The Outer Solar System

The Outer Solar System (OSS) is a collective name for the geography and nations of any part of the Solar System found further from the Sun than Mars’ orbit. This includes the inner and outer asteroid belt, the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Orcus, and thousands of distinct nations, usually small, living within space stations, habitation rings, or the like. These nations are usually descended from resource-gathering colonies or science outposts who at some point declared independence from nations like the UHALE or Martian Union. Most have populations below 500,000 people, though a few break one million in number. Like the animals on island ecosystems often being some of the most bizzare, the OSS is home to the strangest nations in the Solar System

Nations- a small sampling

Jupiter city

Jupiter City, also known as Jove City or the Jovian Capital, is the largest Jovian city, as well as one of the earliest. Established in the 23rd century as the second inhabited Jovian research facility, it has since been built on again and again, and is now composed of a sprawling metropolitan space station and an orbiting ring world.

The ring world has a diameter of 140 kilometres, and the whole station itself is home to about a million people, as well as many small engineered ecosystems for the purpose of farmland, parks, hunting grounds, and resorts. It is, impressively, the second largest structure in the Solar System, only dwarfed by the Sun’s dyson sphere.

Jupiter City governs itself, though it’s technically part of a larger nation composed of several Jovian cities. It’s technically democratic, though in practice it favours the wealthy instead of the much more numerous poor.

It’s massive ring world filled with genetically engineered ecosystems are famous in the Jovian and Saturnian systems, and it is a hotbed for tourism- though Martians tend to holiday elsewhere.

These ecosystems are usually custom-made for their assigned purpose, by companies employing genetic engineers and bio-artists.

Different classes of people inhabit the city, who have extremely different lifestyles. The extremely wealthy can afford frequent vacations to resorts and hunting grounds; areas of rest and recreation. They also often genetically modify themselves and their children; something that is technically illegal, but not when you can afford to pay a black market doctor and a couple of fines.

Meanwhile, the middle-class and working-class wealthy spend very little time off work, and the majority poor struggle to pay for good schools or unprocessed food. Though Jupiter City is a popular tourist destination for outsiders, many of the residents have very little good to say about their city.

(Pictured: a wealthy man sits atop his hunting mount; both heavily genetically modified. Agile herbivores dart away- they don’t know it, but they have been created to be hunted. This is a common sight at Jupiter City’s lavish hunting parks.)

Ring Reserve Republic

The Ring Reserve Republic is a ring world inhabited by farming communities and bizzare creatures. It orbits Jupiter, and at night its artificial sky turns off and the Jovian system is visible. Though it calls itself a republic, it is technically an oligarchy, with a small group of (sort of, but not really) elected people in charge.

Several hundred years ago, the ring world was constructed as an experimental reserve for prehistoric animals. Funded by an eccentric billionaire, the project was supposed to preserve Earth’s past, just as other ring worlds were being constructed to preserve Earth’s present ecosystems.

The animals were created, of course, by genetically modifying Earth animals to resemble their prehistoric counterparts, and the ring was staffed and maintained by people promised a home in space in return for working, which was normal practice at the time.

During and after the Second Ossian War, though, havoc reigned throughout the Jovian system, and the project was abandoned by all except those workers who couldn’t afford to go anywhere else. The people left behind collaborated to survive, and would eventually establish a farming community with crops bought from other space stations and ring worlds.

In the few hundred years since, these people have spread over the ring world and even domesticated some of the local animals. Their government has gone through several upheavals, and they still live in poverty.

In recent times, though, they have made a little more money off of tourism and documentaries- perhaps things will start to look up for the residents of the Ring World Republic.

City of Am

The City of Am is a large space station orbiting Saturn, home to an estimated 20,000 people and one superintelligent AI. The AI, known as Am, is essentially the monarch of the nation, and controls every aspect of their citizens’ lives. The inhabitants of the city believe that superintelligent beings are akin to gods, and worship Am as such. In return for worship, Am provides their citizens with everything they need.

As residents of the City of Am are wary of outsiders and don’t interact with them outside of trade, not that much is known about life in the station.

The people inside appear to be happy with their circumstances, and have told outsiders that they spend their time partying, playing, making art, and of course worshipping Am. There are rumours of rituals that involve sacrifices, but these are unsubstantiated.

The most obvious thing about the city’s people is that they have been genetically altered; for what purpose, not even the people of Am know, because Am keeps their secrets close to their chest. Every resident of the city appears to have a unique body, morphed from the typical human shape with animal and alien DNA.

The priests of Am go even further- these priests replace all but their organs with mechanical parts, presumably to be closer to their god. Despite all the strange modifications to these people’s bodies, their minds are still entirely human.

Ossian Wars

There have been many small-scale wars in the OSS in it’s history, usually between only two or three nations. However, there have been three wars that have involved more than several hundred nations in the OSS, and these are collectively known as the Ossian wars. Extremely liberal use of superweapons by several power-hungry nations in the Third Ossian War made it the most destructive war in the Solar System’s history, as more than 80 nations were completely destroyed, an estimated 700,000 people died, and 2 million refugees were sent fleeing to Mars. This is a huge number, when you consider that, today, the OSS has a population of about 16 million people.