NOVA
NOVA: Naval Office for Void Administration
NOVA is a disciplined, law-driven space navy that claims to protect humanity while also quietly advancing its own strategic and financial interests.
The great orbital ring of hab cylinders that encircles the Earth is home to billions of people living safe, happy, comfortable and ultimately boring lives. Many people seek adventure in the void and join a shipyard to do so. The largest of these is the NOVA navy.
NOVA accepts people from anywhere and considers itself the natural heir to the Solar Supremacy. It believes in protocol, stellar law and disciplined hierarchy, and acts like the old militaries of pre-space Earth. Its ships are the winged Raptor class, renowned for lock-and-fire missile targeting and interceptor escorts. NOVA believes in superior firepower, but holds that every action should be justified, and loss of life on both sides weighed and restrained.
NOVA often comes into conflict with other nations over an injustice or a breach of stellar law, only for it to be revealed years later that NOVA benefited financially in some way. It is renowned for its peacekeeping missions when it involves itself in other factions' disputes, and it is always willing to protect vulnerable alien species and their natural resources.
Early years
NOVA — Naval Office for Void Administration — began as a United Nations bureaucratic office. When the Solar government rose, it lost relevance and drifted into mercenary work, protecting and policing the Ring. It had ships and was prominent there before the Solar War, sometimes used by the Solar government for police actions. Through most of the war it stayed on the Ring; only at the end did it choose a side, and that turn solidified it as a new solar power.
NOVA, the Ring and the Solar War
Ring citizens do see NOVA as the natural heir of the old Solar Supremacy. For them the Solar War barely changed daily life: the Ring was effectively self-sufficient, and the worst they faced was a slower trickle of minerals from the belt. NOVA itself only entered the war in its final phase. Before that it was a much smaller outfit, closer to a mercenary force than a proper navy, and it took no side. When it did join, it tipped the balance toward the rebels, though whether the Supremacy would have fallen anyway is an open question: NOVA may simply have chosen the winning side. After the war it grew to fill the vacuum but for Ring civilians, little changed to their day to day lives.
What NOVA is
NOVA is a career navy with its own stated objectives. It very much considers itself the military of the Ring and of all Earth, though other small Ring militaries still exist and usually work in concert with it. Its public purpose is peacekeeping and the enforcement of stellar law. The average NOVA soldier goes further: they see themselves as the ones who keep humanity civilised and stop it destroying itself. They have a high opinion of their role and tend to think they are the good guys of the solar system. Perhaps they are. Plenty of other nations disagree. To them NOVA is overbearing and power-hungry, and they have their reasons.
Anyone who passes a background check can join, from anywhere. Even refugees from the Plutocracy who want a different life may enlist, though they will be watched closely. Serve your time for a set period and, on retirement, you may even be allowed to settle inside the Ring itself.
On paper the NOVA political party and the navy are separate. In practice they are much the same thing. Any Ring citizen serving in the fleet is likely to vote NOVA, so the party's strength rides on the navy's size and loyalty.
Before the Solar War the Ring kept order through a small council or parliament; the Solar government held the deciding word but did not meddle closely. From that grew today's Ring democracy, in which NOVA is the most influential of several parties. NOVA remains officially separate from the Ring government. Its political party is packed with retired NOVA personnel and tends to dominate Congress. See Places: Earth and the Ring.
NOVA's ships are built on large space stations in Earth orbit that it controls entirely.
Command
NOVA's admirals rise on merit, much as in the old Western militaries of Earth. Day to day they answer to the Ring's elected parliament or congress and its president, and they behave as if they are bound by those rulings. In truth they are under no hard obligation to obey; they choose to look and act like a proper navy under civilian authority.
Out in the void a flotilla carries sealed instructions for different contingencies, plus its standing orders for the mission. If the situation changes, the highest-ranking officer has the final say, and they are expected to put NOVA and NOVA's interests first.
NOVA and the other nations
NOVA lays no claim to rule the other nations. Instead it harasses, lectures and threatens them into keeping stellar law, at least within humanity's own solar system. Every nation except the Plutocracy has formally signed up to stellar law, and NOVA uses it as a legal bludgeon. Many nations look on NOVA with disdain, even derision, and the Plutocracy hates it outright. Yet most see the value of keeping some civility, and of a wider consensus like the United Nations of old. They also know that NOVA commands vast manpower, along with huge manufacturing and economic might.
Cybernetics
NOVA and most Ring folk treat cybernetics as a grim practicality. See Cybernetics and body modification.
Named flotillas
- The jungle-moon detachment: A NOVA detachment, in peacekeeping blue, defends a lush jungle moon known for its low-tech ursine inhabitants and precious rare minerals. Cut off from resupply, it is preparing to repel a raid.
- The prison-ship security detail: A NOVA security detail escorts a prison ship through unsecured void space.
- The waystation blockade: NOVA forces are refusing entry to a newly found waystation, claiming the systems beyond are too dangerous and empty of anything worth salvaging (see The Plutocracy).
- The deep-void scientific expedition: NOVA supports this in part, alongside the Ceres Cooperative (see Characters, ships and flotillas).
// StoryA Disturbed Peace.
Inside the cylinder
Children were laughing. As Captain Barrett ran, he passed a school of young children playing happily beneath the synthetic sun. Their voices carried across the grass, mingling with the gentle rustling of leaves in the warm breeze.
Above him stretched a green sky that was not a sky at all, but an endless horizon of farms, neighbourhoods, beautiful lakes, and tame woodland. The landscape curved gently upwards, rising into the distance until it vanished into the soft haze of the atmosphere.
His grandfather and great-grandfather had lived on this O'Neill cylinder for hundreds of years. Generations of his family had called it home. It belonged to him as much as he belonged to it, and he hoped that one day his grandchildren would feel the same affection for this place. It was a tiny cylinder of peace, suspended in an empty, cold solar system filled with cruelty and uncaring danger. Here, at least, ordinary life continued, sheltered from the darkness beyond its walls.
His knees were beginning to ache. Not badly, but enough to remind him that even the finest medicine couldn't keep a man young forever. At a hundred and twelve, he was still remarkably fit, though nearly seventy years in Nova uniform had left their mark. He slowed his pace a little, more out of habit than necessity.
He passed a small troop of Nova cadets, boys and girls in their early teens, marching along the path. They carried a little flag and wore smart berets, looking terribly proud of themselves. Many would never join Nova, but the cadet programme was an old tradition, stretching back through generations. As he approached, they offered him a collection of clumsy salutes. He smiled warmly and returned each one.
The sweet smell of honeysuckle hung in the air. Bees hummed busily among the flowers, going about their daily work, while somewhere in the distance a dog barked excitedly at play. The familiar sounds and scents filled him with a deep sense of contentment. For a little while, he could almost forget the responsibilities waiting for him beyond this peaceful world.
The call
Then a sharp buzzing in his ear broke the tranquillity.
"Captain," came a voice. "Captain, do you hear me?"
He slowed to a stop and leaned against a nearby tree. A few small birds, disturbed from their chittering among the leaves, fluttered upwards into the higher branches.
"I'm here. I'm listening. What is it?"
"Dispatch sir. Some sort of standoff in the deep void. They're requesting an experienced captain to take command of a support fleet."
Barrett closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the birds settling back into their branches. He had received messages like this more times than he cared to remember. Some had led to nothing more than months of tedious patrols. Others had cost him good ships and better men.
"Understood," he replied with a resigned sigh. "Send me a Buzzard to pick me up."
The connection ended, leaving him once again with the quiet sounds of the countryside. He looked out across the fields, towards the distant houses and the impossible landscape curving overhead.
Duty calls
Who knew how many years might pass before he would have another chance to run through the cylinder? The dangers of the free void cared nothing for the peace and tranquillity he had come to cherish. Duty had called him away before, and he knew better than to imagine it would wait for him now.
At least he still had a little time to enjoy this place before leaving. He would have to say goodbye to his family, too. His grandchildren would be disappointed, though by now they were accustomed to his sudden departures. His wife would worry, as she always did, imagining him far away in space, alone and without the simple comforts of home. On dark nights, perhaps she would lie awake, haunted by nightmares of his lifeless body drifting through the icy emptiness of the void.
He had spent most of his long life protecting places like this, ensuring that ordinary people could go about their days without fear of what lay beyond. He had never regretted that service, though increasingly he found himself wishing that someone younger might take his place.
But perhaps he would return soon, sooner than anyone expected. Perhaps this would be nothing more than another uneventful expedition into the darkness.
And if he did return, he hoped, with all his heart, that it would be the last time he had to leave.
[The account ends here.]