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| NoTS: Federation of Zion | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 11 2008, 10:29 AM (413 Views) | |
| Union | Feb 11 2008, 10:29 AM Post #1 |
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Pyrenees Republic
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Posted Image The land known as Zion was one of the earliest colonies of mankind, and Eden was the first major city on the planet, from which Zion spread. While the symbolism of the names has long sinced passed from memory, the last vestiges of man's homeland can be found in the Federation of Zion. Not the richest nation, or the most powerful, Zion nonetheless was the first major colonial nation to exist, and remains a land of history, of the origin of humanity on this planet, from a homeland long ago forgotten. Zion Space Port is the largest one in the Federation, and the most active, but its remote location from the rest of the nation leaves it as a foriegn enclave within the Federation, and the only place non-Federation citizens may live, work, or travel in, without proper documentation, which takes many months to achieve, aside from Babylon Space Port. Solaris is the primary military port of Zion, and closed off to all non-military personnel. The Federation is concerned primarily with domestic, not international or interstellar issues, and only gets invovled in foriegn business when it is in their interests to do so. The capital is Jericho, where Ibrahim Maestro heads the Governing Council. The Federation follows the doctrines of technocratic corporatism. All citizens belong to regional trade unions, which are part of umbrella national unions. Each national trade union sends one representative to the Governing Council, chosen in whichever manner the union decides. Employers and employees both pertain to the same union. In governance, the authority of union leaders is sought out (On issues regarding armed interventions, the military union is in charge, on issues regarding law, the attorney union is in charge, etc) and the Governor (Ibrahim Maestro) has full power to make laws, in which a majority of the affected field votes in favor (A law on medicine requires a majority vote from all citizens who work in healthcare, a law on the military requires the vote of all citizens who work in defense, etc). |
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| Union | Feb 11 2008, 10:33 AM Post #2 |
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Pyrenees Republic
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Posted Image Capitol: Jericho Head of State: Ibrahim Maestro Government: Technocratic Corporatism Foriegn Policy: Isolationist Population: 6,670,000 Ethnicity: 70% Mixed Ethnicity 13% Arabic/Mid-Eastern 8% Negroid 5% Caucasoid 3% Asiatic Religion: 64% Non-religious 30% Abrahamic (Judaism/Christianity/Islam) 4% Gaia/New Age 2% Other State Motto: It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains. The stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. |
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| Union | Feb 12 2008, 08:56 PM Post #3 |
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Pyrenees Republic
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Posted Image Jericho, Federation of Zion, 0800, 211.45Z It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sappho that the thoughts aquire speed, that the lips acquire stain, and the stain becomes a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. A young ray of sunshine fell upon the face of Gregor early that morning, awaking him. He rose up in his bed, the sheets falling off his body, and glanced downwards at the woman at his side, still sleeping gently, in that beautiful way women somehow manage to do it. She opened her eyes, and smiled at him, before drifting off again into a sweet reverie. He arose, and walked towards the window, glancing outside. It was another day in Zion, another day in thoughtful discussion. Work was all but unnecessary, and most citizens rarely worked now, in the way old humans did. Robotic beings did most of it. Rather, the Zionist elite spent the day studying philosophy, or studying the stars, or searching the archives, or simply having fun. Gregor fell into the first category, that of philosopher, and was well respected for it. He reached down into his drawer, and took out a black solution. It was the juice of Sapphos, the biggest drug on the Zionist market. It gave a rush like no other, but it stimulated the minds in ways once unimaginable. He muttered the mantra as he drunk the juice, his mind immediantly reacting to it, as he began to study the way light bounced off of objects, looking carefully at the dust particles float in the air, shining white by the light of the glorious sun. He studied their movements for a matter of minutes, before moving on to more important things. Whoever Sapphos was, this was powerful stuff. Every object he saw stimulated a thought, brought about a need for immediate, and careful, study. Those who had not been trained in its use could often be seen spending the day roaming the streets, examining brick walls for hours. Gregor however, put these thoughts out of his mind. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. He would think when he was ready to think, and no drug would force him before hand. His lips had become stained over the years, a side-effect of the drug. In Zionist society, it was a sign of respect, of intelligence and purpose. He loved the red stains along his lips, which looked like old lipstick from far away, but gave him the distinct title of Philosopher. As he got dressed, he turned on the Fifth Symphony, a piece of music attributed to someone named Beethoven from somewhere named Jermanee, though the historians had yet to discover who or where he was from. Some thought he was a composer of the mother planet, the one whose colony had created Zion, but most regarded that as sheer superstition. It was an ancient music, but to this day, Gregor prefered no other, certainly not the popular machine-made shit that spewed forth out of so many cerebral headsets today. The young woman awoke, and walked over to Gregor. She was an artist, a painter of some reknown in Jericho and Zion, and a damn good partner. They had lived together for years, yet marriage was the last thing on their minds. It was an archaic institution by those days, remembered only by a few old men and their hundred year wives. "What have I done to merit being graced by your beautiful presence, Oliviya?" The woman smiled, and hugged Gregor, and kissed him on the cheek. "Mmm. It's nice out." Indeed it was. The windows had been open for some time, and a small breeze passed through the room, cooling them just enough to make the day feel absolutely perfect. Gregor turned around, and kissed Oliviya passionately, before moving towards the door. "Where are you going, my love?" "I have a meeting, dearest, with Ibrahim Maestro. Some historian found the name of a ship, the USS Eden, and a travel log, buried deep within the Endless Archives. We must try to determine its meaning." With that, Gregor left, with plenty of time to walk aimlessly through the city and will his mind into motion, before his meeting at midday. |
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| Union | Feb 12 2008, 09:13 PM Post #4 |
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Pyrenees Republic
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Twenty Years Previously Posted Image Archives at Eden, Federation of Zion, 2340, 1110.24Z Too long did we fear a lack of history, that we didn't realize when we made too much of it. The problem was not that history was lost, merely misplaced. His footsteps thundered across the marble floor, as he ran back to his desk with perhaps the greatest find. These archives were ancient, from the first days of Zion, eons ago, and had grown at a huge rate. All knowledge of the world was stored there, it was simply a matter of finding. Young Seron Semaritia was currently in the Piter De Wile Wing at the huge library, a small corner, forgotten nearly as soon as it was built. The Archives at Eden were huge, filling some eighty acres with books and discs, maps, and small data cartrigdes. And the Piter Wing was a smaller portion of that, housing a mere acre, disorganized. No text was in any discernable order, and some not even shelved properly. But day in and day out, hundreds of scholars poured over these texts, beginning the impossible task of sorting them, and reading them. While beginning in the Piter Wing, Semaritia found a small data cartridge, an ancient one, with the symbols "USB" on the side, and a piece of tape labelling it Logs; USS Eden. He had no idea what a USS was, but the name Eden, he instinctivly felt, was important. A terrific find. He plugged it into his data reader, and out came the voice of an old man, in some tounge he could not identify. It certainly was not Samaritan, the language of Zion. After a few minutes, he decided it was most possibly one of the ancient tounges, Arabic, or perhaps English. He'd need a language scholar to translate fully. The entire file was perhaps four minutes, maybe five. He felt this was strange. Ship logs were generally hours long, and after quick examination he found the issue. The data had been corrupted, long ago, and would require extensive clean-up. But even then the entire file was only about twenty minutes long, certainly not long enough to be a ship log. It must have been divided up, he thought to himself. Seron reached for the flask at his side, his juice of Sapphos, and swallowed. He picked up the file, and left the wing, to find a translator in the old tounges. He would know what this thing said by the end of the day. Maybe it was nothing, just another piece of trash among compulsive scholars of eons past. But perhaps it was the begginning of an answer: Where did we come from? The juie of Sapphos swirled his mind, as he thought his thoughts. |
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| Union | Feb 12 2008, 11:57 PM Post #5 |
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Pyrenees Republic
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Posted Image Archives at Eden, Federation of Zion, 0210, 1111.24Z The juice of Sappho is the greatest drug in the history of man. It is the only one which serves a pratical purpose, in trained hands. It is the most addictive substance in the universe. The trained ears of the speaker of Eenglesh, the ancient tounge, picked up the words of the transmission quickly and carefully, jotting every word mechanically as he heard it. He paid no attention to what the words meant, and quickly and effeciently, in the way only trained Zionist scholars can, arranged the transcript of the log for young Seron. Seron took his juice, before beginning to read. His mind needed to be crystal clear. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. His eyes fell upon the paper, greedily devouring the text, and its meaning. His eyes grew wide as he read, his pupils heavily dilated, and by the end he knew he must find the complete text. The Eden was an early colonial ship, though the text suggested that it perhaps was the first. It came from a land known as Palestine, though the crew was from a different land, referred to as Merika. The name of this place, this planet, was unknown to Seron. Eighteen hundred colonists had been aboard. They were to land at the Valley of Eden, and instinctively Seron looked around him. This building had been built on top of the landing site. He knew it, without verification, as if some deep, undisturbed memory stirred within him. He would have to verify it, he realized, but this was big. He had found the source of humanity. No, he had not. He knew only that they arrived in Eden from a land known as Palestine, wherever that may be. He knew not the coordinates, not one way to find the old planet Palestine. That was most important. He must go back to the Piter Wing and locate the rest of the tapes. The voice of the juice stirred within him. The tape might not be in the Piter Wing. It took millenia to chance upon this small clue. How many more centuries would it take to chance upon the next? But know they knew what to look for. And they would find it, he swore. Humanity came from somewhere, and Zion was going to find it! |
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| Union | Feb 13 2008, 10:38 AM Post #6 |
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Pyrenees Republic
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Posted Image Archives at Eden, Federation of Zion, 0210, 130.25Z Libraries are not made; they grow. The last few months had been fruitless, and though only a tenth of a tenth of the Piter Wing had been searched by the team of twenty, Seron felt instinctively that this was not the place to search. Most of these books were thousands of years old, but not nearly as old as the tape was. He felt it would be best to search the Golden Room, the room from which the entire Archives had grown around. It alone was several acres large, with several different wings, but it was here that the first books of the planet were initially placed, and while scholars had certainly moved a large number of books from one wing to another, and from one place to another, it was almost certainly that here was hidden the secret of the Arrival. Yet, hundreds of scholars often perused through the Golden Room, searching zealously for the answer. It was here were the majority of scholars spent their time, and while no where near completely searched, in fact estimates put it at about 90% still unknown, it had taken several centuries to get to that point, what hope did he possibly have. He entered the Golden Room quietly, ready for disappointment. Seron opened one of the vaults, and dumped out the contents. Several texts, an early King James Bible, and a text labeled Study of Scientology, but most were trash fiction from an unknown time. He picked one up, labeled The Great Gatsby, and flipped through it. He didn't understand a word of it, and didn't have time to get a translator in here to translate ever piece of literature, in the hopes the next one was the right one. He knew what he was looking for: a data stick, labeled USS Eden. He ordered an assistant to clean up the mess, pocketing a small text that seemed potentially useful, 2001: A Space Odessy, judging by the spacecraft on the cover, and moved on to the next vault. The same occurred. And again. And again. For ten solid hours they searched, and found nothing. It was as expected. Seron might spend an eternity in these rooms, and never find the one piece of data he was looking for. The problem was never the lack of knowledge, merely too much of it. The human race knew too much, and wanted to preserve too much. He cursed it. |
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11:49 AM Jul 13