L-004 (Mars)
Antares & Politics
In the shadows of Martian governance lies Antares: an unseen hand directing every facet of life from behind the veil of military order. Officially, L-004 operates under a Stratocratic Oligarchy, a government ruled by the military elite. Yet to the average citizen, it appears to be a functioning democracy — a carefully maintained illusion, manicured with puppet leaders and pre-written policy scripts.
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Judicial system
Justice on L-004 is a theatre of control, tightly orchestrated by Antares. Judges and jurors are not citizens, but selected loyalists — their identities masked, their rulings aligned with the state’s silent agenda. No outsider, no matter their education or moral standing, may join their ranks without the blessing of Antares.
Prison and punishment, re-education
L-004 does not forgive — it reforms, breaks, or buries.
The prison system, operated by Antares’ military forces, serves not only as punishment but as a tool of statecraft. Guards are drawn from the lowest military ranks — trained in law enforcement, tactical suppression, and psychological discipline. These soldiers patrol the bleak compounds with cold efficiency. Security is absolute. Escape is not an option.
Imprisonment is tiered by social class, and conditions reflect status. The lower class endure cramped, degrading environments — concrete cells, minimal nutrition, and constant surveillance. The elite may secure relative comfort — unless their crimes offend the interests of Antares. In such cases, status is stripped, and punishment is equalized.
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Economic structure
The economy of L-004 is a precision engine, engineered to extract labour, consolidate power, and preserve hierarchy. On the surface, it appears capitalist, but beneath the metrics lies something more insidious: an imperial structure designed to ensure the elite never struggle, and the working class never rest.
Currency is fully digital, managed through credit-chip implants embedded at birth. These chips are more than banking tools; they are expenditure tracking devices, social contracts, and economic shackles. Every citizen is born with a preloaded financial status, often inherited from their family line. For the underclass, this means intergenerational debt is encoded from the start — a legacy they never chose, but one they cannot escape.
Black market and underbelly
Beneath the sterilized surface of L-004 lies its diseased heart in a sprawling, shifting network of slums, smugglers, and survivalists. The Black Market serves the abandoned — debtors, dissidents, and defectors — trading in contraband tech, reprogrammed ID chips, blacklisted data and salvaged scrap. Much of it is untraceable by design. Popular currency includes glitched implants, cloned credentials, and neural hacks sold to those desperate to disappear or to impersonate someone with status.
Antares tolerates this underworld — not out of weakness, but strategy. They are well aware of its existence, and cultivate it as a pressure valve. By allowing a sanctioned level of criminality, they offer the illusion of rebellion while keeping true revolution fractured.
Revolutionaries and smugglers operate side by side, using the chaos to mask underground movements. Deals are struck in coded dialects, hand signals, or repurposed neural channels. But trust is scarce, and infiltration is common. Every whisper may lead to a midnight raid, or worse — disappearance.
Military
​The military of L-004 is more than an institution; it is the framework of control. Soldiers serve as law enforcement, biome security, interplanetary transport regulators, and silent executioners. Advancement is rare and privileged. Loyalty is mandatory.
Technology
L-004 is a world built on technological dominance. It is the beating heart of a civilization that values control, precision, and survival through innovation. The existence of life on Mars alone is testament to the indomitable human spirit of invention and ingenuity. It requires intensive upkeep and large amounts of resources to function — thus, R-001 is used as a siphon for materials to keep Mars alive.
Every aspect of daily life, from transportation to housing, is automated and networked. Hovercrafts, drones, holographic interfaces and digital bioware implants are common. Every citizen is born into a world where being connected is not optional, it’s embedded.
The credit-chip implant is a core system: a multi-function device that tracks identity, finances, location, legal status, and loyalty. It cannot be removed without specialist intervention, and tampering with it is considered a federal crime. Public infrastructure responds to these chips, tailoring access and privileges in real time. Surveillance is constant — not just from the government, but from the systems that run the world itself.
Biomes and industrial complexes are maintained almost exclusively by robotic labour. Civilian robots and service androids are common in wealthier sectors, while combat models — including the Guards of Phanes – patrol secure areas and resource outposts. Modelled after organic forms, these appear to be sleek and fashionable mechanical peacekeepers to the law-abiding eye.
education
On L-004, education is not a fight — it is a filter.
The system, standardized across all sectors, begins at early childhood and extends through to tertiary institutions, but only for those deemed “suitable.” Education is designed to identify, isolate, and elevate the compliant, while diverting everyone else into the machinery of labor.
While every child learns about the Exodus from R-001, the truth is heavily censored. Textbooks describe a unified human race fleeing catastrophe — climate collapse, overpopulation, dwindling resources. The version taught is one of survival and merit, where the best and brightest were chosen to build a better world on L-004. The reality — that wealth, status, and political obedience determined survival — is buried beneath layers of patriotic myth. The sheer turbulence of the Exodus, including large-scale nuclear war and mass conflict, is omitted entirely.
Children are taught to revere Antares, to believe that the current system is the result of hard-earned wisdom rather than inherited power. History is polished, with dissent erased and former Earth nations blurred into abstract struggles that conveniently support the Martian order.
censorship and propaganda
Information is curated from the moment a citizen is born. Every story they hear, every image they see, every historical fact they learn has been edited to serve the narrative of Antares. All of it is selected, revised, and repackaged by agencies under Antares control to reinforce the message: you are lucky to be here. L-004 is survival. Everything else is chaos. No Antares, no peace, no order, no future. The result is not ignorance, but engineered conviction.
At the centre of that narrative is the Exodus: a story retold across generations as a triumph of unity and wisdom. Citizens are taught that they are survivors — the chosen few who escaped a collapsing Earth (now known as R-001, to distance any attachment or identity from the planet). Rumors tell them R-001 is now a wasteland haunted by monsters and chaos, its people twisted or extinct. To speak of these alien beings is dangerous and a topic seldom broached. Seasoned Biome workers will warn that those who catch sight of the ‘creatures’ of R-001 often fall ill to some kind of fatal sickness, which gossip attributes to radiation poisoning or some more supernatural, insidious thing.
Transportation to earth
Travel between planets is strictly controlled. Civilian access to R-001 is prohibited, with only Antares-authorized personnel granted off-world clearance. These personnel accompany the sparse shipments of workers to and from R-001 biomes. Transport is slow, taking many months to arrive.
The exodus and historical context
At the time of the Exodus, Earth’s population was nearing 10 billion. The planet had begun to collapse under the weight of its own excess — poisoned air, depleted soil, runaway global warming, and resource wars. A nuclear war broke loose between countries holding resources hostage and accusing one another of the downfall. The Earth began to rapidly decay and degrade. In this chaos, Antares rose, promising salvation through selection.
Languages & nationalities
Despite centuries of planetary separation, humanity’s cultural roots persist on L-004. The settlements – divided into Sectors – reflect the echoes of Earth’s lost nations, though often restructured, merged, or commodified.
Each sector has its own cultural legacy, preserved and shaped by the populations chosen during the Exodus. Languages like Standard Martian – a synthesized English-based dialect derived from pre-Exodus lingua francas – dominate official communication. Yet in homes, communities, and underground circles, ancestral languages still thrive: Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish, Hindi, Russian, German, Yoruba, Japanese, and countless others still remain in use, often hybridized with Martian syntax and slang. Each Sector has a dominant secondary and tertiary language, while minority dialects have fallen into obscurity without large speaker populations to preserve them.
Sector heads — often descended from generational leadership families — curate regional aesthetics and customs to promote loyalty and tradition beneath the broader banner of Antares rule. On L-004, diversity is not erased. It is contained, surveilled, and sometimes sold back as heritage pride, a marker of those fortunate enough to have survived the Exodus and continued their lineage on Mars.
Sector examples
If your character is Martian they do not have to be from one of these Sectors and you are welcome to make your own!
Notable Places
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Asgard - Gated communities surrounding Valhalla, known for being a haven for the rich and famous of Mars. Many have secondary homes here as well.
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Bifröst Grove - The shopping district of Valhalla, beautifully decorated with various flora. The district offers a wide array of shops, all pristine and extravagant - with prices to match. It is located at the front of the Casino and acts as a bridge between
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Valhalla and the outside Martian world.Valhalla - The centrepiece of the settlement, a large luxurious Casino that heavily themes itself after Norse Mythology. It is a multi-level palace that houses a variety of features and spans a wide range. This is also the dwelling place of much of the active Isaksen family, as well as a hub for their business dealings - both professional and otherwise.