Homesteads of Panhumanity

Habitats, homely houses of humanity, populate all of the system Sol. On every world they stand, vast cities in the dark and the skies above are filled with their constellations incandescent. Sparks without number rise and fall over horizons alight with skylines reaching for the stars.

They all are worlds of their own, harboring the lives of untold billions in arcologies and stations vast and magnificent. Each is the seven wonders of its world, each a nation and culture arising from the Cradle Earth.

Myriad Worlds
More Habitat worlds exist under then sun than anyone soul could visit over the span of centuries. And still, their number ever grows, claiming new niches for pan-human life on the shores of the cosmic ocean.

Wherever life has not arisen on its own or civilization took hold in millennia past, habitats have been erected by the Pan-Humankind to allow generations to blossom who call the new frontier their home.

Arcologies
From the temperate wildlands of Eurasia to dark craters on forgotten planetoids in the Kuiper belt, arcologies stand on all worlds under the sun. Those towering bulwarks of civilization loom over landscapes of fire and ice, in darkness and light harboring life in all its multitude on the planets and moons, asteroids and comet cores of the solar system.

Lone towers of Civilization
Pan-Humanity lives withdrawn from the wilderness of nature, ever since the centuries of respite and demise. Those ages past marked the end of city sprawls and humanity's stretching out over all the planet's continents and seas.

Arcologies marked the final stage of urbanization, humanity confined to high city walls, beyond which lies once more the untamed wilderness. Safe for the enclaves and villages of exiles, the majority of Pan-Humanity lives within the lone towers of civilization, separated by vast swaths of untamed land. Any travel beyond their walls has become a venture into a world of the past, where the ruins of forgotten cities, the forlorn lands of past catastrophe and the newly growing gardens of nature lie.

Civilization has retreated, no longer seeking reign over the world, but rather living apart, in realms of its own making.

Monuments of Multitude
Arcologies have been built in all manner of form and design the mind can imagine, conceived by nations and cultures of an unfathomable multitude. And yet, for all their variation, all adhere to the same dictate of necessity and philosophy of design. At the center, always a tower stands, a core encompassing all that which is required to sustain its population. Around it are arranged the luxuries of life and culture, gardens and relics saved from the old world or a past reimagined.

Conceived by many million architects, built from the materials of many hundred worlds, erected even centuries apart, the tower and core all arcologies share, and in them, the civilization of humanity is united.

Living Cities
Closed in itself, the Arcology is a superorganism, its life constituted by all souls within. Its inhabitant's upkeep the processes of their function and existence, and the systems of the tower itself keeping them alive. As one unit, one inseparable whole, they interact with the rest of all worlds.

On the grand scale of the Heliopolis, life is often measured in the terms of entire arcologies, each harboring many ten thousand souls, but acting like one for the purpose of interplanetary interests and entities. For those who deal in the matters of worlds, cannot bear to see each as so many thousand fates.

Megalopolises
The great cities of the Heliopolis stand, where arcologies are joined together. Where the towers are united and made into a greater whole, greater wonders arise than have ever been seen anywhere even on the Cradle Earth.

By the hundreds and thousands, arcologies are joined in an amalgamation of the new form civilization. Such megalopolis cities encompass multitudes of nations and form the core of all great powers residing on worlds. Connected by deep webs of layered infrastructure, they merge into one greater whole, a colony of organisms, thriving together.

Megalopolis cities span the coastlines of continents, the length of Earth's great rivers and the grand craters of the moon. They follow the canyons of Mars and cover entire Jovian moons, and in them are confined nations, entire peoples rising, living and falling over the course of their history.

Skyward
Where civilization retreated from the lands of the cradle, the skies were conquered on Earth and beyond.

Cities in the high blue skies became a common sight on the homeworld of humanity, growing ever larger and sophisticated as the centuries passed on. Some remained anchored to the ground, proper extensions of existing cities reaching for new heights as did once the first tower of babel. But far more were wandering, drifting through the air much akin to floating isles upon a planet-wide ocean, from city to city, continent to continent, never resting for long.

The first colonies in the skies of another world were the cloud-continents of revered venusia, where vast lands were suspended over the sulfurous hell. In the skies of all worlds, where the atmosphere permits, arcologies are suspended, forever skyward bound. These are realms of ambition, of commerce and trade, further removed from the nature of such worlds and artificially made. On some worlds they serve as outposts and havens, on others they are the sole centers of population.

Many ways to reach the sky
The skyward cities of humanity haven taken as many forms as they are lands for them to rise above. Many float free amid the air, kept aloft by vast machinery, and massive bodies of light gas. Others are suspended from tethers reaching into space, wandering along with the rings of the Cradle Earth. And yet some others walk on stilts as thin as hairs compared to the bulk of their form. In every shape and form, their purpose remains the same, to harbor humanity in the very skies it ever sought to conquer.

Archipelagos and Continents
Often such cities are isles in the sky, woven together in vast archipelagos, interconnected by trade. Half nomadic fleets, half cities wandering, those are often nations of traders or reclusive folk, seeking to stray from any neighbor before long.

The largest realms are suspended in bottomless skies, among the clouds of Saturn and Jupiter, in icy storms of Uranus and Neptune. But on worlds such as Venusia too, there are suspended structures as large as continents, vast isles set among the clouds in the sky. Such megastructures harbor as much wilderness as civilization and grow to sustain life in complex exospheres around their presence.

Most notably such worlds exist to gather valuable resources in gas from the clouds but retain the majority of their inhabited space in regions most favorable for human habitation. On many worlds of clouds and gas, layers exist of habitable temperature and pressure, allowing life aided by equipment and augmentation outside the wholly enclosed walls of the arcologies and stations.

Jovian Cities
In the skies of jovian giants lie the greatest skyward cities of pan-humanity. Siphoning what energy and matter they can garner from the unending torrent layers of the exotic atmosphere, they drift ever with the clouds and winds of Jupiter and his brethren.

Entire continents and island archipelagos are kept afloat by gargantuan bodies providing lift, and vast fleets of balloons, airships and planes commune in between them, those bulwarks of sky-borne civilizations. Only from afar, such cities could appear as fragile things. Their massive forms loom like bodies of the earth, endless monuments of glass and metal, and they hold within them entire worlds and realms. To some, the worlds they float upon are like bottomless, deep oceans, to others, they are endless skies of untold opportunity. All of them share the same dream of reaching ever further, high and low, to unlock ever more riches toward the core of the gas giants, and seek new opportunities for profit and trade with those above.

Oceanic and Subterranean
In the same way as the skies, Pan-Humanity has begun to colonize the oceans. No such ocean is more greatly revered than the seven seas of Panthalassa on the Cradle Earth. It is from here that most uplifted species stem, and with them the most unique non-humanoid civilizations. But oceans of further vastness exist in the solar system, such as the deep seas of Europa and Enceladus, and many further giant's moons kept alive and breathing by the forceful push and pull of gravity. On such worlds and others, where the crust is dead and thin, colonies are wrought from ice and stone, deep in the sea or in rock and sand, where they dig for resources and illuminate biospheres untouched by any complex life since the dawn of time.

Illuminated Oceans
All civilizations of the Heliopolis bring light into the dark. However small their flame, all need power for machinery and sustained life, and thus they shine a light too into the darkest places under the sun, below kilometers of ice and depths in eternal shadow. Where light falls, life will follow and so it does in the rare instances of extraterrestrials found in the solar system. The life forms of the deep seas of the gas giant's moons were brought together and pushed into complexity with purpose by the lights of underwater cities.

Those were built in the image of Earth's very own illuminated oceans, where the vast open seas were made into jungles of aquatic life by constructing vast structures filled with light under the waves. The largest habitats of earth, once all but devoid of complex life due to lack of light and nutrition, have grown to become the living, breathing heartlands of Panthalassa, the united ocean nations and home to the uplifted. Some such structures are suspended in the seas, floating and wandering with the currents of their ocean. Others are anchored forever in a lone place, linked to the coastlines or the topography below, their light reaching as far as the deep sea, where the elder species prospered which had awaited there the coming of a new era of life.

Deep-Sea Dwellings
Dwellings in the deep sea are younger than even the first colonies on distant worlds. So hostile and dangerous is the ocean itself, that it made habitation near impossible until only a few centuries ago when humanity had already all but conquered near earth-space and the moon. The ocean depths, where likely all life began, had been no-man's-land for most of human history and only through the rise of Panthallassa garnered enough interest and import to justify colonization.

Since then, Atlantean cities cover the ocean ground, new suns have been lit in the depths, illumination eldritch chams now overgrown with corals and reefs, and forests of kelp where once only the dead of high waters brought about any life.

Cthonic Colonies
Deeper than those of the oceanic chasms dwell only the Chthonic Colonies. Carved from the bedrock of terrestrial worlds, they reach for the crystalline caverns, the far fissures of planetary crust and those halls where no sun has ever shone. In such depths where even rock grows malleable through heat and pressure lie the deepest traces of civilization and life alike. Here they siphon the energy and riches of flames alight still from the early ages of the solar system when the sun was young and the planets still glowing with fires of their own. Of those days past dream the stones from which those settlements are hewn and despite their exotic nature, they attract many thousands into the cthonic metropolises, especially far out in the solar system, where no other fire is to be found.

Cthonic Colonies feast on seismic energies and feed off information to be gained deep within worlds. They reveal secrets of the early ages and preserve others brought into these catacombs.

Beneath the surface of Sol's terrestrial worlds lie myriad chthonic realms far from the light of the sun. In cosmic rock and the eternal ice, into the very fabric of their worlds were carved the colonies of old. Within deep caverns and volcanic catacombs thrive sprawling megalopolises and wild fungal meadows below crystalline firmaments. Far from the void and stars prosper the pioneering lineages of Panhumanity as dwellers within rock and stone.

On many worlds the depths were the first frontier to be conquered, the caverns sealed and pressurized, filled with light and formed in the image of the Cradle. Magnificent cities were built there by the settlers of the early age, from which the surface and the void, and all the worlds would be conquered.

Seeking riches in the veins of their world, the cthonic kin dug ever deeper shafts into the crust, until the burning heart sated their hunger for energy and the streams of magma itself brought ever new treasures to their shores. And to trade with those faring in the void, they erected high towers and rings and offered those lineages their hospitality.

To the days of the final century, many of these chthonic realms remain the most prosperous polities of their worlds, crucibles of culture and industry hidden in the deep.

Ice Cities
Carved from the ice of moons and bodies of the outer worlds are cities unlike any elsewhere in the solar system, reaching deep and into the icy crust and subterranean oceans, dwelling in the element which gave rise to all organic life known to the Panhumanity. Far from the sun, these icy metropolises persist in perpetual winter, kept alive and war by the burning furnaces of their fusion cores.

On the surface, these are little more than lost isles in the cold and lifeless wastes of snow, forlorn domes and circles of glass and steel, encrusted in the ice of eons past. But further down the crevices of ice, boring into geysers and shafts within the crust of these forsaken worlds, these cold cities unfold into glittering chandeliers filled with life and light, galleries and terraces descending through grottos and great halls in glacial layers. Some, in such rare cases as Ganymede and Europa, penetrate the sheets of pure frost whole, pushing down to the deep black seas and nether oceans kept fluid by the heat of mighty Jupiter's forces of gravitation. There, at the lowest point of the glacial cities, lies the utmost surface of those unseen seas, and there dwell creatures and entire ecosystems, some alien, some sown by Panhumanity, each a cosmos of its own.

Many cities built into the ice of these far worlds are crucibles of the extravagant sciences and peculiar cultures, nurtured by the dark oceans from below and shielded heavily against the radiation storms above. These are seldom visited by travelers from other realms and show their rare hospitality only on extraordinary occasions.

Realms of the Void
For five hundred years the humankind has reached for the void and built itself homes closer to the stars. Wanderers by nature, the lineages rising from the Cradle Earth have ventured out into the depths of space and on their skyward diaspora left behind colonies all along their way.

Close to the homeworld and far-flung in deep space, siphoning the life-giving light of the sun or digging for fuel in comet ice, habitat stations dot the Solar System. In their ever-growing number, they form glowing streams along interplanetary trajectories, crown larger worlds with glittering swarms and lie alone as sole inhabited isles.

Cylinder and Torus Realms
Most common among the homely houses set in the void are rotating cylinders, toroids, and spheres. Ranging from small cities to entire spaceborne nations, these produce light and perceived gravity to emulate home. Inside their hard shells reside self-sufficient cultures and biospheres, industry and commerce to accommodate all souls within. They are autonomous by design, trading in luxuries, information, populace, and power.

Existing in as many variations of structure and design as there are different ideas under the sun, these spaceborne realms are all in essence superorganisms not so different from planet-bound arcologies. Each exists by maintaining its flux of material and energy in perfect balance.

Despite their appearance as minuscule isles in the vastness of the void, such habitat stations are by no means fragile things. Built to withstand the harshness of space and maintain their inhabitants against all incursion, these are true bulwarks of civilization, each a fortress of magnificent scale clad in nigh impenetrable hides and heavily armed, shielded against onslaughts from the Otherworld and harboring reserves to outlast sieges over centuries.

Swarms
First lone outposts of civilization, Habitat stations have quickly grown to harbor nigh half of all souls in the Heliopolis. As their numbers grew by orders of magnitude, patterns emerged in their chaotic masses. In strategic positions and along favorable trajectories, hundreds and thousands of stations were banded together, their orbits intertwined and their population embedded in one singular web of commerce and transportation. Without physical contact, they shared spheres of the Otherworld and Astrography and soon, grew into inseparable swarms.

The oldest of these are planetary swarms, arranged in near space around Venus, Earth, and Mars. Similar swarms have grown in the outer Solar System, around the jovian giants, their moons and common paths in between. Further farms lie at the Lagrange points of planetary systems, where centaur and trojan asteroids dwell. The same is true for the dense regions of the Asteroid belt, where rock and stone are artificially brought together and allow for communities on a nigh-planetary scale.

Sometimes such swarms are formed by spaceborne realms of all the same nation, but more often than not they share their space with rivals and foes. In such densely settled space, specific laws of conflict apply and the dynamics of such swarms may be read by stargazers, those who judge the tides of commerce and politics by the maneuvering and position of distant habitat stations.

Constellations
Where the void is most densely populated and the habitats most closely aligned, swarms may be joined through physical bonds and become one, alike to the megalopolises, in habitat constellations. These can take on many forms, from beaded chains of tori to lose webs held by ever-changing bridges. Some become hardened like solid coral growths, others remain loosely bound and fickle. In all cases their connections grant safe passage to goods and inhabitants, allowing wealth and trade to grow, forming stronger centers of population. Cultivating such growth is the goal of all major powers and inducing it a challenge for their wise. In the end, constellations rely on the interaction and unpredictable relationships of living souls, and as such, they are subject to perpetual change, much like the living souls within.

Wanderers of the Heliopolis
Humans always were wanderers under the sun, their lives dictated by the paces of an everlasting journey. This journey did not come to an end even when the nomadic lives of early pan-humanity gave way to sedentary civilization and gave rise to eras of exploration and trade, and an unending curiosity to see what lies beyond the next horizon.

From the cities where civilization had settled, pan-humanity ascended to the stars, now aware of its place upon the wanderers around the sun and set to add countless newly conceived worlds to the ever-changing tapestry of the solar system. In the advent of this new age, where life was seeded on all worlds, countless souls returned to their calling as nomads. The wandering peoples of the Heliopolis were born.

In vast fleets the nomads wander between the natural and artificial worlds of the Solar System, seeking out all nations and constellations of the Heliopolis. In patterns only they and the stargazers truly understand, their coming and going is an everlasting procession, following the invisible lines of favorable trajectories. They are often the sole point of contact between lineages and cultures far removed from one another and act as middlemen, merchants, diplomats, and warriors, sometimes even preachers and rescuers in times of need.

Nomad Lineages
The wanderers of the Heliopolis stem from all lineages of Pan-Humanity and share besides their nomadic life no single culture, faith or destiny.

Ancient Nomads
Among the wanderers of the Heliopolis are descendant nations of the last old nomad cultures to persist upon the Cradle Earth. Some lineages which never settled, from the great steppes of Asia and the wild deserts, were uplifted and transformed, prospering now anew after long centuries of faltering.

Exiles
Wandering the void are exiled peoples, from homelands lost or overtaken. Some were sent away, some fled, and they all band together closely as to not fall into a diaspora. Shaped by an endless journey with no true destination, many such peoples grow to embrace nomadic life, their new lands drifting far from their origin. Some remain set to one day return to their true lands, whilst others go even further, seeking new worlds in the void.

Seekers
Some lineages of nomads are founded by like-minded souls if enough consensus persists for a large following to begin the journey. Once a habitat decouples to begin its journey, a new nation is born and an old one fractured. More often than not, such seekers become exiles as well, no longer welcome by those nations from the midst of which they fled.

Their journeys, though, were begun with purpose, to seek knowledge or fortune, even enlightenment in some cases. In a search for this ideal, they wander the heliosphere and in rare cases persist, growing an ever-larger following until true swarms and nomadic civilizations are born.

Freelancers
Much smaller and more numerous than the true nomadic peoples are the fleets of freelancers, lending their expertise to the realms they visit. These range from vast military fleets in the employ of many nations, to scientific expeditions, missionaries and artist enclaves. Whatever their specialization, they advertise their knowledge far and wide through the Otherworld and follow the calling of the most promising bidders.

Nomad Realms
The spatial realms adopted and build by the wanderers are among the strangest and most unique among all of the Heliopolis, crucibles of a collective culture influenced by all places they visit. Rich in resources and information collected from all over the system, they produce some singular wonders and technologies only possible through the combination of components and knowledge spread too far for anyone sedentary nation. To visit such wondrous realms is a rare and celebrated opportunity.

Such an opportunity arises when the nomads have reached favorable regions, where they may stay for months, even years at a time. Then, their vast fleets are arranged in the most complex patterns, bound by bridges and strands to form spatial megalopolises. Such temporal constellations can elevate any region of space to a hub of activity, trade, and culture until the nomads call for a continuation of their journey and the world wonder breaks apart ones more to seek greener lands elsewhere.