Heliopolis

It is the Julian Day 2 642 566 as calculated by the Symposium Solar, the year 2523 of the final century according to the ancient calendar.

''Around sol revolve a myriad worlds, home to the many lineages of humanity and some, rarely, to its client species. These many worlds glow like stars of the suns very own firmament, each spot of light a wondrous realm of its own. Life has touched all moons and planets of the solar system. Further still have reached machine creations, populating countless bodies from the sun to the outermost reaches of the Kuiper Belt.''

''Looking onto this system from afar, one might see the entirety of it, a system-wide clockwork of civilization. This is the system of the toolmaker – the Heliopolis.''

Heliopolis, the solar expanse of Panhumanity, encompasses the vast majority of civilizations. More than two hundred billion souls inhabit its countless planetary settlements and enclaves, void-borne islands and entirely different niches in the realms of the virtual Otherworld.

Associated pages
 * Solar System Overview

The Solar System
As of 2523, there are 200 000 000 000 souls in existence throughout the Solar System. Its realms inhabited by cultures and civilizations are known as the Heliopolis and stretch from the very heart of soul outward to the fringes of interstellar space. Vast centers of population are centered around the celestial bodies of the system, while isolated enclaves exist throughout interplanetary space. Earth, cradle to humanity, and its terrestrial swarm remain the most populous center of civilization. One-fourth of all souls are located in its vicinity. It is also home to the Symposium, the highest mundane authority of the solar system.

46.5% of the entire population still resides in the well of the inner solar system. Harbored in the light of sol, the planets of Venus and Mars maintain strong holdings of civilizations alongside the cradle Earth. The edge of the inner Solar System is marked by the old frontier, the Asteroid Belt. Therein reside countless civilizations that escaped the ties of earth and no longer seek the warmth of the sun. The remaining 53.5% of humanity have largely made their home around the planetary systems of Saturn and Jupiter. Both ancient giants at the edge of cold space are home to sprawling empires on their many moons, systems of their own right and smaller twins to the inner well of sol.

The ice giants Uranus and Neptune are home to smaller branches of humanity, yet still foster even further colonies at the fringes of the Heliosphere, where sunlight fades, the Kuiper Belt.

New Worlds and Artificial Isles
The majority of humans in the Heliopolis lives on artificial isles in the void, rotating habitats around the eight planets. Only about one-third lives on the surface of a celestial body and only Earth allows for life on open landscapes.

Parts of other worlds have been altered, as well as humanity has adapted to new niches. Martian craters and seabeds, the high atmosphere of Venus and the Gas Giants and the eldritch oceans of Jovian moons were pursued by branches of humanity, but none yielded, as a result, a planetary civilization.

The pinnacle of biotechnical advances is the Jovian Genesis pursued by the Symposium. Alongside the Grand Illumination of Europa, it is the largest precedent for artificial alien life in the Solar System. Both projects are reminiscent of humanities efforts to seed life in a lifeless universe.

Edges of the World
The branches of humanity are evermore growing in all directions. Not only do they expand through space and time of the known universe, but their roots reach into realms created solely by human design: The Otherworld.

While the first souls set foot on rogue planets sleeping in interstellar space, other pioneers still explore the deepest oceans of earth and dive into the fires of Sol. Noone has yet seen the core of Jupiter or documented Auroras on Saturnian poles.

The edges of the world are furthered by humanity every day. And yet, the vastness of the Universe will continue to remain unknown for centuries, millennia to come. All the while, scientists and intelligence further human knowledge on the outmost branches of scientific advancement and technology - the branches of the Technolodendron.

Structure of the Heliopolis
Humanity is unraveled into myriad civilizations, cultures, factions, and organizations. Akin to a tree growing from the cradle Earth, its branches stretch throughout the Heliopolis and bloom in a vast diversity of spaces.

Since the dawn of a new era among celestial worlds, human societies have grown and splintered, estranged themselves and reunited countless times. Arcologies, colonies and spaceborne habitats were transformed into inhabited islands of the void, each harboring unique cultures, and civilizations. A plethora of revived old cultures, diverging civilizations, and new pantheons emerged over past centuries.

Each light of the Heliopolis is a world of its own, some welcoming to guests, some committed to absolute isolation. Travelling between the worlds is a daring, yet attracting venture to many. Where the branches of humanity intertwine, trade and culture may prosper, but conflict sparks just as often.

The erstwhile globalized world has ceased to exist half a millennium ago. In the 26th century, it is not only space, that divides the myriad humanities, but their spheres of influence and cultures themselves. Those who wish to overcome the distance, are assembled in the Symposium. The largest mundane authority in the Solar System vouched to provide a forum to de-escalate conflict and prevent the dangerous technologies. As all authorities of humanity, it does not go unquestioned.

A City in the Image of the Universe
From every world under the sun, one can see the golden glow of the Heliopolis, the cradle of an ever growing and expanding civilization, reaching out forever new frontiers beyond Sol. A city glowing in the cosmic night, the Heliopolis reaches out from bustling centers of population out into the vast reaches. Complex habitation follows the natural distribution of light and matter, flocking densely around stars and reaching out as far as the faintest pull of their gravity. In ever more intricate structures of nested spheres, the civilization of the humankind is arranged, much of it keeping to the ecliptic at its core, mirroring even further the natural order of the firmament.

Civilization in the image of the universe at large, gleaming brightly gold and white, populates the system of Sol and expands, ever driven by ambition and curiosity, into the interstellar medium. Even the far reaches of the void are not truly empty, but alive with galactic winds and rogue travelers, entire worlds flung from their stars and particles yet to come together to form clouds and nebulae, to one day birth stars of their own who will shine and send light into the cosmos filled with uncounted stars. Around cores of ice and rarest metal, rocky formations and debris and the occasional dwarven world, centers of population coalesce and draw them together, gathering more and more material to form the great light bridges between stars.

Millions upon millions of worlds lie in the dark, some cold computing realms, other small islands of heat huddled around a fusion flame. Whilst most of the Pan-Humanity resides deep in the wells filled with light and matter, the most exotic lineages and oldest of the humankind venture into these dark places to bring light and wander them, as far as to even stand one day on the precipice of a new system and one day fall back into the light, like bodies captured from interstellar space. These too are the realms of Benthic Entities and Exodus People's, who for one reason or another made for a life in isolation. Some settle, some are wandering nomads leaving abandoned worlds in their wake. But if one law holds true for all of human civilization, then it must be its persistence and defiance. No region nor world where once lived human souls ever dies out completely. Some always remain, growing lineages, cultures, even nations of their own in time, and so humanity spreads even to the most unlikely of places, the night between stars.