peter Marratt became council president, under the watchful eye of the Federal Police.

Posted by Chris Anthony at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A Brief History of Frontier

Frontier's recorded history begins four hundred and twenty-four years before the present, in the Federal Year 398, when a Federal probe ship discovered a solar system around the star Eiluphates, a yellow-white main sequence star orbited by five planets.  Only one, initially designated Eiluphates Gamma, was capable of bearing life; two of its siblings were much smaller and closer to the sun, and the other two were distant gas giants, ten and thirty times farther from the star than Gamma.  (There were large outer-belt objects, and two significant asteroid fields, but none were considered significant planets by the probe ship.)  In FY407, a terraforming ship arrived in the Eiluphates system to begin operations on Gamma; its operations were largely limited to replacing the heavy carbon monoxide and ozone concentrations in the air with a breathable nitrogen-oxygen mix and to pre-populating the world with plants and animals.  By FY585 the Federal Interior Commission was prepared to declare Eiluphates Gamma open for commission, renamed the planet Federal Frontier Colony 1079, and opened the system for colonization.

The Federal colonization policy was fairly simple: any group could apply for a charter to colonize a given planet, although limited charters were available.  Those who met the requirements but did not receive a charter for a given planet were given an option guaranteeing them a charter on a future colony, which - when the new colony became available - the group could accept or refuse.  A given group received only one option per application; if they refused to take it, they were required to reapply for future colonies, with no preference given.  When FFC1079 was opened for colonization, only three out of the ten available charters were optioned; the rest were applied for and granted, and in the third quarter of FY587, ships bearing around five thousand colonists lifted off from various planets, headed for the new world.

The first ship to arrive, in the first quarter of FY588, was Good King Henry, carrying five hundred colonists under the de facto leadership of one James Valentine Dodge.  By the time other colony ships arrived weeks or months later, Dodge's colonists had established a small town near the main terraforming plant, which sat on the eastern coast of the main continent, in a break in the mountain range running the length of the land mass.  While a few other colonists set up camp in other places - and were, by and large, never heard from again - the majority began to settle with Dodge's colonists, and within a year the town was known as Dodge City.

For twenty years, the colony prospered under a local council, consisting of the leaders of the various colonist groups and headed by James Dodge, and the general governance of the Federal Interior Commission.  By FY600, Dodge City's population had exceeded twenty thousand people, a second town, Madera, had been founded a few days' ride away, and the first rails were being laid for a new railroad meant to stretch from Dodge City through Madera and out into the forests to the far northwest.  In addition, coal and metal mines were being sunk in the mountains north and south of Dodge City, providing Federal Frontier Colony 1079 with resources that the quarter-annual Federal ships had been bringing to that point.

In FY609 the colony's peace was shattered when James Dodge suffered a fatal cardiac arrest.  Dodge and his group, it turned out, had been a major factor in keeping the other groups of colonists working together, and when Dodge died, and was replaced by a less apt leader, two members of the council became belligerent within a month and seceded, along with about one in ten citizens of Dodge City.  The Separatists, as they became known, left the city and founded Clark County to the south, and began staging raids on Dodge City for the supplies that they needed.  This continued for several years - according to some, with the help, or at least the conscious neglect, of Dodge City colonists sympathetic to their old friends - until the spring of FY613, when the Federal supply ship was accompanied by a military transport bearing the first Federal Police to set foot on FFC1079.  Six months later, at the end of local summer and the end of the Federal year, the Separatists had been driven from Clark County, and the Federal Police had established a permanent post in Dodge City.  The extended battle between the Separatists and the Federal Police is commonly acknowledged as being the only true war in the colony's history, and is referred to - when it is referred to at all - as the Separation War.

Posted by Chris Anthony at 01:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)