Luna (Classic Journeys Era)

Overview
Luna is major satellite of the planet Earth in the Sol System. Unlike most satellites it is comparably large when compared to the planet it orbits creating a system that's almost a binary planet. Also as the satellite of the human homeworld it was the first body reached and colonised by that race, first in 1969 by Neil Armstrong. It is the homeworld of the Lunites.

Descended from 22nd Century Specialists who were liberated and given the ability to reproduce and live longer lives, the denizens of Luna now live under the oversight of Solar Republic, part of a unique political system that divides the government into two main parts, despite the massive size difference - Mars and Luna itself.

Resources
The lunar crust is composed of a variety of primary elements, including uranium, thorium, potassium, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, titanium, calcium, aluminum and hydrogen. In the past the crust also contained pockets of frozen water, but these have long since been used by respective Lunite and Earth industries.

Atmosphere
Luna has a relatively insignificant and tenuous atmosphere. One source of this atmosphere is outgassing — the release of gases, for instance radon, which originate deep within Luna's interior. Another important source of gases is the solar wind, which is briefly captured by Luna's gravity.

Ruins of Rima Sirsalis
Between 3001 and 3004, the capital city and main trading centre of Luna, however Lunite rights movements met with massacre on Sparta and strengthened the position of the Lunite Republican Army within the city, which eventually declared it's independence. Sparta was later obliterated from orbit, as a protest Rima Sirsalis went independent, in a hope perhaps that the rest of Luna would follow suit. The Vanguard invaded the world and met heavy resistance from the ILA. As a final blow the city was, like Sparta before it, destroyed from orbit. The ruins are now a source of scrap metal and other resources for other cities and ships are regularly seen moving to and from the ruins.

Lovell City
The primary surviving Lunite habitat, a sprawling semi-underground city located within Oceanus Procellarum, several kilometers east of the Copernicus Crater. The Solar Republic military governership is headquartered here. The primary construction materials used to create Lovell City is cast in place concrete and resin reinforced moonrock, often cast over inflatable forms. Locations of interest include the Observation Deck, Aldrin's Bar and the manufacturing plants of Lovell City Arms.

History
A world at the crossroads of mankind's home, world caught in the crossfire of interstellar event, a world now of reflections in a shattered mirror.

The original Lunite population were descendants of the 22nd Century Specialists produced for the human population of Earth. Originally, these Specialists were created to perform unpopular or undesireable jobs on Earth; however, when human colonists on Mars triggered the Mankind-Zangali War, tens of thousands of specialists were created who were specially designed as soldiers to fight the Zangali. After a group of specialists rebelled against their human masters, the Genetic Engineering Limitations Treaty, or GELT, was signed, banning the genetic engineering of humans, outlawing the production of specialists and granting all existing specialists full civil and reproductive rights.

These liberated specialists were given Luna as their home, and settled in the single major city there, Lunar City, which was built on the Lunar surface under a dome. For centuries, Lunar City was the only major Lunite settlement on Luna, and grew into a very large and crowded city. For this reason, and because of the limited economic opportunities on Luna, it was very common for Lunites to leave Luna, either to serve in the Stellar Consortium's Vanguard or to make their way elsewhere in the galaxy. As descending from Specialist stock, Lunites are very similar in appearance to normal humans, although many are altered based on the specialization of their ancestors.

When the Kretonians attacked Sol System, they fractured the dome of Lunar City, rendering it uninhabitable. The hardy Lunites, however, were prepared for this contingency, and fled into specially prepared pressurized caves beneath the surface, where they gradually rebuilt their society.

When mankind resumed mass production of cloned humans for the war against the Kretonians, the Lunites abandoned the Consortium and formed the Free Luna Protectorate. They constructed a new Lunar City beneath the surface of Luna in the deep caves to which they had fled, making it accessible only through a specialized landing pad buried deep in a crater on the surface. After the defeat of the Kretonians, the newly formed Solar Consortium sought to bring the Lunites under their control, and a cold war broke out between the humans of Earth and Mars and their Lunite cousins. Special Gunstar satellites were placed in orbit of Luna to protect it from assault by the Guardiam Fleet; the humans responded by launching Gunstars of their own over their world.

The Lunites, short of resources, made a deal with Lord Boromov of Ungstir to receive ships and supplies that were captured by pirates working for Boromov. Lord Boromov detested the xenophobic Solar Consortium, and saw perhaps a certain kinship between the Lunites and the Ungstiri, who were tunnel dwellers of their own. If the Lunites knew how Boromov obtained ships and supplies for them, they did not ask any questions. This partnership, however, broke apart during President Kalson's administration in 3001, when it was discovered that Boromov pirates had been using New Luna, recently discovered and claimed by the previous administration, as a base to launch attacks, and had also recently drawn the ire of the Nall. The Lunites at this time denied any connection to Boromov, and indeed most of the population of Luna probably believed this to be true, despite decades of cooperation between the Boromov Crime Syndicate and the Lunite government.

All Lunite settlements remained underground in caverns until Jeffrey Kalson rose to the Presidency of the Free Luna Protectorate in 3001. At this time, Kalson ordered the dispersal of the Lunite population into a number of different settlements and ordered the construction of new, domed cities on the surface. The largestof these, Lunar City, became the nominal capital. The other major habitations were Rima Sirsalis, Anchorage, Lovell City and Tycho Base.

Kalson ruled Luna with determination, will and an iron handed implementation of his own personal agendas. To some within the government forces, including the Lunite Militia, this bred unrest and dissent, which rose to a peak in in the summer of 3002, with the discovery that Kalson was, in view of considered disloyal militia troops, creating a specialist army of his own. The Free Luna Protecterate effectively ended with the destruction of the cloning faciltity, the mass death of of the specialists within, the assassination of Kalson and the subsequent suicide of his assassin Kedren Arnassis, an officer in the Lunite Militia.

And then followed the Moebius Effect. The result of a Centauran experiment gone astray, from Earth the wavefront stretched out, and in its wake left an alternate-universe version of Luna. Refugees fleeing the wave effect were given refuge on Sivad, Ungstir and New Luna. The Moebius Effect also restored Earth, no longer the plasma bombed shell of man's homeworld. The flipside of this coin was the Luna of the alternate universe was part of a militaristic state under the rule of the self named King Colin Neidermeyer. Luna was a state of his domininion, as well the rest of the Sol System within the wave effect.

The sudden change of political and cultural territory and Neidermeyer's 'cowboy diplomacy' led to a renewed state of conflict in the Sol System when the Nall pre-emptively struck at Neidermeyer's regime, capturing most of Earth. Luna then became a battleground, a no man's land between the warring factions. To prevent Earth from falling to alien hands Neidermeyer plasma bombed the alternate universe Earth and attempted to do the same to Luna. The Luna bomb was disarmed by an offworld team lead by Colonel Porter and a team associated with the starships Minerva and Gray Horse. Soon afterwards, the new Free Luna Protectorate was formed and held control of large parts of the world for the best part of a year until Neidermeyer was defeated during late 3003 and the Moebius effect reversed, which returned Luna to its original state.

Which left Luna in a unique an very unbalanced situation. The remaining population was now comprised of two distinct and very different people. The first group, of course, being the original inhabitants of the primary universe Luna and the second group the refugees left behind from the Luna of the Alternate Universe. This dichotomy created an unstable population and culture, with various groups rising and falling from power. The Lunite Militia held the small world in a near police state condition, Rima Sirsalis became the capital, until with the reconsolidation of the Solar Republic and the redevelopment of Vanguard from the Guardian Fleet Luna was engulfed into the new Sol government.

This did not go over well. Several of the Lunite cities, lead by the people of Rima Sirsalis, declared their independence. This period of radical freedom lasted until the middle of 3004. That is when the Solar Republic and Vanguard returned and leveled the rebel cities through orbital bombardment and subsequent on the ground mop up. The rebellion was crushed. Luna, after the bombardment, was now a semi-autonomous state within the Solar Republic, overseen by a Vanguard military governor. His staff and troops maintained order within the remaining domed cities. The Solar Republic guided the economic and social agenda, but this firm rule has resulted in a better standard of living and the start of a return to relative prosperity.

There are rumors, though, that another Luna exists, as if reflected in a mirror darkly, one which is lost deep in its forgotten and dull concrete corridors. Where those who still desire true freedom and independence hide from the Solar Republic peace squads and eke out food and resources through black market trade.

Random acts of terrorism. Hovercar bombs, flash firefights, the kidnapping of Republican troopers, confirm that true peace had not come to Luna yet.

Within the last year or two, however, Luna has become a full member of the Solar Republic and steers its own destiny as equals of Mars within the Solar Republic's Senate. The Vanguard is made up of close proportions of Martian humans and Lunites. Luna itself has settled down to peace and is run by its own governor and local council to deal with planetary matters. Peace has once more settled in.

The ILA
The Independent Luna Army is the rag tag remmnant of the Lunite Militia, and is still dedicated to a free Luna, governed and defended by the descendants of the original Specialist-derived population. It is primarily made up of original-universe lunites, the alternative-universe refugees tending to favor the presense of a strong central government, such as the Solar Republic. Though, of course, there are exceptions to this general rule.

The ILA took severe losses when the Solar Republic put down the rebellions of Rima Sirsalis and Sparta. Almost wiped out in the mid part of 3004, with their chain of command shattered, their most experienced officers and troopers lost, the ILA is but a shell of its former self. Forced to retreat deep into the habitation infrastructure, the ILA and ILA sympathisers have been forced to eke out an existance on the very edge. Short of food, medical supplies and day to day consumables, they scrounge their life in maintenance tunnels and service caves, much like rats in a sewer. The larger of these habitations are known as "holdfasts". Life in a holdfast is rough and hard, and in constant fear of being wiped out by a Solar Republic patrol.

Faced with limited resources against a larger, better trained and better equipped occupation force, the ILA has turned to an age old solution to push forth the agenda against those that have stolen their world from them: Guerilla warfare and terrorism.

The ILA is almost non-existant now, however, with the inclusion of Luna as a founding member of the Solar Republic and only commands attention from a tiny and almost irrelevant portion of Lunite society.

Useful Links
Luna Sol System Mars Earth