Hi Alana,

I was at court on Friday so there was a lot of waiting around and plenty of
time for me to do some writing. I developed an idea around your character
concept about a culture where people are cybernetically modified against
their will and bought and sold as chattel. Have a read and see what you think,
is there anything you would like to add/change? I've left plenty of the names
up to you....

At the beginning of the War the human culture of planet X was divided into a
number of more or less democratic governments, planet X had been
peacefully contacted by species Y representing the Bureaucracy about a
century before and was beginning to send colonists and explorers to nearby
systems. Galactic goods and technologies had made their way into society
but were only owned by the most wealthy, the people looked to space with
optimism and their divided governments signed treaties to ensure access to
the stars was shared fairly to prevent any one power gaining an edge and
taking over. The onset of the war took several years to engulf the galaxy,
species Y did not fare well and was forced to withdraw their military
protection in order to concentrate their forces to defend their home systems.
Without a united government the spacefleet of planet X was piecemeal built
from woefully outdated technology borrowed from species Y. It did not stand a
chance when species Z showed up bent on establishing dominion.

The military starships of planet X were swept aside with brutal efficiency, the
colonists and researchers were enslaved and the fleets of species Z arrived in
orbit around planet X itself. There they found a crowded planet with billions of
inhabitants, technologically unable to sustain a war in space but very ready
to fight a long a bloody ground conflict. So species Z did what any conquering
species does in such a situation, they began a massive construction safe in
orbit and issued an ultimatum "IN 60 DAYS THIS PLANET WILL NO LONGER BE
ABLE TO SUSTAIN LIFE, WE DEMAND YOUR UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER, IF
THE GOVERNMENTS OF YOUR WORLD CHOOSE DEFIANCE OVER LIFE THEN
WE URGE THE CITIZENS TO OVERTHROW THEM OR ELSE YOU SHALL SURELY
PERISH". Bureaucracy diplomats on planet X revealed species Z's intentions,
the construction was to be a solar shade fifty thousand miles in diameter that
when completed would block all sunlight from reaching the surface, the result
would be an indefinite night and the extinction of all life.
The assembled governments stood paralyzed for 48 hours, facing the
unenviable choice of leading their peoples into slavery or death, and fearful
that any among them might betray the others for the slightest advantage in
the face of the stark ultimatum. The deadlocked political body was
approached by a consortium of international companies led by Monolith, the
corporation who held the monopoly on deep core resource extraction.
Monolith presented a comprehensive plan by which it promised that with all
the planet's political, military and economic power thrown into the effort
enough deep mines could be prepared for habitation to save the population
until the siege was lifted. Approval was nearly unanimous, the dissenting
voices were immediately silenced by nuclear bombardment, thus began the
"61 days".

61 days of amazing logistical effort, backbreaking work and personal sacrifice

from billions of citizens. On the morning of day 62 the last tiny Bureaucracy
ships lifted off from Embassy Plaza, their cargo of diplomats promising to
carry the story of the besieged planet X to the rest of the galaxy, at 1141
hours the sun was eclipsed by the alien construction. The eclipse was to last
for 40 years.

Work continued on feverishly inside the mines, hundreds of millions of people

remained on the surface in temporary camps as the temperatures
plummeted, the hasty construction was in constant need of repair and
shoring up. Conditions were appallingly cramped for all but the fewest elite,
not just space and food but even water and air were carefully rationed
resources. At every turn Monolith was there with planned contingencies,
helping the politicians make the hard decisions, minimizing loss of life, their
internal security advising the soldiers on how best to maintain order in the
tunnels and galleries. After a week global temperature had reached -17oC,
after a year -73oC. The surviving population of planet X were entombed as
the surface of the oceans froze, the land was buried in ice and the biosphere
came to a grinding halt in the relentless cold. Beneath the surface a New
Society emerged, and everyone who wanted to eat or breathe had to earn
their keep. Conditions in many of the industrial zones were extremely toxic,
Monolith's contingency was to offer workers cybernetic modifications to
tolerate the poison air and chemical hazards. Workers with no other options
to feed their families went under the knife by the tens of thousands. When
construction teams needed to go to the surface to build new intakes and
outlets and had to endure the murderous cold for months on end, Monolith
offered cybernetics and workers accepted rather than freeze or starve.
When surrender was not forthcoming the majority of the enemy fleet
departed to continue conquering and plundering in other systems. The fleets
of species Z left token forces in orbit to babysit the solar shade, an inglorious
posting devoid of action or prizes to capture. It was five years before the first
asteroid fell, the direct impact only killed few thousand but the earthquakes
rippled around the planet as the mantle deformed under the shock. The
shifting landmasses propelled tsunami under the vast ice sheets that
inundated former coastal regions, the vast amounts of dust and water vapor
that entered the atmosphere caused ashen snow to fall for the first time since
the water cycle had been cut short. Millions drowned in the flooding, millions
were buried in the earthquakes, millions suffocated as ventilation systems
collapsed or were blocked by snow and debris.

A new frenzy of work began; making the mines proof against earthquakes,
relocating vital industries and food production deeper underground,
rebuilding and salvaging from what had been damaged, finding a way to
watch the skies to warn of new impacts. Above all the greatest concern was
to disguise the location of the shelters, to eliminate the discharge of warm air
or water or industrial products, to set up decoys and convince the attackers
to aim their impacts away from the shelters. These new harsher conditions
demanded more and more sacrifice from the population, more privations,
more extensive cybernetic modifications. Monolith was there with its
contingencies, with its ready made solutions, with its marginally lesser of two
evils.

The bombardment continued to rain from above and the New Society
continued to dig deeper shelters. After 40 years barely any of the old mines
were still inhabited, their populations systematically migrated further
underground, many had become dumps for industrial waste. The
observatories reported a week of meteor showers from all quadrants, new
stars flaring brief and bright in the planet's unending night, and then the
transmission - Species Y had returned. Not with the space-sweeping armada
that had been prayed for, but with enough sleek new warships to drive
species Z out of the system. Species Y came with a message, "THE TIDE OF
THE WAR IS TURNING BUT VICTORY STILL HANGS IN THE BALANCE, WE NEED
YOUR HELP."

The New Society was ready to answer the call. With their people freed from
the threat of annihilation raining from the sky and their industries freed from
any environmental constraint planet X was soon churning out weapons,
armoured vehicles, starship components and anything else the voracious
wartime economies of species Y and the Bureaucracy demanded. Along with
these products tens of millions of grim faced indoctrinated cyborg soldiers
rode the space elevator off-world to bring the war to the homeworlds of
species Z and their allies. Monolith was in place to co-ordinate this production
on a planetary scale, to negotiate the trade deals and to receive the vast
wealth that flowed down from space.

The solar shade remained in orbit. To simply remove it would be to subject

planet X to a massive and uncontrolled burst of global warming, the thaw
would create a deluge of unimaginable proportions. Without forests and
planetwide plantlife to secure the ground with their roots the storms would
scour the topsoil into the oceans, sea levels would rise unpredictably. The
asteroid-battered topography would create new seas, the continents would
shudder as the weighty balance of ice and water shifted. The result would be
chaos unprecedented. The burst in industry was fueled in part with the vast
energy output of the solar shade, which on its sunside receives the entire
insolation of the planet without attenuation by the atmosphere. As a stop-gap
measure Monolith funded the construction of two mighty orbital mirrors,
enough to prevent planet X growing any cooler at least and providing the
surface with the illumination of two bright full moons.

Ten years have passed since the armistice ended the war and Monolith is
firmly in control of planet X. The national governments have become
branches of the company, everyone born on planet X is an employee
indebted to the corporation for their first breath. Three billion people died
during the long night, seven billion remain - the overwhelming majority of
them still living in the deep shelters. Domed cities and greenhouse valleys
have begun to reclaim the surface. The gap between the workers and those
in the corporate hierarchy is immense. All but a handful of people on planet X
are subject to a contact of employment with Monolith. These contacts define
where they work and live, what public amenities they may use, what ration
they receive, whether they can marry or have children, what level of health
and performance they must maintain, which cybernetic modifications they
must accept to be 'up to standard'. The people of planet X are not slaves,
anyone can opt out of their contract - but to do so is to end ones relationship
with Monolith who provide all goods and services and own every habitable
part of the planet. These contacts are regularly bought and sold between
Monolith subsidiaries and sponsored startups in batches of thousands of
employees as business demands shift. Monolith screens the promising
children from their education programs to be fast tracked into a system of
increasingly demanding and prestigious academies, having an a gifted child
is a passport to a better life for the whole family - so long as they keep
achieving. The very best have their contracts individually bought by
managers, sometimes in fierce bidding wars, to serve as personal assistants,
envoys, companions and pupils. A cadre of loyal, attractive and talented
proteges is seen as an absolute necessity for any corporate officer seeking
promotion. Officers who have reached the almost sacred position of
Shareholder will personally own scores of contracts, people of proven
excellence and capability who have been tested and nurtured and developed
for years, people who are aware that the lives of they and their families in the
highest echelons of society are totally dependent on their patron.