The Setting - Eishoff, Republic of Antarctica

The Country

Antarctica was the perfect place for this experiment. With the world overpopulating, the vast expanse of frozen land, while immediately inhospitable, began to look rather attractive as a home. Fifty years ago, the United Nations undertook a project to make a free republic on the continent using newly invented biosphere, terraforming technology.

The spot chosen was in the heart of the continent (now called the Republic of Antarctica) and could generally only be reached by aircraft. It started as a small settlement and slowly evolved into a thriving metropolis with four seasons like many a temperate zone. The settlement (now a vibrant city not unlike places like New York, Seattle, Chicago, Paris, Berlin or Moscow) was dubbed Eishoff based off of the German word "Eis-hoffnung" or "Ice-hope." It outranks any other settlement that now dots the frozen landscape as the capital of the republic.

Fifty years ago, countries from all over the world sent people to the settlement to help it grow and allow them a chance to live with more space for moving about. While this didn't solve the problem of overpopulation, it eased the burden of many countries.

The United Nations granted the Republic of Antarctica a small military presence to start with, including soldiers from every corner of the globe. This force eventually grew in strength and now there are several military bases throughout the continent. Eishoff, however, is still the only place that has a biosphere other than underground farms outside of the city limits and underneath the city itself.

The relations with the rest of the world are generally positive, however, there were some skirmishes that member nations of the UN requested aid from the republic to help deal with. One such was another attempt by the Russian Federation to annex Georgia, which did not succeed. Another was when the forces of the United States of America were evicted from the Middle East. During these times, the soldiers of the republic were called to minimize the damage as arbiters. However, this did not stop them from having to actually experience combat.

The republic is also known for its wonderful educational and health-care systems. With the high income tax rate, most of the tax dollars go towards education, health-care and the military so tuition is low for citizens and medical care is free to them as well. Sadly, there is only one university in the entire republic that is meant to serve the needs of several thousand students. Luckily, the school offers some online courses to ease the need of those who cannot make it into the city.

Modern Society

The class divisions within Eishoff are painfully obvious, yet rarely talked about. There is little to no opportunity to advance, and those born into poverty are doomed to remain in it; conversely, those born into wealth grow up spoiled and ignorant.

In the past ten years, a commodity has been developed by an unknown organization known by the acronym of D.E.R.P. which stands for "Dehumanizing Erasure Rewriting Program." The upper- and middle-classes absolutely love these service bots as they can be programmed to be companions, employees, maids, etc. What most of them don't know is that they were all once human. The lower-class sometimes sells their sick and dying to the organization through unknown means in order to help stay afloat.

Ownership of bots is essentially a status symbol for those on the "up and up." This high demand has also created a black market trade of gangs that kidnap innocent people off of the street and sell them to D.E.R.P. to be made into bots.

While the manufacture is ethically questionable, very few higher ups actually know how these bots are made, they tend to not really care. If they don't see it happening, why should they? That is the generally attitude.

It is also not unheard of, with the advanced health-care, for people to become "cyborgs" by having cybernetic alterations done to their body. With a medical purpose, this is rarely done at all unless absolutely needed. Without a medical purpose... more for aesthetics, one must be obscenely rich in order to afford these enhancements. However, these are further status symbols. Even the medical devices are more commonly seen in the upper class.