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Description

This is my first entry in my timeline, that diverges in 1987. The first noticeable impact is a much more violent collapse of the soviet union, which leads to longer war on terror and socialist revolution in the US, and eventually leads to the current year, 2320. This is a sort of pilot for the scenario, and any feedback would be appreciated.

As with all of humanity's firsts, the first colonization of Neptune was a formal, neutral affair. When the Dehli Axis flagship locked into the gas giant's Lagrange point, it was, like all other touchdowns, a broadcast for all mankind to see and celebrate as a victory for the whole species. However, by the 22nd century, space was no longer a distant frontier, and the formality of discovery was strung paper-thin over the true nature of the historic landing. Neptune, or Varuna as it also known as in the modern day, was reached by humanity at time of great tension. The monoliths of India and Africa were locked in cold war, which unlike the two preceding it, was happening on a system-wide scale. Each nation was deadlocked in a massive game of economic warfare and expansion, and a lagging economy could spell doom for either country. At the time, India was lagging in growth compared to the African federation, who's network of allies had the upper hand in the inner system and Jovians. Looking for resources to continue it's exponential expansion, India looked to Neptune and it's near inexhaustible supply of Helium-3.

Varuna was in many ways a complete gamble on the part of the Dehli axis. It was after all, a complete hellscape. Storms ravaged the surface, and leviathan pressures rendered the lower atmosphere essentially inaccessible. Exploiting the bounties of Neptune required a type of ingenuity that was revolutionary and afraid of nothing. Evidently, this kind of ingenuity was in fact impossible for humans to achieve... alone. AI, as it turns out, could run very efficiently in the extreme cold of Neptune, and could research cheaper productions of the materials required to exploit Neptune faster than humans, if at that point only theoratically. India, however, was at the time desperate enough to be OK with entirely theoretical concepts, and imported AI with extreme computational power en masse from Saturn and the Belt, and put them directly into floating server farms in the Neptunian Atmosphere. The first settlers of Varuna were mainly scientists and engineers from across the across the axis, ranging from India, Japan, Hellena, Thailand, and KauKau.

As a decade passed, Dehli's gamble seemed to have paid off. The research-minds of the server farm cities began to produce designs for reliably cheap and durable material to survive the atmosphere of Neptune, as well as unexpected innovations like drills capable of delving deep into the hellish pressure of the planet to extract minerals. Armed with the bare necessities, civilization marched downwards into the depths of the stormy planet. Fueled by the massive profits from helium-3, and to a lesser extent metals, the small platform cities that barely touched the outer atmosphere quickly balooned outwards and descended, becoming monolithic chandelier shaped arcology-complexes descending down for many miles into the perpetual storms, hosting hundreds of millions of sophonts. Most of these sophonts however, were not biological.

At around the same time as Varuna's grand expansion, mind uploading technology underwent an exponential increase in efficiency, allowing the practical conversion of biological life into synthetic life. Varuna, already extreme pro-technology due to the influence of AI and the technologies created by them, adopted mind uploading practices with a fervent zeal. People placed their digitized minds in new, wholly mechanical bodies, becoming some of the first true converted androids in the system. These androids still reproduced biologically, but only the brain would grow from this process, and it would be immediately uploaded after the 9-month development period. In short, Varuna was among the first places to be affected by the great shift, the mass transition of humanity from biological to wholly synthetic life. These androids formed about 95% of the human population on Varuna, and were the main cause of the massive population boom.

After the end of the cold war, both India and Africa lay in ruin, and Varuna, already extremely autonomous, seceded formally and formed it's own constitution, based on Republican AI Delegation, where the citizens would elect AI subroutines to contribute input to the master AI administering the country. While in the modern day Varuna is no longer the only polity on Neptune, it is by far the most powerful, and hold the most sway in the decisions of the Neptunian council. It's no surprise that they are powerful: they operate Neptune's most lucrative gas and metal extraction operations, as a well a Lagrange point and a respectable amount of orbital habitats to boot.

Areas:

- The Varuna Metropole is the oldest and largest of the chandelier continents, the name for the continent-sized conglomeration of chandelier arcologies floating through Neptune, linked by nanotube tunnels. It is home to about 4.5 Billion sophonts, and is the site of most of the gas extraction operations. People (or more acurately, androids) here are mostly of Indian descent, though there are sizable amounts of Japanese, Chinese, and Siberians, and other smaller groups. AI are also abundant, living in server farms in the middle portions of the chandeliers. The metropole is famous for the unique and awe-inspiring skyline of it's chandelier-arcologies, and hosts many historical and cultural sites of great importance to Neptune and the rest of the outer system.

- The Illya subpole was founded by Hellena, and contains mainly androids of Greek Martian descent. The people here are known for their music, films, and other entertainment exports, which are popular across the outer system.

- The Namgin subpole was founded by Thailand, and mainly contains androids of Thai descent, though it has a significant Maori population as well. It is well known for it's vast virtual spaces, which run can run extremely complicated simulations.

- The Akatsuki subpole was founded by Japan, and mainly contains androids of Japanese descent. It is the center of research in the outer system, on account of it having the oldest and most efficient research-minds.

- The Sunyam and Celvam mining strips are simply automated metal extraction zones, with a chandelier arcology near each region hosting it's administrators. From tethered platforms, 3 Kilometer-long drills dive deep into the atmosphere and eventually the mantle, to extract material. Watching the drills dive and come back up is actually quite a popular tourist attraction, though the locals don't quite understand what the big deal is.

- The Balā-1 orbiter cluster is a catch-all be all term for all of Varuna's off-planet assets, mainly just a collection of orbital habs in association with the polity as well as it's lagrange station. The cluster noticeably has a much higher proportion of biological life compared to the rest of the federation.

The flag has 3 shades of blue, representing the vast atmosphere of Neptune that Varuna spans. The central circle with the chandelier design represents the Varuna Metropole, and the two dots on the left and right represent the smaller subpoles. The Upper node represents the orbital assets, and the bottom diamond represents the nation's drilling assets/vast wealth.

Description

This is my first entry in my timeline, that diverges in 1987. The first noticeable impact is a much more violent collapse of the soviet union, which leads to longer war on terror and socialist revolution in the US, and eventually leads to the current year, 2320. This is a sort of pilot for the scenario, and any feedback would be appreciated.

As with all of humanity's firsts, the first colonization of Neptune was a formal, neutral affair. When the Dehli Axis flagship locked into the gas giant's Lagrange point, it was, like all other touchdowns, a broadcast for all mankind to see and celebrate as a victory for the whole species. However, by the 22nd century, space was no longer a distant frontier, and the formality of discovery was strung paper-thin over the true nature of the historic landing. Neptune, or Varuna as it also known as in the modern day, was reached by humanity at time of great tension. The monoliths of India and Africa were locked in cold war, which unlike the two preceding it, was happening on a system-wide scale. Each nation was deadlocked in a massive game of economic warfare and expansion, and a lagging economy could spell doom for either country. At the time, India was lagging in growth compared to the African federation, who's network of allies had the upper hand in the inner system and Jovians. Looking for resources to continue it's exponential expansion, India looked to Neptune and it's near inexhaustible supply of Helium-3.

Varuna was in many ways a complete gamble on the part of the Dehli axis. It was after all, a complete hellscape. Storms ravaged the surface, and leviathan pressures rendered the lower atmosphere essentially inaccessible. Exploiting the bounties of Neptune required a type of ingenuity that was revolutionary and afraid of nothing. Evidently, this kind of ingenuity was in fact impossible for humans to achieve... alone. AI, as it turns out, could run very efficiently in the extreme cold of Neptune, and could research cheaper productions of the materials required to exploit Neptune faster than humans, if at that point only theoratically. India, however, was at the time desperate enough to be OK with entirely theoretical concepts, and imported AI with extreme computational power en masse from Saturn and the Belt, and put them directly into floating server farms in the Neptunian Atmosphere. The first settlers of Varuna were mainly scientists and engineers from across the across the axis, ranging from India, Japan, Hellena, Thailand, and KauKau.

As a decade passed, Dehli's gamble seemed to have paid off. The research-minds of the server farm cities began to produce designs for reliably cheap and durable material to survive the atmosphere of Neptune, as well as unexpected innovations like drills capable of delving deep into the hellish pressure of the planet to extract minerals. Armed with the bare necessities, civilization marched downwards into the depths of the stormy planet. Fueled by the massive profits from helium-3, and to a lesser extent metals, the small platform cities that barely touched the outer atmosphere quickly balooned outwards and descended, becoming monolithic chandelier shaped arcology-complexes descending down for many miles into the perpetual storms, hosting hundreds of millions of sophonts. Most of these sophonts however, were not biological.

At around the same time as Varuna's grand expansion, mind uploading technology underwent an exponential increase in efficiency, allowing the practical conversion of biological life into synthetic life. Varuna, already extreme pro-technology due to the influence of AI and the technologies created by them, adopted mind uploading practices with a fervent zeal. People placed their digitized minds in new, wholly mechanical bodies, becoming some of the first true converted androids in the system. These androids still reproduced biologically, but only the brain would grow from this process, and it would be immediately uploaded after the 9-month development period. In short, Varuna was among the first places to be affected by the great shift, the mass transition of humanity from biological to wholly synthetic life. These androids formed about 95% of the human population on Varuna, and were the main cause of the massive population boom.

After the end of the cold war, both India and Africa lay in ruin, and Varuna, already extremely autonomous, seceded formally and formed it's own constitution, based on Republican AI Delegation, where the citizens would elect AI subroutines to contribute input to the master AI administering the country. While in the modern day Varuna is no longer the only polity on Neptune, it is by far the most powerful, and hold the most sway in the decisions of the Neptunian council. It's no surprise that they are powerful: they operate Neptune's most lucrative gas and metal extraction operations, as a well a Lagrange point and a respectable amount of orbital habitats to boot.

Areas:

- The Varuna Metropole is the oldest and largest of the chandelier continents, the name for the continent-sized conglomeration of chandelier arcologies floating through Neptune, linked by nanotube tunnels. It is home to about 4.5 Billion sophonts, and is the site of most of the gas extraction operations. People (or more acurately, androids) here are mostly of Indian descent, though there are sizable amounts of Japanese, Chinese, and Siberians, and other smaller groups. AI are also abundant, living in server farms in the middle portions of the chandeliers. The metropole is famous for the unique and awe-inspiring skyline of it's chandelier-arcologies, and hosts many historical and cultural sites of great importance to Neptune and the rest of the outer system.

- The Illya subpole was founded by Hellena, and contains mainly androids of Greek Martian descent. The people here are known for their music, films, and other entertainment exports, which are popular across the outer system.

- The Namgin subpole was founded by Thailand, and mainly contains androids of Thai descent, though it has a significant Maori population as well. It is well known for it's vast virtual spaces, which run can run extremely complicated simulations.

- The Akatsuki subpole was founded by Japan, and mainly contains androids of Japanese descent. It is the center of research in the outer system, on account of it having the oldest and most efficient research-minds.

- The Sunyam and Celvam mining strips are simply automated metal extraction zones, with a chandelier arcology near each region hosting it's administrators. From tethered platforms, 3 Kilometer-long drills dive deep into the atmosphere and eventually the mantle, to extract material. Watching the drills dive and come back up is actually quite a popular tourist attraction, though the locals don't quite understand what the big deal is.

- The Balā-1 orbiter cluster is a catch-all be all term for all of Varuna's off-planet assets, mainly just a collection of orbital habs in association with the polity as well as it's lagrange station. The cluster noticeably has a much higher proportion of biological life compared to the rest of the federation.

The flag has 3 shades of blue, representing the vast atmosphere of Neptune that Varuna spans. The central circle with the chandelier design represents the Varuna Metropole, and the two dots on the left and right represent the smaller subpoles. The Upper node represents the orbital assets, and the bottom diamond represents the nation's drilling assets/vast wealth.