///From the author: this story is another one of the many tales set within the overall timeline of the Spacers Saga universe. It focuses on the Talvan colony, and especially on life in and around the capital, Aurora City, in the mid-2380s, during the period in which the Centauri cluster is affected by the Frontier Wars. This story will affect Talvan's eventual role in the Infinitum storyline, which takes place over 150 years later. In the end, though, it is meant to be its own standalone story, one which deals with the lives of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times
[Map of Aurora City and the surrounding region in 2386]
Setting Notes
Talvan (the official name for the largest moon of a Centauri Ab) is 4.3 lightyears away from Earth and was first reached in 2311. The first human settlers were outcasts, religious emigres, and adventure seekers who left Solar Space in 2274 as part of the vastly expensive Wayfarer Program. In 2384, the colony there is just shy of 75 years old and has recently crossed the one million mark in population (thereby completing the Wayfarer Program’s original goal).
Capital and largest metro area is Aurora City, which gets its name from the vibrant auroras visible on the poles of Caliban (official name for a Centauri Ab). Famous Talvanian Tyson “Ty” Delatorre called these auroras “the most beautiful thing in Centauri space.” Delatorre led nearly eight thousand colonists to Alpha Centauri, and after serving two terms as Governor, ultimately settled at a modest country home outside of the settlement at Aurora City, where he lived until he died of natural causes (having forsworn life extension) in 2379 at age 117.
Despite its vibrant culture, Aurora City is small compared to cities in Solar Space, owing to its youth, and is home to a little more than a hundred thousand people. About six hundred and forty thousand humans in total live on the surface of Talvan in settlements like Durandal and Uhuru, mostly on the same continent as Aurora City. In orbit, there is Dresden Station, a Bernal Sphere built in the 2350s and 60s which rests in geostationary orbit high above Aurora City and can house anywhere from five to twenty thousand inhabitants, depending on how far the ICA administrators onboard are willing to strain the station’s life support.
All told, about 1.1 million people live in various corners of the Alpha Centauri triple system (which includes the Toliman and Proxima systems, as well). Most of these inhabitants live in space stations or gravity cities etched into the many small rocky worlds orbiting the local stars, where they busy themselves with making the system a new hub of human civilization. There are also roughly a hundred thousand zharans (artificial humans) used as a source of labor.
Story Notes
The main story revolves around a reporter named Zaveed Nubara who traveled to Talvan in 2372 to write a perspective piece on Alena Pasajeros, the young deputy governor the ICA has stationed at their consulate in Aurora City. The dynamic between these two, as the reporter tries to coax information out of his mark and she tries to balance his supposed expertise on frontier politics with her own hard-won experience makes up the bulk of the plot.
The rest of the plot mostly spins off from the primary as Ambassador Pasajeros attempts to deal with conflicts between the human denizens of Talvan as the Frontier Wars (which kicked back off in Solar Space in 2371) threaten to make their way to Centauri Space. As those loyal to the ICA clash with those who owe allegiance to the Alliance of Free Worlds, and agents of the Zharan Collective stir up discord among Talvan’s artificial population, Alena’s office is beset by crisis after crisis. Hers and the Governor’s attempts to manage these crises are observed intently by Nubara as he gathers material with which to write his next journalistic magnum opus.
Nubara’s goal is to put together his next piece for the Solar Courier, a renowned periodical which circulates on dozens of worlds back in Solar Space. Nubara is one of their star reporters, having won two Hawkes Prizes (roughly analogous to today’s Pulitzer) by age thirty-five for his coverage of the Draconist Wars. Now forty-four, he has been suffering a period of writer’s block after his experiences covering the Civil War on Titan, and has ventured to Alpha Centauri in search of a creative challenge and, he hopes, a rejuvenating experience in the frontier.
The challenge he has set for himself is to travel to one of humanity’s farthest outposts and profile the deputy the ICA has assigned to watch over their fiefdom there. He has virtually no knowledge of Deputy Governor Pasajeros before he departs for Talvan, aside from the fact that she had the pick of several more lucrative positions closer to Sol but chose instead to tough it out at a rough-and-tumble deep frontier outpost in search of a few challenges of her own.
As for Pasajeros, she is well-educated, well-read, and surprisingly well-connected for a thirty-five-year-old emissary who has only been at her current post a little under four years. She is also quick-witted, which stings Nubara several times during their repartee, and has a lexicon of esoteric knowledge which helps her to blend in with people of all backgrounds. Still, her main problem is the tension between the various factions jostling to control Centauri Space.
Another reason Nubara chose this particular assignment over any other is that he volunteered as a frontline combat correspondent from 2354-2362, during the Titan Civil War, during which time he witnessed some of the Draconist Wars’ most gruesome fighting, including during the Zharan Uprising of 2356-2358. He took four whole years off from writing after winning his second Hawkes Prize in 2362 for coverage of the war, retreating briefly into a very shady world of cheap drugs and fast women. He only dabbled simpler fare after his return in 2368, and suffered great heartache when his first longform piece was critically panned.
When the Frontier Wars erupted in 2371, Nubara refused to be on the sidelines of another pointless war, despite his editor’s protestations that his best work was written either while under fire or immediately afterward. Instead, he chose to run away from Solar Space altogether, seeking refuge from his demons in the Centauri cluster. Unfortunately for him, not long after he arrives on Talvan, his new friend Pasajeros receives intelligence from the head of the local IDC contingent that the Alliance may be attempting to infiltrate the population.
As Commander Lewis “Bull” Bulgarov reports, the Alliance may be trying to sneak military operatives into Centauri Space in hopes of igniting a revolution against the local ICA governorship, with the end goal of taking control of the entire star system. Bulgarov is another veteran of the Draconist Wars, who suffered a traumatic event during his command of frontline forces on Titan. He now commands a roughly twenty-seven-hundred-strong force of spacers stationed in Aurora City and must contend with Alliance schemes and zharan intrigue.
The fourth major character is Tulay Vagaro (pronounced “TULL-ee Va-GAR-Oh), a 98-year-old original settler and matriarch of a large land stake outside Aurora City. At times whimsical and at others cantankerous, Tulay has lived on Talvan for the entire period of human settlement there, only leaving to visit other worlds in the system once every few years. She was a close friend of Tyson Delatorre and maintains his skeptical outlook on the follow-ons that came after the original mission, many of whom she sees as little more than opportunistic fortune seekers.
All together, these plotlines string toward a rendezvous with fate and destiny that will see Talvan become a hotspot in the history of human deep space civilization. When all is said and done, the intrigue wrought there during Zaveed Nubara’s time in-system will be worthy of much more than another Hawkes Prize, and may pave the way to a new future for the Milky Way.
Character Bios:
Alena Pasajeros
Demographic info: age 37; born 16 December 2335 in Bruttia City, Vesta
Personal history: went to school for training in the civil service after being raised by a single mother who was an ICA immigration lawyer; awarded Highest Distinction in graduation from undergraduate studies, then followed in her mother’s footsteps during the Draconist Wars; earned her Ph.D. at Aldrin City Technical University in 2366, having completed her coursework while still working as an immigration lawyer, and was given the pick of several prime embassy postings, but chose the newly opened position of deputy governor on Talvan and departed in August 2368
Character traits: naturally reserved and thoughtful, she focuses on accomplishing the duties of her post rocking the boat too much; despite having arrived at Talvan in 2379 with bright eyes and big ambitions, her goals have been tempered by the complex dynamics of frontier politics; her primary ambition is to help the ICA stabilize its position in the Alpha Centauri system while also normalizing relations between the people of Talvan, who she has begun to see as her new family
Zaveed Nubara
Demographic info: age 44; born 7 April 2329 in Aldrin City, Mars
Personal history: earned awards for undergraduate writing about Operation Lightning Dagger; joined the Solar Courier in 2351 and was sent to Titan in 2354 as a correspondent; wrote “The View at Vanekar” in 2358 about the eponymous battle, and “Two Betrayals: The History of Zharans on Titan” in 2361 about human- zharan relations there, both of which won him the Hawkes Prize; fell off the radar between 2362 and 2366; wrote “A Impasse at Heraklion” in 2367, about the breakdown in post-partition peace negotiations on titan, which was panned as a weak effort
Character traits: easygoing, suave, and charming, he has been noted by acquaintances as a jet-setter and something of an aspiring playboy, traits he has cultivated as a renowned journalist; this facade hides deep-seated insecurities arising from his childhood traumas and, more importantly, his experiences during the Draconist Wars; arrives in the a Centauri system looking for a sort of reboot to his career, which means he will butt heads with Alena as she tries to contain his cavalier habits
Commander Lewis Bulgarov
Demographic info: age 46; born 25 August 2328 in Orleena, Mars
Personal history: raised in a large, working-class family in the Hellas Republic on Mars, he went to the Leadership Academy at 18; served as a frontline commander during the Second Titan Civil War, where he was a sensible, no-nonsense officer; his record was tainted by scandal in 2364, but instead of forced retirement he was offered the role of garrison chief in Aurora City in 2366 as a way to let him serve out the rest of his career in seclusion; since arriving in 2378, he has earned a reputation as an easygoing C.O., and is beloved by his spacers for his soft-touch approach
Character traits: after spending a decade serving in war, Commander Bulgarov seeks a peaceful life away from the noise of Solar Space, which is why he accepted a “career terminal” posting on Talvan; while there, he has sought to distance himself from the tension of wartime command, and aside from a deep-seated mistrust of zharans, he strikes a pretty even-keeled demeanor, although this attitude is threatened when the challenges of war follow him to from Sol to Alpha Centauri
Tulay Vagaro
Demographic info: age 98; born 13 April 2249 in Shackleton City, Luna
Personal history: born to wealthy parents, she rebelled from them and joined the Wayfarer Program in 2267, then left the solar system on the colonization mission to a Centauri; her family’s wealth transferred to her after her parent's deaths, and she used it to buy a large plot of land outside Aurora City, where she started a family and became a sort of interstellar cattle baron; by 2384, she is one of the wealthiest people on Talvan, which, along with being one of the few surviving members of the original pioneer group, makes her quite famous–a status she makes the most of
Character traits: on the one hand, Vagaro is an often cranky senior citizen who frequently lambastes the younger people who have taken over the society she helped to found; on the other, she possesses a genius-level intellect (which explains how she lied her way into the Wayfarer Program at age 18) and a razor-sharp wit, which wins her many more battles than her cantankerousness begins; ultimately, she is a source of wisdom for the main characters, no matter how crusty her demeanor
Major Ulysses Collins
Demographic info: age 37; born 23 September 2336 in Janus, Titan
Personal history: orphaned by the ICA’s bombing of Titan during Operation Lightning Dagger, he enlisted in the Alliance Armada in 2353 and gained guerrilla experience leading Draconist cells against ICA forces on his homeworld. After 20 years of faithful service, he volunteered for an ambitious project advanced by Alliance Military Council in 2372 to send cadres to Talvan as part of a plan to convert that world into an Alliance outpost, and departed the following year. He hopes to organize the more or less division-sized Alliance militia on Talvan to prepare for war with the IDC forces there
Character traits: a true believer in the Alliance cause, he was shaped by the Draconist Wars in many of the same ways as Zaveed Nubara and Commander Bulgarov. Unlike them, however, his trauma during the wars made him less a broken man than a fanatical one, and gave him a drive to succeed that will make him a dangerous enemy of the ICA forces on Talvan. This drive will cause him to butt heads directly with Commander Bulgarov, and lead him to put Alena Pasajeros in his crosshairs
More to come, when it's ready...
You pump out an incredible amount of fantastic lore, sir!