1 So It Begins

24 B.D. - Beginning Diaspora

2136 C.E. - Current Era

My name is Liam Solis and yes I paid good hard earned money to have that name, my original name pissed me off to no end, you tell me, would you be happy as a guy having the name Sappherine del Luna? It basically means The Sapphire Moon, and while it seems cool that way, try walking up to a beautiful woman and saying my name is Sappherine, what's yours? But one thing about my name I enjoyed was Luna, Latin for moon and I kept looking at the moon and stars growing up as a child with wonder and hope, dreaming of a time when I could travel amongst them.

Recently humanity has made great advancements in both space travel as well as the civilian sector. At one point Earth was on the brink of it's 3rd World War, but thankfully the people from myriad countries came forth in an unusual display of unity. They came from all walks of life, the filthy rich, the homeless, the political elite, and even otakus left their rooms to say together in one voice across multiple platforms that enough was enough.

Too long had the peoples of Earth been divided, too long had we fought stupid wars over things that could have been discussed or traded for instead of taken by force of arms. We may have our differences in our beliefs, ways of life, skin color, and yes whether they should be big or little.

All of these differences mean nothing in the face of the fact that we are humans and we should not be fighting and destroying ourselves before spreading across space. We are not alone, we cannot yet prove their existence, but that does not mean we are alone.

Before they find us and decide they want to conquer us or treat with us, let us expand into space, let us build together a space faring civilization that will give any other race we come across pause due to the fact that while we are diverse we are unified.

From these words arose the Terran Federation and it's slogan was From Humanity's Diversity Came Unity. The Federation's goal, to spread humanity across the stars, educate everybody, give access to the best medical care and provide opportunity to those from all walks of life to, if they made the effort, achieve everything they could want.

Those who do not strive will be able to live a decent life but will have no say in any political matters, those who serve in any capacity the general public will have a say in hours as well as possible repercussions for customers going over the line, for no longer will the employees in the service industry have to allow the customer to walk all over them, depending on the level of infraction the customer will have to pay a fine or even do hard labor.

Oh, you're a Karen? I'm sorry, this is the Federation, not the United States.

The judicial system received an overhaul worldwide, long time incarceration was longer a possible sentence, depending on the severity of your crime you could get anywhere from 5 to 20 years of hard labor, the labor ranging from working to clear land of any trash, this included landfills.

The trash had to be sorted into metals, plastics, fibers, and then hauled to processing to either be melted down and reprocessed, or used to help provide energy in factories built to provide electricity using burnable trash. Part of the hard labor involved carrying the trash to a central point and the distance you had to carry 150 to 300 pounds of the sorted trash was not less than 8 miles and could exceed 30.

Hard labor also included but was not limited to mining quarries, cleaning up undesirable locations, medical experimentation, a large variety of jobs that involve heavy physical labor to jobs dangerous to body and health. The number of years as well as the type of labor involved got longer and increasingly more dangerous depending on your crime.

In case of severe crimes such as rape and murder, depending on the case for murder, if it was accidental you would receive a sentence of 20 years hard labor in the quarries, either mining or carrying stone.

The other sentence for intentional murder and the only sentence available for rape, whether the rapist was male or female, was summary execution.

Pedophiles were executed as soon as they were convicted of the crime, but sufficient and undeniable evidence must be obtained before any sentence of execution may be carried out.

No longer could money sway a verdict, any attempt at coercing, bribing, or blackmailing in an attempt to ease a verdict was met with both a harsher sentence for the original offender and 15 years hard labor cleaning decommissioned sewage plants for the one or ones who made the attempt.

Those joining the Federation's military branches were allowed say in allocation of certain resources within their ranks.

However, any coercion of any soldier by another or a superior officer for any sexual favors, and or attempts using their body to fast track their progress was met with an immediate discharge and removal of any privileges belonging to working citizens of the Federation.

This meant the loss of the right to vote, the ability to possess a vehicle, the ability to travel more than 100 miles from your assigned residence, the ability to have more than a basic healthy lifestyle where you had a roof over your head, your medical needs taken care of, and plenty of food with basic entertainment available.

The Federation provided opportunities to those who made the effort to exceed themselves, those who just sat on their asses all day doing nothing but complaining while being fully capable of being a functioning member of society were allowed only the basics for a healthy life and that was all. Their computer, if they asked for that to be their entertainment, was not capable of making any posts on anything online, the games they played only linked them to others like themselves.

Those who made an honest effort to better themselves received more opportunities, better pay, better environments, better everything, however the moment they started slacking, calling in or fucking off to the point it affected others, those benefits would begin to dwindle or cease.

For all types of people who were willing to make an effort, everything was available.

Want to be an OF star, go ahead.

Want to fight in no holds barred death matches? Here sign this waiver and fill out your will.

Want to torture somebody? First we need to make sure that you don't do it outside of the permitted facilities and you must submit to having a tracker on you at all times, other than that please take your time picking from these sentenced to death criminals.

Wanna race? What kind of vehicle? Yes, we do have death races available.

Yes we do have real life COD. No, being a member of the RL-COD community does not mean you are an active member of the military. So no, you are not eligible for any military discounts.

You want to [redacted] with animals on camera? Sure no problem, sign this waiver and the equipment and animals will be provided.

So long as it involved your life and death in any scenario so long as you filled out your will and signed a waiver, you would be allowed to do so in the venue of your choice.

If you wanted to deal death to someone else, depending on how you wanted to do so, you would be allowed to do so, so long as you accepted being monitored at all times.

For those with more interesting proclivities, that was a money making machine so you had to sign a contract allowing the Federation government to take a percentage of the funds earned through viewership.

Depending on the amount of money you made in anything you did, you would either enter into the standard tax bracket, or you could enter into an agreement with government for them to take a percentage not exceeding 10% per show.

This is the basic shape of the Federation, a diverse civilization that allows certain types of depravity and mercilessly crushes anything that exceeds certain boundaries. Military service is not mandatory, hell working isn't necessary, but you pay the price for that.

But if you strive hard enough, you might make enough of a name for yourself that I might catch sight of you in the Daily Recap of something I'm interested in.

Like I was saying, I have dreamed of the stars since I was a child and the formation of the Federation allowed me to realise my dream of owning my own spaceship. It is not the greatest or most powerful one currently available but it's mine and I earned it working odd jobs, competing in matches of various games, and blacksmithing of all things lol.

I have talked to the Federation about exploring past our borders in search of anything new and exciting. In honor of my initiative and bravery, for being the first civilian who earned their ship and offered to explore dangerous new territory, they have established the Sovereignty of Furia, an artificial island 400 miles off the coast of California that measures 42 miles in circumference of which I am the sovereign ruler and may within reason have my own laws so long as they do not go egregiously against the laws of the Federation.

As I am the ruler of the only Sovereignty that is not is not bound strictly by Federation laws, I have the right to be called lord or majesty by anybody within the Federation regardless of position as while the Sovereignty of Furia is within Federation space it represents a nation that is allied with the Federation and not it's subject.

I now will begin my journey outside of Federation space, hopefully find a planet on which I can expand Furia and possibly have time to tell you, my friends, more about my adventures.

I'll see you soon.