Overview

Premise

We write the year 2112 and fifty years (2062) ago the conglomerate SART invented the warp drive. A way for humans to travel into the final frontier. Quickly after the advent of this drive, all nations increased their effort in space exploration.

Major Powers

The world of Fallen Descent is ruled by large corporations who profit of the vast riches space has to offer. They mine asteroids, supply the ever increasing demand for space faring vessels through big space factories and shipyards and continue to push for a bigger horizon and profits.

Earth meanwhile is ruled by three large factions: The United Americas (UA), European and Asian Coalition (EAC) and the African Union (AU). All those three together represent the interests of Earth as the United Nations.

The most prominent corporations are SART, a large German and Japanese based vessel manufacturer, Jengur and Xu corporation are large pharmaceutical corporations based in the African Union, and the PS Holding as the largest bank, credit giver and issuer of insurances.

Years prior the invention of the warp drive (in 2053) the United Nations established a research station on Mars. Since the advent of the warp drive, and more and more people travelling space the station has expanded vastly, and is now considered the first Human colony. The various space stations on mars united into the First Martian Republic or FMR. The FMR is a self governed congressional republic that rules over Mars and its steadily growing 40 million people.

The FMR and the United Nations together formed a military arm called the Inter-Planetary Authority (IPA). The main task of the IPA is to police, secure and protect Earth, Mars and all their stations and vessels. By number of ships, and soldiers the IPA is the largest known military.

Just four years ago, a new colony has been founded on Kepler 22b after scientific reports have proven that Kepler 22b is indeed capable of sustaining human life. The new colony is currently being funded by the Final Frontier Conglomerate (FFC), a conglomerate involving both major companies the FMR and the United Nations. The new colony currently houses 32000 people in total.

Space Treaty of 2034

The Space Treaty of 2034 regulates the construction, maintenance of space stations; provides and handles rules for citizen ship rights for space born humans and also sets various other rules and limitations for space travel.

It extends already existing prohibited activities into space, such as piracy, smuggling, trafficking, slavery. And creates civil rights in outer space, such as the right for sanctity of one's own property and privacy.

The treaty also bans all weapons on civilian vessels, except for point defence, which can be useful to destroy incoming meteors and small debris before they can damage space craft.

After a rise in space piracy, the ban on weapons on civilian weapons has been loosened. As of 2064 a captain of a vessel can now obtain a right to arm his vessel from the IPA, as long as substantial risk of pirate attacks is present.

The Ceres Amendment of 2070 banned the personal carry of fire arms on space stations. Local governments of space stations may however create exceptions to these rules, for example for police forces or military personnel.