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Aten Banner of Aaru Outstation

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The Flag: Designed entirely in a single night by the Poet-Dictator Giyath ad-Din while on one of his infamous binges of the drug Redline.  The flag is only one of many that are used on Aaru Outstation for various purposes.  This particular one is the banner of the Body of Aten Manifest, the constitutional ruling body of Aaru.  The Red Baby is symbolic of the blood of the new people of Aaru, a new culture waiting to be born, surrounded by the white of purity, of their divine mission and the yellow rays represent Aten, the Sun's Disk, the pagan god that Giyath ad-Din has resurrected as the center of his personal cult.

Society: Hathorim (Ahl al-Hathor)
-Orientation: Conservative, Individualist, Extrovert
-Ethos: Casablanca, Nasser-era Egypt, just post-colonial North Africa
-Patron Philosophers: Jurji Zaydan, Theodor Herzl
-Culture Hero: ibnBattuta, the cunning merchant, emphasis on courage and knowledge
-Ethnicity: Arab, East African (Nilotic), Saturnian, Persian

Society: Tem Desi
-Orientation: Liberal, Collectivist, Introvert
-Ethos: Indian, live in sealed religious communes, how India was imagined by the hippies
-Patron Philosophers: Lord Swaminarayan, Mahatma Jyotiro Phule
-Culture Hero: The Teacher, who brings wisdom needed to live to his people, emphasis on listening
-Ethnicity: Punjabi, Indian, Malay, Kurd, Selenian

Society: Prenu "The People"
-Orientation: Conservative, Collectivist, Extrovert
-Ethos: Mysterious spacefolk, keep to themselves
-Patron Philosophers: Robert Heinlein, Marija Gimbutas, Michael Swanwick, C.J. Cherryh
-Culture Hero: The Captain, she who steers her ship through troubled skies
-Ethnicity: Mixed, indistinguishable after centuries of in-breeding

Government: The Glorious People's Station-State of Aaru [Extrasolar State]
-Area: Aaru Outation, The IL Aquarii (Gliese 876) solar system en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_8…
-Capital: Ta Netjeru, Horus, first moon of Hathor (Gliese 876 b)
-Form: Hypothetically a constitutional commune, directed by collectives of the people.  In practice, an autocracy under the Khedive.
-Head of State: The Khedive, Giyath ad-Din ibn'Sabbah al-Khepri, Ozan of IL Aquarii, Abu'l-Umar, The Poet Lord etc.
-Official Language(s): Arabic, Urdu

Description: 
Due to the nature of interstellar travel all the settled systems have Outstations, central points for trade at the very edge of the system's gravity well, placed so as to keep Drive Fields from wasting energy fighting against the gravity of the solar system.  They are in business because they are the cheapest place to send goods.

This has made them important choke-points over the years, especially since the beginning of the Kakubjaya.  They are not, strictly speaking, necessary for trade, but they are vital for cheap trade, as the fuel and energy costs of fighting a star's gravity will be reflected in the price the cargoes are sold for.

Aaru, the primary Outstation for the populous IL Aquarii System, is one the larger and more active outstations in the Central Colonies.  Holding it has always been one of the keys to the continued power of the Aquarian Authority discotechnology.deviantart.com… .  Until, that is, the Authority faltered long enough for it to slip through their fingers.

The situation began as the popular general and Chief Executor Mailk Bey broke the Authority from its traditional allegiance with the forces of the Io Pact (primarily the Jovian League discotechnology.deviantart.com… ) in the ambitious but ill-fated 'Centauri Campaign').  Unfortunately this time the great man gambled and lost.  The bureaucracy rose up against him, backed by Jovian money, and removed him from power, largely with the help of the 'Voyniks' Uranian discotechnology.deviantart.com… mercenaries provided by Jupiter's allies in the Coalition discotechnology.deviantart.com… and replaced the Chief Executor with a provisional 'Majlis Council'.  This new, fragile government, a compromise between the various pro-Pact factions of the government, is called the "Tanzimat".  The new government was acknowledged through most of the moons of the system's primary gas giant, Hathor, but was rejected by the Tem Desi of the second gas giant, Atem.

The 'Voyniks', who now held the balance of power in the new government, displaced the native Aknici scouts as the premier units of the Authority's army and were given special privileges formerly reserved solely for the Aknici.  When poet-laureate-turned-war-hero and rabid Malik Bey supporter Commodore Giyath-ad-Din ibn'Sabbah al-Khepri declared the Tanzimat government illegitimate "This bastard son of a whore, for all compromise is but a harlotry of the soul, wherein our state the coin that is paid...", and took his fleet rogue, he had little trouble convincing the bulk of the Aknici to follow him.  With the Tanzimat's forces mostly occupied around Atem, they had no trouble seizing and securing Aaru station and the Great Weapon, its massive X-Ray laser.

For the last year and a half (Earth Standard), Giyath ad-Din, now declared the Khedive or 'Viceroy' has ruled, in the name of the exiled Malik Bey, the Outstation, holding commerce hostage for his continued survival, as the station itself grows more and more lawless and strange, a port of call for deserters, drug dealers, prostitutes, smugglers, pirates, freebooters, utopians, refugees, black-marketeers and other desperate types.

All the while, it is rumored, the Jovians are pressing the Tanzimat more and more to DO something about this continuing embarrassment... 
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