Burroughs Crater

TerraGenesis is not the only corporate entity working on reviving and studying extinct animals. Tucked away in Burroughs Crater in the southern highlands of Mars is a corporate facility where no expense is spared to attempt to recreate that which is extinct and market it to the people. Affectionately called the "Lost World" by visitors and marketing, the official name of this facility is "Burroughs Crater Wildlife Conservation and Revivification Center", a lab and research park covering large sections of the 100+ km area of the crater.

Pioneered by Edgar Kingsley, a venture capitalist who was a student of genetics in his early life, the "Lost World" center is part research project, and part an ongoing attempt by the Consortium elite to keep up with the actions of TerraGenesis. Sky Ark is a bountiful planet with a wide area where TerraGenesis' scientists are able to recreate all kinds of wildlife and their natural environments - Burroughs is a bit more limited in scope but still has some promise. Kingsley was interested in such developments on Earth to resurrect extinct large animals, but space and resource limitations prevented such ventures from getting beyond early research and planning phases. A healthy grant by the Hypercorp Council has allowed the Lost World center to flourish on Mars.

Primary habitation for workers and staff are in several arcology towers clustered in one edge of the crater, with access to a skyport and the local rail line. Guests have similar accommodations in a "hotel" arcology which is connected to but not actually with the other areas. The crater itself is mostly covered over in special materials which can absorb solar power and govern light levels and act as a "soft" seal for temperature and air pressure, with individual compounds, labs and sectors being isolated and environmentally controlled as needed. Navigation inside the facility is handled via buggies, a small tram system, or personal air transport. While the center does have multiple environments, terraforming is not its primary purpose - genetics research is. Tourism is only a secondary result to raise funding, and keep awareness of the project - to deter people from taking expensive vacations to Sky Ark.

The Center is run by a board of directors, which Kingsley chairs, and several high-ranking members of the center staff also sit on, with the rest being filled by investors, business associates and several other interested corporate heads. Due to the funding and land offered by the Council, Burroughs Crater falls firmly under the jurisdiction of the Planetary Consortium - though they also interact with the Tharsis government. While clearly a rival to TerraGenesis, the Center also openly works with them to collaborate on certain revival projects and share materials within the constraints of the Consortium's IP laws - ostensibly for the sake of preserving and reviving animals lost in the Fall. Kingsley himself is said to be deeply interested in this (though otherwise Reclamation holds no interest to him) but most of his corporate backers are only interested in keeping up with Sky Ark.

Burroughs Crater and its facility have several branches and departments working on various projects. Some focus on revivals based on extant DNA samples, other on mimicking long extinct animals using transgenic or neogenetic constructs. Other groups focus on tracking, behavioral mapping and even behavioral controls of the products. The veterinary unit is quite advanced, focused on the physical health and wellness of products which are created and often doing hands-on research in the "field" as new products are developed. The Center has corporate offices of course, who handle marketing to upper middle class tourists in the Hellas region, and the uber-rich out of places like Elysium to come see the products. Some creations of the Center are even marketed to corps as usable smart animals. Due to the sophisticated and technical nature of the park, very few indentures are employed, and they mostly in digital or customer-facing tasks. Repair work is done by AIs in bot units which are "unappealing" to any wandering products. Kingsley and his corporate backers do not prefer indenture when hiring primary staff such as scientists, but instead contracts with long NDA agreements and harsh penalties to breaking them to encourage workers to remain with the company while still maintaining the idea they have conventional freedom.

While not as extensive as Sky Ark, the Lost World center has made some strides in animal research and resurrection. They have managed to produce before TerraGenesis a number of animal lines, including Terror Birds, Anaconda, Glyptodonts, Argentavis, Giant Otters and Hyaenodons. They have also compiled several structures of various "raptors" (Dromaeosauridae) to create a morph which resembles them and several Neo-Avian strains - a "Neo-Raptor". Researchers at the Center have also collaborated on or developed in parallel several species now found on Sky Ark, with a focus on the long extinct ones. Unconfirmed rumors persist that in an attempt to one-up TerraGenesis' scientists, the Lost World has begun developing a Giganotosaurus subject to rival Tyrannosaurus forms.

Despite their scientific successes, not everything is ideal at Burroughs Crater - with the limited size the center can never truly rival Sky Ark and there has been some talk of finding an appropriate plot of land on an Exoplanet to move the work to, which would unfortunately require the destruction of many subjects too large to safely transport and would cost a great deal of money. Burroughs Crater is also in the middle of what is seen as Barsoomian territory. Nomads used to frequent the region and some groups still persist, and the Hellas region is a hotbed of Barsoomian terraforming politics. While the center keeps a response team to deal with all kinds of threats, the possibility of sabotage or terrorism still exists. This is compounded by the relative isolation of the center. The southern uplands are too uneven to support a wealth of high-quality roads, and rail lines are expensive to run in that area. If they were to be blocked or destroyed, the only way to leave the facility is by air - and the Center itself only keeps a small number of utility helos, aircars and a small jet to transport staff and sometimes visitors.

Black Eden

Tucked into the Littleton crater in the south reaches the Utopia Planitia on Mars is a curious collection of hab domes and outbuildings which has come to be called "Black Eden". Officially named "Littleton Nanoecological Center", this settlement west of Elysium at AMT +8 is an interesting focus for a community which blends nano-ecology with primitivism. The settlement was founded by Andrew Lau, a name in several nanotech startups who after the Fall seemed to have a bit of a break, and decided to work on nonprofit applications of his technology for a simple lifestyle. Rumors abound his friends and business partners helped him set up the venture as a way to let him relax and also keep him in a single, easy to access location if needed.

Black Eden is described as "nanoprimitivist" - the settlement (for it is hardly organized enough to be called a town or village) allows it's several thousand transhuman residents to live relatively simple lives of comfort. Environmental conditions mimic a pleasant lightly wooded forest or plain and keep everything at a completely tolerable level, so there is no need for shelter or clothing. Gardening nanotech keeps the soil healthy and tends to plants so they can rapidly yet sustainably grow food all year round - a human simply walks up to a plant and eats it. Water is drawn and purified from the massive subsurface ice stores under the Planitia. Should a human require a tool or other object to do a task for for their own entertainment, fabricators or simple-tool Protean swarms can assemble it for them, and break it down when they are done, or they can craft it for themselves from the surrounding materials (as some prefer to do). Injuries are healed by medichines or readily accessed nanobandages - and healing vats are held in infrastructure sections. Several smart animal breeds (primarily Wolves, Raccoons and Hawks) live as companions, helpers and guardians, and several breeds of animals (such as a couple of species of deer) are cloned in small herds to sustainably hunt as prey animals for those who wish to obtain their nutrients normally rather than through artificial supplements.

Politically Black Eden is technically a member of the Tharsis League. They are a settlement which can elect a representative to the League Council and nominally operate in line with Martian laws and regulations - however this is mostly a tactic to prevent the settlement from being steamrolled by Martian or Hypercorp interference, as Littleton is held and operated by Lau privately, which means not a lot of direct influence can be done. Culturally, the internals of Black Eden are basically autonomist. The population are by and large pacifist, community-minded people who operate either on an individual basis, or by consensus. Because the dome theoretically provides all basic needs in excess, basic resource scarcity is pretty low - so most people share or immediately use anything they gather and do not need to hoard them. Learning, love and space are all generally pretty "free" in the center as well - though they do allow for some sentimentality of personal items. Lau's philosophy is that humans should be in harmony with nature and nature should be in harmony with us. So long as cruelty or harm is not done to nature, resources taken from it will be put back and rebalanced.

The population of Black Eden is mostly nano-ecologists like Lau, living "the dream" of a contained nanite controlled environment, but has several other smaller groups. A number of autonomist leaning Barsoomians or other anti-corporate groups have moved in to live a simple lifestyle away from corporate interference. Due to proximity with Elysium another big internal faction are bored and stressed out socialites - they come to Black Eden as almost a kind of rehab after serious stress issues with their connected media life, most leave after a few months, but several like the style and stay. There is also a non-zero number of Hominid and Neanderthal uplifts who have come to Black Eden to try and live in harmony with nature - the Neo-Neanderthals in particular find Black Eden very symmetrical to their own lives as once simple species harmonized with the times via technology. Most of the time, people just relax and live, doing simple tasks, learning crafts and skills eating, sleeping and making merry as they choose. But Black Eden has a strong community of arts, and so much time is spent swapping stories over literal campfires - contrasted with exotic art pieces made using nanotech. The name "Black Eden" is kind of a mystery, nobody can track down exactly where it came from, but it stuck. Many assume it to be a deliberate alteration on the TTO's "Red Eden" initiative of terraforming, or an appropriation of an insult from bioconservatives and primitivists in regards to their use of nanotech. A smaller group who are more in the know wonder at possible connection to the former militant x-risk group "Black Mars", who were purged after the Fall.

There are a couple notable names in Black Eden: Andrew Lau, of course, the founder of the colony and head of the project. While legally speaking Andrew owns the property, he does not exercise this authority without support from the people living there. Lau is seen as a thought-leader, who influences the direction the settlement goes both culturally and technologically. Min-Ji Choe is the nominal leader of the local Barsoomians, a martian nationalist in an on-again-off-again relationship with Lau. Scuttlebutt on the darknets is that Choe is an alias of an operative who escaped the Black Mars purge and is lying low. Cam Van is Lau's first ex-wife, who remained in business with him and moved to Black Eden a local year or so back in order to monitor his project. While very much interested in the applications in terms of technoprogressivism, most members of the community consider her a hypercorp apologist. She's also interested in the business applications of Black Eden itself. Lowland-Bear is the most prominent Neanderthals in Black Eden. A musician and story-teller by trade, he originally came to Black Eden to spread the story back to Moustier, and now he serves an almost "embedded reporter" capacity. Arza Katranjiev is the Argonaut's consultant who helps manage elements of Black Eden's infrastructure - and is widely thought of to be part of ISET, the equivalent of the Argonaut's intelligence win.

The primary hab dome of Black Eden is the size of a couple football stadiums, and completely covered over in solar paneling which provide a large portion of the power. The interior is lit by artificial lighting which cycles through comfortable patterns for humans and plants - often lending a mystic air to the lighting. The terrain is dual - approximately one half is rolling, hilly uplands with grasses and low shrubs, with the other have a light wood/garden of trees and foodstuff plants, split by a sizable river. Several smaller domes or structures ring the primary one, used for testing new technology, or acclimating new residents or animals. Currently there are plans to expand and assemble a second dome with new biome(s), such as a tiered "hanging garden" structure, or a savannah or river delta type one. Interior structures tend to be oddly geometric or arranged in fractal patterns by their guiding nanoswarms. The infrastructure of Black Eden is coordinated by a habitat ALI called "Eden", who operates as a direct coordination and management system to keep various sub-AI computer systems working in concert to keep everything harmonized. Technicians regularly service the system to prevent any errors which could disrupt the fragile environment. Black Eden supports itself via a mixture of Lau's extensive investment profile (run out of Luna) and the fact that he owns or co-owns several valuable patents or other IP in the Planetary Consortium, and occasionally the scientists there consult on various projects - their latest example being the Dryad. Other raw materials are gathered by very slow collection of drones or nanoswarms from the Utopia Planitia region as needed. Black Eden also sees regular visits from passing Nomad clans, who trade raw materials for food, entertainment or technical assistance.

Plot Hooks:

• Cam Van succeeds in talking Lau into turning Black Eden into a partial resort in order to fund expansion to a second dome. This leads to cultural clashes between new temporary visitors and many of the long-term residents, including ex-militant Min-Ji Choe. 
• Eden is not actually an ALI, but is an AGI system whose complexity is not known to the wider world. They may even be a TITAN or Promethean fork running an unusual social experiment on the residents.
• An expert on TITAN nanotech has gone on the run and decided to hide out in Black Eden - now one or more covert groups must infiltrate the settlement to interrogate or capture them. 
• Neanderthal purist organization "Wrong Turn" has infiltrated Black Eden with weapons and is planning to stage an attack to prove their "superiority" over Homo Sapiens. 
• A Barsoomian "terrorist"/zone runner/defaulted indenture or some other form of "criminal" has hidden out at Black Eden, prompting a confrontation with the local Utopia Rangers - who may be varying levels of friendly or corrupt. 

EXODUS GREEN

The Fall, while a tragedy, has many stories of heroism, defiance of the odds and perseverance against adversity.

This is not one of those stories.

To tell the story of "EXODUS GREEN", first we must tell of Colony Ships. Similar to the Scum Barge (p. 349 EP) these massive constructs were built to house and move large numbers of people, but were intended to support them for the months or even short years it would take for a mass migration to other planets. Colony Ships in fact served as blueprints for the "lifeboat" barge designs. These massive ships were build in orbital "drydocks" and never intended to land on a surface - or if they did to ever return to space. Several of them were sent to Mars, Venus and many outer system worlds like the Saturnian or Jovian pools. However, as transport technology advanced and the egocasting field opened up, colony ships fell out of vogue, and prior to the Fall several of their designs lay canceled or unfinished as the nations building them had more pressing concerns. However, during the Fall several of these models were dusted off, or hastily completed to serve as transport for refugees off Earth, in the hopes that the long delay of the trip would provide sufficient time for new housing to be built. EXODUS GREEN is one of these ships.

It's original name is unknown. It is known that it was grouped with at least two other sister ships, "EXODUS BLUE" and "EXODUS RED" which did launch from the orbital dock facility in LEO, all ships using quick code names to avoid confusion which may have been caused by complex serial numbers or prior names. Why EXODUS GREEN did not launch is unknown. Local computer systems were fried by some TITAN attack (or preventative measures against), or by later scavengers as a precaution. The Fall conflict may have bled into orbit before EXODUS GREEN could take off, or a stray weapon may have hit something vital. TITAN bio- or nanowarfare may have infected and taken out the populace in such a small space. Or the ship, already outdated may have suffered a critical hardware failure which was beyond the skill of her crew to fix. What is known that all persons aboard EXODUS GREEN, estimated between 10,000-20,000, died.

This would have been a simple footnote in the history of the Fall, except for an interesting turn of events. First, EXODUS GREEN was discovered and began to be explored by a Scavenger team based out of Fresh Kills, who began identifying themselves as the "Re-Green" team. Starting small they expanded after their discovery, and in addition to recovering Earth artifacts to sell also attempted to document the people they found. They recovered Cortical Stacks from the very small number who had them, and looked for other forms of identification. If they could, they would find relatives and inform them, possibly even attempt to dispose of the remains as they would, with unidentifieds being cast respectfully back to Earth in a process known as "sky cremation". This was a minor note in local news circles, which quickly vanished when a pirate gang drove "Re-Green" out. This group identified themselves as the Gadhka-Samada "Tribe", and began to process the ship much quicker for profit, and turned it into a pirate base. They flushed unknown numbers of the dead directly into vacuum with little regard, but only after stripping them of their valuables. From there the "tribe" began to be a bit of a nuisance for flightpaths through the area.

Their nuisance stopped a few years later when some Reclaimers quietly paid mercenaries to flush the pirates out. Faced with real military response, the pirates were outmatched, and many of them suffered the same ignominious fate they had confined the dead to. The reclaimers then got in contact with some remaining members of Re-Green, and very methodically cleared the majority of the dead from the open spaces of the ship, as well as stabilizing some portions damaged in the assault. But, Re-Green now had little interest in the ship itself, having merged with the outfit PastFinders. This is where Firewall steps in.

Using a front organization set up by a pro-reclamation server, Firewall has covertly taken over EXODUS GREN under the guise of small corp dedicated to long-term recovery of Earth but more importantly the clearing and organizing of her orbits. Known as "Kessler Cure", officially this group is using the large ship designed for long-term habitation as a test case for salvaging, and a research base to plot and document other such wrecks and relics in Orbit. Underneath that, Kessler Cure has a long established legend as an organization which assists Reclaimers in reaching the surface of Earth or helping them find orbital bases to scavenge - particularly mapping the Cordon around the Earth. But the real truth is that Kessler and EXODUS GREEN are operated by Firewall. The organization serves as cover for several operatives who monitor Reclaimer operations under a kind of "catch and release" policy - tracking them and their possible cargos so Firewall can intercept anything too dangerous, and even arranging operations to recover assets Firewall is after. EXODUS GREEN itself does something more, however.

Both the ship itself, and many virtual recreations of it have been arranged to be a covert course to teach Firewall Sentinels the basics of clearing derelict habitats. While refurbished to handle a decent population in the hundreds, rarely do more than a few dozen transhumans reside here at any time. This "boot camp" is used to impart basic skills Sentinels operating in the Earth area may need to know, and many of its cleared, interior chambers have been modified to mimic certain environments and scenarios with practical elements. Where practical effects cannot substitute, AR overlays or simulspace replicas can provide. Possible obstacles here cover all manner of traps, TITAN artifacts, servants and weapons, to basic combat tactics vs transhuman opponents; from pirates to professional military. Many Sentinels in the area trying to be operational must pass one or more tests on EXODUS GREEN at some form or another, or are sent there for remedial training after one too many fouled up ops. Other parts of EXODUS GREEN are part of the infrastructure of Kessler Cure (Closely associated with operation CENOTAPH), or even part of their cover. It's not all work over at the ship either, groups of trainees have been known to take simulator weapons and engage in "friendly" matches inside the ships areas, both in free-for-all and classic "team deathmatch" formats. Officially, this is frowned upon by trainers and proxies as it reduces the psychological impact and seriousness they try and cultivate on EXODUS GREEN, but as they say, "all work and no play".