Tralp and the RDE alt version 2
Colony founder
ISW era:
Portia DuCheyne
CEO DuCheyne Agricultural Products
Tralp's founder, Portia DuCheyne, dreamed of a new world of yeoman farmers and agrarian democracy, a refuge for the hungry and dispossessed refugees of Earth and other Terro-human worlds.
More than that, Tralp would set an example of successful multiculturalism, taking not only a quota from all participating national governments, but also a contingent of Vilani POWs who would be set free at planetfall and made full citizens.
Tralp would be her legacy to future generations.
The Terran Confederation had agreed to heavily subsidize the transport costs for four years.
History
(no dates yet)
captive government
Tralp is a TC colony.
Portia DuCheyne serves as the second Governor-General, after she resigns as CEO and moves to Tralp. She remains a major shareholder in her company.
democracy
Tralp transitions rapidly to self-rule, with Portia DuCheyne elected first president of the new democratic government of Tralp.
A mentally disturbed Vilani ex-POW assassinates President DuCheyne at her inauguration speech.
The democratic government survives the outbreak of civil violence and political troubles that follow Portia DuCheyne's murder, but fault lines deepen between Vilani and Terrans.
Controversial new laws are passed that extend certain security measures in regard to the ex-POW population. Land grants originally set aside for Vilani are given instead to Terrans.
In time, the descendants of the POWS form an underclass.
anarchy/balkanization
News of Terran victory over the Ziru Sirka reaches Tralp. Celebrations among the Terrans and mourning among the downtrodden Vilani.
When news arrives that Admiral Estagarriba has mounted a coup against the TC and named himself regent of the Ziru Sirka, Tralp's gov't declares itself opposed to and wholly separate from the new military government on Dingir. This move doesn't have the full support of the people, and the Terran population falls into political factionalism and eventually sets to fighting a low-grade civil war. The factions, ProRoM, and Anti-RoM, reflect existing fissures among the Terrans, based in part on cultural and nation enmities brought from Earth.
During these years, Vilani on Tralp migrate to a hardscrabble region where they create a state of their own.
Corporate state
The Anti-RoM forces claim victory in the civil war, but the conflict leaves Tralp divided into multiple statelets, with none strong enough to reunite the planet.
Brigandage rises to dangerous levels, with discharged soldiers and gangs of toughs plaguing the countryside and even occupying towns and villages.
Corporate gov’t
DuCheyne Agricultural Products had remained neutral during the conflict. It has emerged as the most stable and wealthy institution left, and when its managers organize their workers and some of their clients into militia units to clear out brigands, the effort gains wide public support.
The corporation, now separate from the offices on Earth in all but name, sets up a new corporate-controlled regime.
It conquers the Vilani secessionists and puts POWs to work on the farms.
Talk of new elections goes nowhere. Many Tralpians prefer the new, more efficient and direct, style of corporate rule to the messy democratic system that collapsed into civil conflict.
Things improve. Roads and canals damaged during the fighting are rebuilt using POW labor.
self-perpetuating oligarchy
The fall of the Long Night chokes, then kills, Tralp's all-important agricultural export market. DuCheyne Agricultural Products suffers record losses.
The board of directors holds an emergency meeting. The company is sold off in a private auction, with board members taking most valuable, viable assets for themselves.
The ex-directors become oligarchs who dominate politics and economic life on Tralp.
They replace lost members with others drawn from their families and social circle, keeping out any outsiders, especially Vilani.
feudal technocracy
The Board has devolved to a ceremonial group, with all the power now in the hands of the landholding families, those who can raise substantial household forces and collect large rents from the impoverished sharecroppers. These landholders control the grain silos, well-digging machinery, veterinary medical facilities, and other crucial technology and infrastructure, granting access in return for service.
The bosses deal with worker and renter revolts by creating racial laws in a successful bid to split Solomani from Vilani/mixed-race humans.
Contracts for the poorest workers become virtual slavery, while the middling sorts are brought in closer to the landlords or else encouraged to go off filibustering with younger sons of the lords.
(By now, anyone of partial Vilani descent is a Vilani under Tralpian social standards; few pure Vilani are left outside a handful of inbred backwater families)
bureaucracy
Clerks and bailiffs grow in numbers and powers until the old feudal order has become a bureaucracy.
Nobody but the clerks really understand the vast, complicated web of deeds, leases, inheritances, and so on that runs all the way back to the founding of the Colony.
And since the defeat of the last peasants uprising and the ill-fated Young Sons Rebellion, only the bailiffs are legally permitted to carry guns in public.
Slavery of the Vilani and mixed race has become normal and commonplace.
Younger sons of estate-holders are encouraged to emigrate off world, taking hot-headed followers with them. This opens new markets for Tralp, gets rid of potential troublemakers, and sends a stream of fresh captives back to restock the inbred and slow-growing slave populations.
The new colonies joined with Tralp to form the Reformed Dootchen (from DuCheyne) Estates, named in honor of the legendary First Founder of Tralp.
When Tralp joins the Solomani Confederation, its government agrees to end all filibusters and slave raids aimed at any worlds within the SC.
Tralpian raiders now play the dangerous game of hunting Aslan.
They fit captured Aslan with drug-injector collars that render the aliens complacent and tractable and use them as farm labor.
Sometimes an Aslan breaks free of control, maybe killing the overseers, and runs for the bush. Then all the local holders and their bully-boys from the Home Guard hold a ‘‘lion hunt'', a festive event.
