Rough Guide: Rexxla
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 5:17 am
Tales of the Raging Murderstorm is still very much a work in progress, but in the meantime, here's a little piece of world-building about a planet that will play a large part in its plot:
The Rough Guide to the Universe has this to say about the planet of Rexxla:
Rexxla's one of those interesting worlds that completely defy GalCop's neat little classification system. Officially they're Communist -though they won't thank you for pointing that out these days!- but depending how you look at it they could just as easily fit under Democracy, Confederation and even Anarchy.
Relatively speaking, Rexxla's a young world, only colonised eighty-some years ago after being picked as the test site for some experimental terraforming techniques the USSW is characteristically reluctant to talk about in any detail. They must've worked though, because every left-wing organisation in the Eight Galaxies was petitioning for homesteading rights there, from anarcho-syndicatists to Neo-Fabians. "The Grand Socialist Experiment", they called it in public. Cynics called it "the grand opportunity to get all those Trotskyites, bleeding hearts and weirdy-beardies out of our hair for good".
Well, it didn't quite work out that way in the end. Someone in the first wave of settlers had enough smarts to set up a central government that established some simple ground rules that most everyone could live with, levied just enough taxes to raise a basic anti-piracy force and run stuff like the railroads and the hospitals, and left everything else to the individual communities to handle as they saw fit. The ones who made their ideas work prospered, and the ones that didn't split up and moved in with some other group who'd hit the right combination of theory, execution and sheer dumb luck.
Somehow, it all seemed to work. Their economy didn't exactly sparkle, but nobody went hungry and the lights stayed on. They drifted away from the bottom-up decentralised model of Communism some over the years, imposing planet-wide standards on stuff like legal drinking age and founding some state schools, but overall Rexxla remained a freewheeling haven for the eccentric and the politically unconventional. It can be a rough neighbourhood at times, especially for a rookie trader: Official policy is you've only got a criminal record in Rexxla if you broke a Rexxlan law, and they don't have a whole lot of those. Narcotics and most firearms are fully legal, though you don't sell the former to minors if you know what's good for you, and they'll even look the other way a little for the rare kind of pirate with enough of a conscience to let you go if you dump your cargo. Trafficking slaves or murdering some trader for his load, on the other hand, make Rexxla a very unsafe place to be; every trader who participates in the hunt gets unlimited free drinks for a whole day at any bar in the system.
As you might imagine, all these liberal tendencies made relations with the Communin rather uncomfortable. The Politburo thought the Rexxlans were a bunch of wishy-washy pansies with their free press and their due process of law and all the other reactionary nonsense that has no place in proper Communism, while the Rexxlans think your average Communist regime is run by a bunch of crypto-Stalinist whackjobs who wouldn't know real Communism if sneaked up behind them and rang their welkin with a copy of Animal Farm wrapped round a very large brick.
Five years ago, it all came to a head. An outside broadcast team from the Rexxlan Planetary Broadcasting Cooperative made an official visit to Rilace for the bicentenary of the death of their Party's first General Secretary, and their star current affairs commentator swung himself an interview with the Deputy Vice-Chairman of the People's Police or some such. Now, this Humphrey Splot guy (only on Rexxla could you make it big in talk radio with a name like that) isn't very well known outside his home system, but Rexxlans know him as the guy who makes people write letters to the PBC complaining he's too hard on the hapless politician he's interrogating on this morning's show.
Nobody knows exactly what went down during that interview -the PBC never got the recording back and neither participant really wants to talk about it- but it undoubtedly was an experience that Deputy Vice-Chairman will not soon forget. Thirty minutes in he called security and had the entire PBC crew arrested for sedition. By the time anyone at the Rexxlan Consulate got to hear about it, they'd been tried, convicted and sentenced to seven years of Reeducation Through Labour.
The Rexxlan Central Committee were extremely vocal in their displeasure about this. (Which, given that they'd all probably been subjected to the infamous Mr Splot at some point, says quite a lot in praise of the Rexxlan character. But I digress.) GalCop refused to get involved, considering the incident to be "a matter of internal security", so after an emergency meeting of the Rexxlan People's Congress that set several records for the fastest motion to pass with the fewest votes against, a squadron of Cobra Clipper patrol craft and a hastily charted armed merchantman loaded with Civil Guard hostage-rescue operatives went out to retrieve the detainees by force.
The Rilace Incident, or the Asteroid Gulag War as some would have it, didn't leave any of the participants looking especially good. Conditions aboard the asteroid penal colony were appalling even by Communist standards, and the CG immediately organised the evacuation of all the prisoners whilst documenting every sapient rights abuse perpetuated by the Rilaci prison guards in meticulous detail. The Rilaci government was summoned before the GalCop Council to defend itself against a motion of censure, several neighbouring governments suspended their extradition treaties and even the Communin itself was forced to voice public disapproval.
GalCop also came in for scathing criticism when it emerged that a Galactic Navy frigate had refused to respond to a request for urgent medical assistance from the horrified Rexxlans, citing their obligation to maintain political impartiality, and the Navy was forced to issue standing orders clarifying that their policy of strict neutrality did not supercede their obligations under interstellar law to respond in timely fashion and provide all possible assistance upon receiving a distress call.
The Rexxlans didn't get off scot-free either, having violated the sovereign territory of a neighbour and shot number of its law-enforcement officers -some of them in circumstances that implied summary justice being meted out- as well as thoroughly trashing the prison in the course of forcing entry and commandeering a passing Moray Medical Boat at gunpoint. They got kicked out of the Communin and GalCop refused to intervene when the Rilaci sent a reprisal strike that ended with Rexxla's capital getting pasted with a bunch of railgun slugs. After that, they withdrew from GalCop completely and started raising a real army, which got them placed under embargo.
Some say you can still get there, if you know the right people. Bertilak La Verde and his Green Geckos are rumoured to have an outpost there, and so do the Dark Wheel, though unkind folk might suggest they're only there 'cause they got the place mixed up with Raxxla. (Protip: Don't joke about this to a Rexxlan, they've heard 'em all a million times.) A lot of Communist or Corporate systems have had their political dissidents mysteriously vanish before they can be arrested, but they never seem to turn up anyplace else. Hundreds of spacers have seen ships in the old Rexxlan Civil Guard colours, or just sporting their upraised fist-and-rose emblem; not just some clapped-out old wreck flown by a pretentious kid who thinks a few cans of spraypaint makes them an intellectual and a revolutionary, but real traders and fighters picking up Randomus Factoria knows what from Free Trade Zones and Anarchies.
Nobody really knows what any of this means for the future, but one thing's for sure: We haven't heard the last of Rexxla.
The Rough Guide to the Universe has this to say about the planet of Rexxla:
Rexxla's one of those interesting worlds that completely defy GalCop's neat little classification system. Officially they're Communist -though they won't thank you for pointing that out these days!- but depending how you look at it they could just as easily fit under Democracy, Confederation and even Anarchy.
Relatively speaking, Rexxla's a young world, only colonised eighty-some years ago after being picked as the test site for some experimental terraforming techniques the USSW is characteristically reluctant to talk about in any detail. They must've worked though, because every left-wing organisation in the Eight Galaxies was petitioning for homesteading rights there, from anarcho-syndicatists to Neo-Fabians. "The Grand Socialist Experiment", they called it in public. Cynics called it "the grand opportunity to get all those Trotskyites, bleeding hearts and weirdy-beardies out of our hair for good".
Well, it didn't quite work out that way in the end. Someone in the first wave of settlers had enough smarts to set up a central government that established some simple ground rules that most everyone could live with, levied just enough taxes to raise a basic anti-piracy force and run stuff like the railroads and the hospitals, and left everything else to the individual communities to handle as they saw fit. The ones who made their ideas work prospered, and the ones that didn't split up and moved in with some other group who'd hit the right combination of theory, execution and sheer dumb luck.
Somehow, it all seemed to work. Their economy didn't exactly sparkle, but nobody went hungry and the lights stayed on. They drifted away from the bottom-up decentralised model of Communism some over the years, imposing planet-wide standards on stuff like legal drinking age and founding some state schools, but overall Rexxla remained a freewheeling haven for the eccentric and the politically unconventional. It can be a rough neighbourhood at times, especially for a rookie trader: Official policy is you've only got a criminal record in Rexxla if you broke a Rexxlan law, and they don't have a whole lot of those. Narcotics and most firearms are fully legal, though you don't sell the former to minors if you know what's good for you, and they'll even look the other way a little for the rare kind of pirate with enough of a conscience to let you go if you dump your cargo. Trafficking slaves or murdering some trader for his load, on the other hand, make Rexxla a very unsafe place to be; every trader who participates in the hunt gets unlimited free drinks for a whole day at any bar in the system.
As you might imagine, all these liberal tendencies made relations with the Communin rather uncomfortable. The Politburo thought the Rexxlans were a bunch of wishy-washy pansies with their free press and their due process of law and all the other reactionary nonsense that has no place in proper Communism, while the Rexxlans think your average Communist regime is run by a bunch of crypto-Stalinist whackjobs who wouldn't know real Communism if sneaked up behind them and rang their welkin with a copy of Animal Farm wrapped round a very large brick.
Five years ago, it all came to a head. An outside broadcast team from the Rexxlan Planetary Broadcasting Cooperative made an official visit to Rilace for the bicentenary of the death of their Party's first General Secretary, and their star current affairs commentator swung himself an interview with the Deputy Vice-Chairman of the People's Police or some such. Now, this Humphrey Splot guy (only on Rexxla could you make it big in talk radio with a name like that) isn't very well known outside his home system, but Rexxlans know him as the guy who makes people write letters to the PBC complaining he's too hard on the hapless politician he's interrogating on this morning's show.
Nobody knows exactly what went down during that interview -the PBC never got the recording back and neither participant really wants to talk about it- but it undoubtedly was an experience that Deputy Vice-Chairman will not soon forget. Thirty minutes in he called security and had the entire PBC crew arrested for sedition. By the time anyone at the Rexxlan Consulate got to hear about it, they'd been tried, convicted and sentenced to seven years of Reeducation Through Labour.
The Rexxlan Central Committee were extremely vocal in their displeasure about this. (Which, given that they'd all probably been subjected to the infamous Mr Splot at some point, says quite a lot in praise of the Rexxlan character. But I digress.) GalCop refused to get involved, considering the incident to be "a matter of internal security", so after an emergency meeting of the Rexxlan People's Congress that set several records for the fastest motion to pass with the fewest votes against, a squadron of Cobra Clipper patrol craft and a hastily charted armed merchantman loaded with Civil Guard hostage-rescue operatives went out to retrieve the detainees by force.
The Rilace Incident, or the Asteroid Gulag War as some would have it, didn't leave any of the participants looking especially good. Conditions aboard the asteroid penal colony were appalling even by Communist standards, and the CG immediately organised the evacuation of all the prisoners whilst documenting every sapient rights abuse perpetuated by the Rilaci prison guards in meticulous detail. The Rilaci government was summoned before the GalCop Council to defend itself against a motion of censure, several neighbouring governments suspended their extradition treaties and even the Communin itself was forced to voice public disapproval.
GalCop also came in for scathing criticism when it emerged that a Galactic Navy frigate had refused to respond to a request for urgent medical assistance from the horrified Rexxlans, citing their obligation to maintain political impartiality, and the Navy was forced to issue standing orders clarifying that their policy of strict neutrality did not supercede their obligations under interstellar law to respond in timely fashion and provide all possible assistance upon receiving a distress call.
The Rexxlans didn't get off scot-free either, having violated the sovereign territory of a neighbour and shot number of its law-enforcement officers -some of them in circumstances that implied summary justice being meted out- as well as thoroughly trashing the prison in the course of forcing entry and commandeering a passing Moray Medical Boat at gunpoint. They got kicked out of the Communin and GalCop refused to intervene when the Rilaci sent a reprisal strike that ended with Rexxla's capital getting pasted with a bunch of railgun slugs. After that, they withdrew from GalCop completely and started raising a real army, which got them placed under embargo.
Some say you can still get there, if you know the right people. Bertilak La Verde and his Green Geckos are rumoured to have an outpost there, and so do the Dark Wheel, though unkind folk might suggest they're only there 'cause they got the place mixed up with Raxxla. (Protip: Don't joke about this to a Rexxlan, they've heard 'em all a million times.) A lot of Communist or Corporate systems have had their political dissidents mysteriously vanish before they can be arrested, but they never seem to turn up anyplace else. Hundreds of spacers have seen ships in the old Rexxlan Civil Guard colours, or just sporting their upraised fist-and-rose emblem; not just some clapped-out old wreck flown by a pretentious kid who thinks a few cans of spraypaint makes them an intellectual and a revolutionary, but real traders and fighters picking up Randomus Factoria knows what from Free Trade Zones and Anarchies.
Nobody really knows what any of this means for the future, but one thing's for sure: We haven't heard the last of Rexxla.
