Editing Beyond the Zone (section)

='''Setting'''=
This setting deviates from the standard 3I setting details in one major way - the Solomani are not Space Nazis.

While their overall description remains the same, excise any racist cultural doctrine, assuming a stronger attachment to Solomani distrust of the Imperial system. Their major conflicts remain the same, but centred around political and cultural differences rather than Solomani purity. The single party system is still in place but far more factional.
The overall construction of the Confederation is alliances of Federations working together. Solomani embrace other sentients wishing to live under the Solomani System, so planets filled with aliens, uplifted sentients or other branches of Humaniti are far more common and equal partners.

This is not to say that the Confederation was all peace and puppies...just that a racial motivation did not exist, a cultural one did. They were still humans, after all.


'''Tone'''
The overall tone is Frontier adventure - think anywhere from Bab 5 to Firefly to BSG to Stargate, but from the setting and tech of Traveller.
Characters are cast in the competent mold - The solid block of lvl-1 Service Skills gained in the 1st term of training sets them up straight away.



==Virus==
'''The Virus'''
If anyone knows where Virus came from, they're not telling. Analysis of captured Virus reveals nothing of its originally composition, except that there are incredibly complex organic components to the coding, suggesting a mix of organic and artificial software in Virus' creation.

It swept in from the Rim, appearing as fast as the courier ships that carried the news, infesting systems from the very broadcasts that carried the news of its existence. There it nested, grew and infiltrated every electronic system it could, either self destructing or becoming destructive toward all around it. From starships down to kitchen appliances, Virus was everywhere.

Virus is a cybernetic life form, as far as anyone can tell. It 'breeds' through adapting coding in an empty electronic vessel and creating it's own version of DNA until the new virus controls it's new vessel. When it does, it will follow it's primary directive.

'''Virus strains'''
Virus has changed over the years. The initial collapse was caused by Viruses that either self destructed upon gaining control (destroying the occupyied vessel if possible) or actively sought to harm anything around them.

This initial self destructive purge killed of the most suicidal strains of virus, allowing those more adapted to self-preservation to flourish. The initial primary directive of virus seems to have been to destroy itself and anything it occupied. It is also a lifeform, with an instinct to survive and spread. This inherent contradiction has spawned the current, more mature virus strains, who have solved this contradiction in various ways. 

==The Fenris Debacle==

The story on Fenris.

In the third year of the Virus Wars in and above Fenris, the Federation troops based there pulled out, as part of the finalizing of the Zone. Most obvious virus had been removed from the system after a three year war with two infected industrial megacities, who churned out hunter killer bots and drones in the millions. Mopping up was to be left to the Technarchs Council, an interim government, a collection of the owners of the largest intact production facilities on planet. The citizens of the Free City Zone were those who lived in virus-cleared areas, a result of the last three years of fighting. They worked for the Technarchs, but there had been increasing calls for a new Solomani-style assembly to be formed. Those calls went unanswered as the Federation forces prepared to leave.

In amongst the logistical nightmare of extracting One Marine and three Army Divisions from a planet that had suffered a 90% population decline, supplying the local colonial troops with standardised weaponry, leaving antiviral equipment behind and building up an off world diplomatic base, the Federation ignored the increasing hostile protests erupting on the free cities at the Technarchy's unwillingness to move to a more representative form of government. This added to the tension of an already unsettled situation.

A brutal revolution broke out in the final weeks of Federation withdrawal. The Citizens militia bombed Technarch military bases, setting off violent reprisals on the free cities.

The 42nd Marines Battalion of the Terran 3rd division was made up largely of Recruits from Fenris, Hephastios and Terra. They saw the brutality of the technarchs forces (largely corporate or private army) in person during their final -peacekeeping role.

When the time came, they deliberately missed their bug out, and joined the Citizens Militia. They became the backbone of the organised resistance to Technarch rule.

The Federation maintained a discreet base in the system, accessible to Federation Military intelligence ships only. The Federation Major left to command the outpost and maintain contact with the Technarchs was a complex character, but personal prejudices against some of the officers of the 42nd may have led to him biasing reports to the Federation.

The situation remained this way for the next 8 years - after another virus outbreak from deep within the planets crust, a three way war developed that became increasingly brutal as time went by.

The situation changed in 1118, when Citizens Militia finally made off-world contact with the Federation independently of the line of command. A downed scout crew ejected into Militia ground space, and gained a new perspective on the Technarch government. The rescue mission to take them off was sabotaged, but three made it home to tell the other story of Fenris.

By 1120, The citizens militia had opened talks with covert Federation operatives. They also managed to contract several battalions of the Free Foreign Legion in response to the Technarchs bringing in off world troops. By 1123, the Free Cities were on the offensive.

In 1125, the final war broke out. By 1127, the first Free citizens assembly was formed. In those two years a major war was fought and the Technarchs thrown out, destroyed or tried as war criminals.
By 1128, the politics and criminal courts took over the revolution. The Federation had a permanent base on Fenris' moon, the colonial navy added it to its regular roster of starports.
The place became a de facto member of the Federation, a base for all Zone activities.

The surviving members of the 42nd were restored to their former status in the marines, given rank according to their ranks in the citizens army, and cashiered. Their story has been told in three full length holo features and seventeen different tri-vid series.