Editing DiasporaAdaptations:Cowboy Bebop Cluster

=The ''Cowboy Bebop'' Cluster=

(Warning: May contain spoilers for the show!)

Normally, the Cluster Generation systems in ''Diaspora'' are used to randomly build an interconnected series of star-systems, and how they interlink through what are called Slipknot points.

In the case of ''Cowboy Bebop'', I'm recontextualising the system so that it refers to planets rather than star-systems, and the jumpgate network from the series.

Planets and inhabited moons, from the inner-system to the outer solar system:

'''Venus:''' T0, E-1, R0. (Links to Earth)

The process of terraforming Venus has begun, but not comfortably. There are floating islands of vegetation on which people live, which convert the native carbon-dioxide to air. However, the plants themselves give many people a sickness which blinds them.

T0 is "Exploring the system," which seems to fit. It's not that they have less technology than Mars, it's that they have so much less space for industry, what with living on floating sky-islands and all. E-1 is "Survivable world," which is what Venus has been made into - but it aint fun. R0 is "Sustainable," which works for me. We don't see much industry or export in the show - the main point of Venus seems to be more room for people to live. Therefore I fudge wildly that the resources of Venus go to support Venus - it needs imports less than Mars, but it's not got a surplus, either.

1) Flying islands of terraforming plants
2) What keeps the planet habitable might blind you.
3) A self-sufficient island that doesn't see much traffic

'''Earth:''' T-3, E-1, R1. (Links to Venus, Mars and the Asteroid Belt)

An accident with one of the early experimental jumpgates nearly a century ago shattered the moon, and ruined the Earth. Regular showers of moon debris scour the surface, and the only people who still live on the surface are those who can't afford to emigrate out into the solar system - or those who are at best considered wildly eccentric.

Because of the regular meteor showers, there isn't much left in the way of core infrastructure, and the environment has still not recovered. With that said, Earth still has the resources from before The Accident... if anyone is willing to go down and work to mine them out between the storms.

1) Ruined By The Accident.
2) Leave If You Can.
3) Just Passing Through.

'''Mars:''' T1, E0, R-2. (Links to Earth, Asteroid Belt, and Unnamed Trucking Facility of Torment)

Mars is where most of the human population lives, by weight of numbers. They dwell either in terraformed craters on the surface, or in stations orbiting Mars.

T1 qualifies as "Exploiting the System," which I figure fits. Humanity has Mars as its center, and is gaining resources from the rest of the system. T2 would involve more capacity for interstellar travel than we ever see in Cowboy Bebop. E0 is "One garden world, and perhaps additional barren worlds" if we were dealing with a star system. I think this fits the equivalent case here, because most of Mars is unterraformed, so humanity lives in the craters where an atmosphere is maintained, and on the space stations. It is comfortable, compared to the rest of the solar system, and explains why so many people live there, but is not in itself awesome. R0 is "Sustainable," and for a place which is self-sufficient for the most part.

Hmm. We don't see any particular industry on Mars, it seems to be where people live. And yet there's a lot of industry elsewhere in the system. Let's knock it down some... Let's bring it down to R-2: "Needs imports." That makes sense, and makes Mars a center for civilisation that requires the rest of the solar system to maintain it.

1) Urban center
2) Resource hungry
3) All roads lead to Mars.  (An alternative, since it possibly overlaps with "Urban Center," would be: "There's corruption beneath the surface.")

'''Asteroid Belt:''' T0, E-1, R1. (Links to Earth, Mars, Trucking Facility, and Ganymede)

(Exemplified by Tijuana Station)

Feel free to correct me on my memories of this one, but my impression was that Tijuana Station was not overburdened by human population. As such, I figure it's survivable, but not an improvement over most other places in the solar system. As such, why are people there? It's an asteroid, so I figure some mining is involved.

T0 is about par with Venus, in that they don't seem to be lacking tech, but lacking industry to make new tech. E-1 is "Survivable," since I can't see many people emigrating to the asteroid belt for lifestyle reasons. R1 is "Rich," since I can imagine people emigrating out there for work.

The loose collection of colonies in the asteroid belt also seems like an environment in which the criminal cartels ''Cowboy Bebop'' loves so much can thrive.

1) There's work if you want it.
2) And a bunch of shady people to go with it.
3) High-traffic makes it easy to hide.

'''Interplanetary Trucking Facility (or ITF):''' T2, E-1, R1.  (Links to Ganymede, Mars and the Asteroid Belt)

My logic is that the ITF is where the missing industrial base for what is left of humanity is hiding. It's connected to Mars, for the population-base, and to the Asteroid Belt and Ganymede for the resources. And it has the interplanetary trucks, both delivering raw materials, and then refined materials into the inner system.

The episode demonstrates that the ITF isn't comfortable, and has its safety issues as a job, and the resources reflect that there's a lot of goods passing through.

Plus it presents the chance that someone might try and hijack an interplanetary convoy, which reads to me as Potential Story Seed.

1) Truckers go everywhere.
2) Nicknames, lingo and the Kings of the Starlanes.
3) Plenty of places to hide, plenty of places worth robbing, and plenty of people who'll take your face off if you try.

'''Ganymede:''' T-1, E0, R2. (Links to Asteroid Belt, Callisto, Titan and Pluto)

A semi-terraformed ocean moon, Ganymede is noted as being on the outskirts of civilisation, and thus lacks access to 'modern technology.' On the other hand, it also has one of the more notable export-industries within Cowboy Bebop in terms of fishing its vast oceans.

Ganymede seems to have a similar problem to Venus, population-wise: There's not that much room, although the environment isn't - you know - blinding people.

T-1 puts Ganymede at "Atomic power," just above Earth. I figure this works, since Ganymede isn't disaster-struck, it's just far from civilisation. Plus I figure not having much room for industry can't help, either. E0 makes it "One garden world," which would be an equivalent for one planet where humans can "live comfortably without special tools." R1 is "Rich," which fits it having something actually worth exporting to the other planets.

Oooh, maybe I should bump it higher and give Ganymede R2 for "One significant export." Yeah, that fits.

1) Outskirts of inhabited space
2) Feeds the solar system.
3) The hub for places nobody wants to be.

'''Callisto:''' T-1, E-1, R0. (Links to Titan and Ganymede)

Much less of a nice place to be than Ganymede, but then this explains why so many more people live on Ganymede... I figure it's equally out at the edges, and thus on the fringe for getting new tech, so gave it the same level as Ganymede. It's noted as being cold and inhospitable, and nobody is making a real effort to change that... which suggests there isn't a great reason to bother resource-wise.

1) Hive of scum and villainy.
2) The all-male city of Blue Crow.
3) A good place to be left alone.

'''Titan:''' T0, E-1, R0. (Links to Callisto and Ganymede)

According to this source[http://www.animetv.ws/cowboy-bebop/], Titan is "is a barren desert world whose population has been at war since the 2060s." That's what I'm going with. I remember that characters had been involved in an ongoing war there, and I remember the visuals from the Cowboy Bebop Movie in which characters roamed around without vacuum suits or anything.

Therefore it's tech neutral, it's "survivable," and it's sustainable in terms of resources. My guess that the war is about the scarce resources there are, and that the only reason to settle Titan in the first place was due to physically finding places to park people after The Gate Incident.

1) Unending war.
2) Barren, cold desert.
3) No one sensible wants to go to Titan.

(Another option would be to include something for Callisto and Titan about them being dead-ends off by themselves, but I couldn't think of anything interesting)

'''Pluto:''' T-2, E-2, R-2. (Links to Ganymede)

Look at those stats! What a peach! Of course, Pluto is just listed as a penal colony, so it's not going to be roses. And I figure that a prison's ability to build its own stuff is going to be limited, and it's going to require support from elsewhere in the system.

1) Worst of the worst
2) A frozen hell.
3) A long way from nowhere.

==The ''Cowboy Bebop'' Cluster Map==

[[Image:Cowboy_Bebop_Cluster_Map.jpg]]