HISTORY, CURRENT EVENTS, & POLITICS
Colonies, the - The network of city-states in which civilization survived after the Sun's darkening centuries ago. Each Colony was highly fortified, so as to protect its inhabitants from hostile Nightlands environment which began to appear after the Sun's death. Over thousands of years, the Colonies became divided over racial differences, which led to the Species Wars. The Colonies were completely annihilated by Einheit City on December 22nd, 29 ECE during Operation Boreas, effectively terminating large-scale civilization outside Einheit City walls. However the Ministry claims that many hostile Colonial purebreds survived Operation Boreas, and are now presently to blame for the alleged Nightlander Siege.
Corrective Labor Facility - The official term for the network of labor-facility / concentration camps controlled by the Ministry in the remote Nightlands. Also commonly abbreviated to "CLF". Informally referred to as gulags or laogai, usually by the outer class. Relatively little is known of the inner workings of the CLF system, as the majority of offenders sentenced to them are never heard from again beyond, in a few cases, a letter informing the inmate's family of their death. Those few who have survived their CLF sentences often return to Einheit City broken and scarred, both mentally and physically. It is known that within the facilities a climate of fear is fostered, and those who refuse to bend to the will of the Ministry are inevitably those who die first. When a former "zek" has been returned to society, they are almost always shattered beings, too traumatized to ever consider offending again. Ministry personnel who are deemed unsuitable for normal field duty yet not deserving of discharge or more severe punishment are often re-assigned as CLF guards. The CLF system is also what produces much of the fossil fuel and ore used by Einheit City. The locations and the exact number of Corrective Labor Facilities are unknown, though the names of a few facilities have surfaced in recent years: Tartarus, Kwan-li-so, Zolovki, Archenon, and Daehŭng. (See: "Zek")
ECE - 'Einheit City Era'; the current dating system. Dating or historical records kept by the Colonies were often contradictory or unreliable, hence the creation of the ECE calendar upon Einheit City's founding. The current year is 33 ECE.
Einheit Civil Militia (ECM) - Einheit City's original city defense force, established in the first months of the city's settlement by Dr. Frey's followers. An all-volunteer paramilitary consisting of citizens united under Frey's cause, the ECM was responsible for maintaining public peace and guarding the city's borders from the occasional incursion by Nightlands creatures. When Frey's assassination brought the Species Wars to Einheit City's gates, the ECM was caught unprepared to deal with the massive Colonial threat, and thus came under the command of the newly-formed Ministry authority. Due to the Ministry's extremely high enlistment standards which only a small percentage of citizens could meet, and the fact that the Ministry was a hybrid-only organization, many citizens, hybrid and purebred alike, joined the Einheit Civil Militia. Additionally, the ECM had several underground chapters formed in Colonies where rebels allied to Einheit's cause became members, working in their home Colonies to sabotage their war efforts from within. While the Ministry's strength lay in its legendarily advanced combat skill and strategic cunning further bolstered by Architect-influence technological supremacy, the ECM relied upon its large numbers of motivated volunteers, eager and ready to obey the Ministry's commands to aid their city. As Unity was adopted as Einheit City's guiding social science, the Ministry initiated a gradual re-organizing of the ECM's structure, in which hybrids and purebreds were re-assigned to segregated units, and hybrid members became more likely to receive promotions or awards, due to allegedly superior performance by hybrid soldiers. Towards the end of the Species Wars, casualty rates for purebred ECMs soared due to inadequate ammunition or equipment, being ordered by the Ministry to engage in infantry-wave tactics against superior Colonial forces, or simply being left for dead in the Nightlands when the Ministry failed to provide post-mission aerial extraction. Following the nominal end of the war, most of the ECM was deactivated and its hybrid service members given veterans' support by the city government. The Ministry claims that previous wartime estimates of the percentage of hybrid and purebred enlisted personnel were inaccurate, and that purebreds played a mostly insignificant role, whereas hybrids are claimed by the Ministry to have volunteered in greater numbers and with overall higher performance and loyalty. Because of this, many purebreds who served in the ECM have been denied veteran's benefits and ultimately neglected by the city government. Presently, the ECM only exists as a skeletal department of Chancellor Kadesh's civilian government, and with a small number of hybrid ECM's serving as ceremonial guards for the Kadesh administration. Technically, all able-bodied citizens can be conscripted at any given moment, should Chancellor Kadesh, who is the nominal commander in chief of the ECM, order it to be reactivated.
Flame of Unity, The - The chief symbol and banner of Einheit City. Consists of a torch encircled by a wreath. Became Einheit City's symbol in the city's early years, due to it being a common element in designs found throughout the numerous Architect statues found throughout the city.
Neo-Sŏn'gun (also spelled as 'Neo-Songun') - A Ministry political philosophy which appeared during the first few years after Dr. Frey's assassination and Einheit City's entry into the Species Wars. Neo-Songun is an evolved form of traditional Songun ("military-first doctrine"), yet the core difference between Songun and the Einheit City form of Neo-Songun is the involvement of Unity politics. Neo-Songun asserts that an enlightened Unity society is only possible as long as the Ministry plays an active, leading role in society, and that society remains in a state of constant militancy, where the wishes of the individuals, capital, and commerce are given dramatically low importance. In more mundane application, Neo-Songun translates to the Ministry's influence in UniClass communities, industry, education, child rearing, media, and public thought in general. Neo-Songun should not be considered an alternative philosophy to Unity, but more as a secondary school of political theory.
Nightlands - The hellish, cold nightmare-wastelands outside Einheit City, and the rest of the planet's surface. Named for their permanent state of lightlessness. Very little life exists in the Nightlands, though there is a thin and chaotic ecosystem of non-sentient eyeless creatures, many of which are extremely dangerous predators and monstrous aberrations, such as snowrunners. The Ministry does not permit citizens to freely travel into the Nightlands without special papers, claiming that the ongoing Nightlander Siegehas forced the border closure. Presently, only Ministry personnel and UniClass hybrids with special permission are permitted to venture into the Nightlands, though such excursions are rare due to the Nightlander Siege.
Nightlander Siege, The - The common term for what the Ministry claims is the current conflict facing Einheit City. According to the Ministry, the Nightlander Siege began on February 6th, 31 ECE when a Vorhang gate was attacked by a purebred suicide bomber named Fitzgerald "Fitzi" Simmons, who was declared to have been involved with ex-Colonials she made contact with in the Nightlands. Anticipating further attacks, Einheit City immediately went under complete lockdown, with all incoming and outgoing traffic limited to the Ministry, and a small number of specially-selected UniClass civilians working for the Ministry. Soon after this, the city came under sporradic missile attacks from the Nightlands, and it was claimed that resource collectors outside the city were being attacked by purebred guerilla forces composed of survivors from Colonial armies. Presently, missile attacks from the alleged Nightlanders occur almost every week, causing scattered, though sustainable damage to the MidCity, and a few rare hits on the Toride.
The Ministry is reluctant to release any specifics on the Nightlander Siege, such as enemy troop strength, intelligence, or information on its progress in combatting the Siege. Due to the Ministry ordering a lockdown on Einheit City the economy has slowly grown unstable. The Ministry is able to fuel itself on its own reserves and resources. The UniClass, however, is experiencing new levels of economic hardship as the prices for commodities rise and private corporations come under increasing strain. Due to the Ministry seeming more focussed on combatting domestic threats and the vaguely-defined Nightlander Siege, hybrids are increasingly looking towards the UniClass corporations and the civilian government led by Chancellor Kadesh for a solution to their concerns.
Species Wars, the - A series of civil wars, inter-city wars, and genocides waged between the divided species groups of the Colonies. The exact date of the beginning of the Species Wars is unknown, but most figures suggest that the first conflicts began 2000 years ago, and gradually spread from that point, resulting in the Colonies rarely co-operating between one another, and science and resources being directed towards military purposes rather than rebuilding the world. While some Colonies enjoyed periods of relative calm due to temporary treaties or ceasefires, there were never any points where fighting or genocide stopped altogether, and there were always at least four or five major conflicts occurring at any given time. The intensity of the Species Wars increased horrifically in the final hundred years before Einheit City's discovery, leading to a few Colonies actually being destroyed wholesale. The entry of Einheit City into the Species Wars in 5 ECE further inflamed the situation, to where levels of massive-scale conflict previously thought impossible or ludicrous became standard order of battle, and the use of previously forbidden biological, chemical, nanotech and tactical-nuclear weapons became commonplace. Einheit City became the de-facto victor by annihilating the Colonies in a storm of global AbZero bombings, which ended most civilization outside Einheit City in 29 ECE. However, the Nightlander Siege still plagues Einheit City, and inter-species violence between outer classpurebred groups is extremely common in the Midcity and Undercity, hence there are some schools of thought that assert the Species Wars are not truly over.
Uni-Juche - A Ministry political philosophy which arose around the time that Unity became the city's guiding political science. Uni-Juche, in simple terms, is a policy of unified self-reliance for a given society, and isolation or uninvolvement with entities which do not hold Unity as a guiding social principle, coupled with select secular Socialist ideals. In the case of Einheit City, UniClass private industry being heavily regulated by the Ministry, private enterprise being held accountable by the Ministry, and a general sense of placing priority upon the hybrid social collective rather than the individual, the corporation, or commerce. Uni-Juche should not be considered an alternative philosophy to Unity, but more as a secondary school of political theory.
Unity - The Ministry-supported form of utopian science that claims that hybridization is the only realistic path to true peace and equality. The final goal of Unification is that all species interbreed over several generations until becoming one singular species, which would eliminate all racial division, and thus eliminate the very potential for racial discrimination. Unity asserts that the instinctual urge to breed within one's own species goes against positive evolution. Hybridization is championed as the next step to higher evolution, and that hybrids are not only genetically superior, but incapable of racial discrimination. By Unity theory, purebreds, on historical grounds (see: Species Wars) are considered evolutionarily obsolete and holding a genetic disposition towards violent and discrimatory behaviour, and must therefore be regarded as inferior until they submit to Unity.