Earth, also known as Terra or Sol Ⅲ, is the third planet of the Sol system, and one of its four terrestrial worlds. Homeworld of humanity, Earth is the greatest hub of human politics and, technically, still the capital planet and the dominant superpower, with its governing body the United Nations. It has always been at the forefront of human history.

History

By the mid and late 21st century, humanity's national governments, under the auspices of the United Nations, then simply a supranational organization, but with considerably more power than at its inception, had begun to establish colonies on the other planets in the Sol system, the most notable of these being Luna and Mars. However, after continuous success and because of the precarious state of Earth's ecosystem due to extensive pollution, the nations decided to relinquish their national governing rights and make the UN into a global, unified government.

Eventually, in the 23nd century, the colonial government that administered humanity's first colony demanded that they be independent. The United Nations, reticent to cede their control over Mars, refused. It was only thanks to Solomon Epstein and his groundbreaking invention, the Epstein drive, that war was avoided. The colonial government offered the UN access to the revolutionary drive in exchange for independence. To avoid Mars having a tactical advantage, the UN agreed.

For the next century and a third, the United Nations and its newly proclaimed rival, the Martian Congressional Republic (MCR), often competed over living standards, technology, and military strength. However, no true conflict erupted between the two superpowers, and relations kept a decent level of cordiality. After both nations had access to the drive and were able to mass-produce it, humanity expanded beyond the confines of the inner Sol system and began establishing outposts on asteroids of the Asteroid Belt, such as Eros and Ceres, eventually reaching the moons of the gas giants, such as Io, Ganymede, Europa, and more distant ones, such as Titan and Titania.

UN-MCR Cold War

Until the discovery of the Protomolecule roughly eight years prior to the Eros incident, the UN and the MCR remained neutral one towards the other, but continuously oppressed their colonies' inhabitants in the Belt and outer planets. Small insurrections started taking place but were quickly stifled. This authoritarian process continued, which led to the formation of the Outer Planets Alliance, a multi-movement organization that sought the independence of the Belt and outer planets from Earth. Called 'terrorist' by both Mars and Earth, the organization saw itself as opposed by the two superpowers. Eventually, through Tycho Station, Fred Johnson, a former United Nations Marine Corps (UNMC) marine, became the OPA's de facto leader and spokesperson.

Around the mid-24th century, the Mars issued a project regarding the exploration and eventual exploitation of Phoebe for raw materials, mostly water. Their finding there prompted Mars to prolong research regarding the Saturn moon, establishing a decently large laboratory. They sought partnership with Protogen, a megacorporation owned by Jules-Pierre Mao. Ultimately, they concluded that the pathogen found there-in the meantime dubbed the Protomolecule, or the 'Phoebe bug'-was extra-solar in origin and must have been implanted there by an alien civilization. The Martian government saw this as an opportunity to finally gain the upper hand over the UN.

After a series of events involving Julie Mao, the eldest daughter of Jules-Pierre, the Protomolecule was let loose on Eros station, killing 100,000 people. The biomass of the victims was absorbed by the alien pathogen, which then began manipulating gravity at the quantum level and launched Eros towards Earth. Fear and hysteria quickly spread through the planet's population, while governmental officials were already evacuating to Luna. Eventually, thanks to former detective Josephus Miller, human extinction on the planet was avoided, with Eros ultimately impacting Venus instead of humanity's homeworld.

Government & Society

The government is the United Nations (UN). The UN is the centralized political body of Earth, having been founded from the merger of Earth's sovereign nations. Instead of having separate governments for each country, the UN wields federal power over Earth, however it is still heavily devolved and is comprised of numerous autonomously-acting states.

As a democratic presidential republic, the UN's government is divided into three branches. The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the principal executive leader, serving as head of state, head of government and de jure commander-in-chief of the United Nations Navy. The office heads the cabinet government and United Nations Security Council, is directly elected and comprises the executive branch. The United Nations General Assembly serves as the country's legislature, and the Court of Justice as its independent judiciary. The Secretariat, the executive government, and the General Assembly are seated in New York City, while the Court of Justice is located in New Hague on Luna.

Society

In the 24th century, the planet faced extreme scarcity and relied heavily on resources provided from the Belt to run its global economy. The combined population of Earth and its colonies stood at 31 billion citizens, and there were far more people than available jobs. Anyone who could not apply for a job had the option of either enrolling in a governmental educational institution, or living off of the UN welfare system known as Basic Assistance. Over half of Earth's population lived on Basic.

When an individual applied to a government educational institution, that individual was required to have a minimum of one year's worth of work credits in order to apply. This was mandatory to ensure that classroom space is not wasted on individuals without work discipline and lack of ambition. Melting of the polar ice caps from prior Global warming, had led to a significant rise in sea level by more than 20 metres.

Earth's society is highly stratified. With more than 30 billion inhabitants, resources are scarce and there are simply not enough jobs for everyone on the planet. Although many Earth corporations and the United Nations itself are extremely wealthy, much of the planet’s population lives in severe poverty. Broadly, Earth’s citizens can be divided into two groups: those with jobs and those on Basic Assistance. The employed drive the economy, both with their purchasing power and their surplus production, which supports the rest of the planet’s population. The simple fact that they have currency is a mark of both status and social class.

Nevertheless, there are still sharp divisions among the employed based on just how much money they have. The extremely wealthy live and shop in their own enclaves, and private security ensures they never have to mingle with low or middle-income earners, much less anyone else. Those with jobs have access to high-quality food and medical care, the ability to purchase land and property, and the right to have children, provided they can afford the license and taxes to do so. Instituted by the United Nations in an attempt to curb Earth’s overpopulation, the so-called “baby tax” is prohibitively expensive, so it is not unheard of for groups of people to form civil unions or family co-ops where multiple parents share the tax burden (and even DNA) for one child. It is, of course, possible to have children without paying the baby tax, though only if one relies on the black market and unlicensed doctors, or wins one of the few opportunities for exemption each year.

With such a high population, most of Earth’s citizens congregate in its teeming cities, which sprawl across the planet’s surface. At one time, the Urban Arcology movement attempted to address Earth’s overpopulation problem by building vast structures to house dense concentrations of people with minimal impact on their surrounding environment. Today, most cities have a central commercial district, filled with skyscrapers housing corporate offices and luxury residential apartments for the wealthy. Basic and minimal-income housing neighborhoods ring the commercial districts and stretch for miles, making up the largest proportion of real estate in most cities. Even with this much area, space is at a premium. Basic housing is crowded, and government apartment blocks are often old, underfunded, and derelict.

Shared accommodations are usually mandated, and extended families inhabit squalid living spaces designed for half as many people. Low-income homes are an improvement over Basic housing, consisting of either simple apartments or small, mass-produced, single-story houses on tiny plots of land. Their key distinction is that their residents pay rent or mortgages for them, and thus get some say over their condition and location. Finally, on the outskirts of the cities sit the orderly grids of middle-income suburbs and strip malls. The roads linking the various city districts together incorporate an electric network that powers and directs vehicles, from private cars to public transit such as the free automated bus service provided by Basic in most urban centers. Streets are invariably crowded with an automated traffic and the packed throngs of people, either those with jobs traveling to and from work at shift change, or the aimless masses of those on Basic, wandering the streets and searching for some meaning in their small, dismal lives.

What open land remains outside Earth’s cities is dedicated mostly to automated industrial farming, where machines labor to produce the food and other organics to sustain not only Earth’s population but much of the Sol System as well. Private land ownership is rare outside the ranks of the ultra-wealthy, though small family farms do persist in some areas.