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Living on Venus

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Living on Venus LIVING ON VENUS Aside from its progressive culture, its allegiance to aerial aesthetics, and its spirit of socio-political experimentation, life on Venus is markedly different from other worlds and habitats in several key ways. ISOLATION AND INDEPENDENCE Each aerostat is an island unto itself, with its own distinct culture—much like remote habitats in space. Despite being linked with a contiguous mesh, and the inevitable cross-fertilization of memes and cultural trends via various media channels, many Venusians rarely stray from their home aerostats and take pride in their floating city’s particular identity. This spirit of independence is in fact infused throughout Venusian culture, even among the Constellation habitats, who cooperate in key ways but otherwise seek to walk their own unique and independent paths. This has led to a bit of friendly rivalry between some aerostats, though this is just as often expressed in terms of racing towards new research breakthroughs or unveiling new public artworks rather than traditional competitive modes like sports or media production. VENUSIAN WEALTH Like on Mars, living space on Venus is relatively inexpensive— creating more does not involve enlarging a rotating habitat or digging caverns into the rock of some moon or asteroid. Instead, all someone needs to do is build more relatively lightweight, air- tight rooms. As a result, the emphasis on possessing large dwellings and on having restaurants, private clubs, and other facilities that VENUSIAN HOLIDAYS One of the universal Venusian holidays is Fall Day: a day honoring Earth and those who permanently died during the Fall, held on April 26th, on the old Earth calendar. This is the day that the UN officially decided to begin the evacuation of Earth. During Fall Day, people from each aerostat gather early on in the plazas, which each project a high resolution video or augmented reality environment of an impressive and memorable location that once existed on Earth. After viewing these scenes, people spend time with the friends and families. More recently, residents also gather for Morningstar Day, the day that Venus officially became and indepen- dent world. On Morningstar Day, residents assemble in the upper plazas, the ceiling is made transparent, and VENUS the residents watch vast fireworks displays. Morningstar Day is a joyous and somewhat debauched holiday, with celebrants enjoying various intoxicants. Since the Venusian atmosphere rotates relatively slowly and aerostats that remain tethered to the surface rotate .3.3.3.3. .3.3 3.3. even slower, for some aerostats Morningstar Day occurs 3.3 3.3 3. .3 . .3 during the Venusian day. Technicians have created .3 . .3 3 3 .3 . specially colored fireworks that are visible even in the 3 3 . 3 3 dim Venusian daylight. However, most Constellation . 3 3 . aerostats make an effort to be on the planet’s night 3 3 . 3 3 . side during Morningstar Day so they can have the best . 3 . possible view of their fireworks display.n 3 . 3 . 3 . 3 . 3 . 41 3 . 3 . 3 . 3 . 3 . 3 are patronized by the wealthy and powerful be espe- keep the aerostats aloft, and aerostats require consider- cially spacious is largely absent on Venus. Instead, the ably fewer materials to create than any vacuum habitat. primary focus of Venusian luxury is possessing large On Venus, the length of time an indenture must work goods. Because every kilogram of furnishings must be in order to purchase a cheap pod or biomorph and a imported from off-world or mined on Venus’s hellish place to live is typically less than a year. surface, the common Venusian aesthetic is focused on owning elegant, lightweight, and highly functional art, ATTRACTIONS furniture, appliances, and equipment. The rich, however, Two relatively small but important sources of income have the luxury of owning goods that are larger or for Venus are tourism and sales of XP. As what is more abundant. Hyper-elite Venusians who wish to arguably the most unusual inhabited world in the show of their wealth do so by owning and displaying solar system, many people are willing to pay to imported statues and other large relics of Earth or either experience this exotic environment directly or hand-made post-Fall copies of these same relics. to upload XP from those who have the means to do so. Balloon rides are popular, as are explorations of VENUSIAN POVERTY the depths of the Venusian atmosphere. Heavily rein- Like most of the inner system, the Venusian poor forced vessels can travel as low as 30 kilometers above primarily consist of infomorph refugees and poor the surface. Renting a surface morph is also popular, transhumans forced to inhabit case synthmorphs. The though all but the most daring tourists teleoperate infomorphs here typically work dull and repetitive jobs the shell from the safety of one of the aerostats. In that were performed by high end AGIs before the Fall, addition, there are a few utterly unique attractions just like everywhere else. On Venus, these jobs include available on Venus. mining, monitoring ore processing equipment and other industrial machinery, and checking the interiors CLOUD DIVING and exteriors of the aerostats for flaws and damage Venus offers one of the most spectacular sports in the that hasn’t shown up on their embedded sensors. entire solar system—cloud diving. Divers take subor- The clanking masses, meanwhile, work the typical bital transports to an altitude of 80 kilometers and labor and service-sector jobs, particularly aerostat don both a vacsuit and a parachute. The cloud diver construction and repair, mining ops, transportation then jumps out of the transport and falls through the services, and terraforming. Many of these poor synth- atmosphere. What happens next depends upon the morphs live in sections of habitats that are open to the wishes of the diver. Venusian atmosphere and lack all amenities other than For the less daring cloud divers, Octavia has electricity, data access, and lighting. However, the same constructed a large floating mesh net three kilo- air that the biomorphs and pods breathe also serves to meters from the aerostat. Supported by gas bags at its corners, the net is a square 500 meters on a side. Cloud divers need merely slow themselves to BLACK MARKET OPPORTUNITIES a velocity of 25 kph using a parachute and they To: Etcher Lives taking the majority of the stake. Pax Familiae is a From: The Russian <verification failure> major player, too, of course, though she seems to inten- SOL-MERCURY You asked about jobs on Venus. Yeah, there’s no tionally limit her operations here, perhaps because it’s shortage of black-market career opportunities. With all a bit too close to home (her private habitat, Ambelina, VENUS of the political back-and-forth on Venus, there’s a lack is in Venusian orbit). It’s worth noting that a number of attention paid to everyday concerns like public safety of independents gained prominence by supporting EARTH and law enforcement. Despite the liberal attitudes here, Morningstar’s bid for separation a few years ago and there is still a disparity between the rich and poor and have used this influence to carve out their own domains. EARTH ORBIT enough regulated goods to create a demand for illicit Foremost among these is Blackvein, an uplifted raven markets. This makes Venus a hotbed of criminal activity. who rose in the Night Cartel ranks before selling out LUNA Currently, a number of syndicates are waging a his bosses and going solo. He deals in a wide variety of low-intensity conflict over control of the poorest habi- illicit activities but is probably the foremost information MARS tats, not to mention the lucrative cut to be had off the broker and blackmailer on Venus right now. He operates tourists. While Venus may be a premier stop in the inner out of Parvarti, where he occupies a heavily fortified INNER FRINGE system, it still produces very little on its own, so there residential tower. Due to existing inner system preju- is a booming business in illegal substances. All of the dices, Blackvein will often pose as a synthmorph that he PLANEtarY CONSortiUM ongoing political intrigue also means there is plenty of controls via puppet sock. money to be had in secrets, whether you’re blackmailing So if you’re willing to take a side, there’s work to be GAME INFORMATION socialites for their indiscretions, trading insider corporate had, but be careful. The situation is still up for grabs info, or selling Constellation secrets to the Consortium. and you can’t be sure whoever wins isn’t gonna be too Control of Venus’s underworld is still very much up in happy with anyone who played for the losing team. the air, with elements of both the Night Cartel and Nine 42 can safely land in this net and radio a transport in Octavia to come and pick them up. Software included VENUSIAN LIFE FORMS in every cloud diving suit and parachute allows the Venus is home to a small amount of native life. In suit to automatically steer the parachute so that the the clouds between 48 and 60 kilometers above the diver reliably lands in the net. surface are small clusters of floating Venusian proto- More daring cloud divers often wish to experi- bacteria. Preliminary evidence has revealed that these ence the deeper portions of the Venusian atmosphere. life forms are related to both Earth and Martian life. The suits used for cloud diving remain safe up to an These protobacteria provide further support for the altitude of 35 kilometers. The vast majority of cloud theory that more than three billion years ago, both divers make certain to end their dives at an altitude Earth and Venus were seeded with life when meteor of 40 kilometers, where the air pressure is three and and cometary impacts on Mars carried rocks bearing a half times that of Earth and the temperature is primitive Martian bacteria into space and a few of almost 140 C.
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