Gestalt
Capital: Eristadt
Population: 8.9 billions
Territory: Mars
The Gestalt is a communist planet-state that rules over Mars and its moons. It’s the most influential planet in the Solar System next to the United Earth. Its economy and military power make it a powerful superpower that can exert its hegemony over the entire Solar System albeit indirectly.
The Gestalt governs with a communist doctrine following Gestalt theory, where the economy is controlled to benefit the workers and the state acts as the representation of the common person’s needs. Martian citizens have the highest living conditions in the entire Solar System.
History
The Gestalt was founded in in 2925 by the interim government led by Erika Althaus after the Glorious Revolution that took place in 2919. The term Gestalt was chosen to indicate the government as a representation of the people of Mars and their interests as a whole. The first few years were rocky for the Gestalt, which inherited all the issues the Martian Empire faced after the Crash while also dealing with military threats from the United Earth. It took them a few years to establish control over Mars, then things began shifting radically. Their economic policies revitalized the planet in less than a decade, and Mars quickly rose back to its original splendor.
The new leader of the Gestalt, Erika Althaus, took on the title of Ewige Kaiserin, and made herself immortal with cybernetic enhancements. Her position is mostly symbolic, while the real statecraft was left to the Planetary Assembly and the President, elected through a new system called People’s Democracy.
From 2925 to 2977, the Gestalt would be engaged in the Fifty Years Struggle, a series of proxy wars against the United Earth, who could not allow a communist threat within the core of the Solar System.
In this period, Mars once again saw itself in the role of the underdog against a much more powerful and advanced Earth. The leftovers from the decadent Martian Empires were not enough to match the UE as they drastically fell behind on the technological level. The Ewige Kaiserin founded the Geheimdienstbüro a few months after the Gestalt with the initial purpose of gathering intelligence about Earth’s technologies in order to reproduce them at home extremely fast. Between the 20s and 30s, Mars saw a shocking leap in their technological advancement. In the 40s, the Kernel and doll system was finalized and they continued expanding their fleet into the 50s. By the 60s, Mars had reached Earth’s level and even surpassed it in some fields.
In 2931, Mars supported the revolution on Jupiter’s orbital cities and formed a close alliance with the Jovian Union, which became their most important ally in the Solar System. In 2932 they offered their help to invade Ganymede and eliminate House Negev, although their attempt was prevented by a sudden attack from the United Earth against Kirsk, capital of the Jovian Union. In 2966 they sent ships to the Jovian Union in response to United Earth reinforcements to Ganymede and Io, planning to invade Jupiter. The Fifty Years Struggle finally ended in 2977 with the signing of the Ceres Convention by the United Earth and Gestalt, vowing to end hostilities.
In 2998, Mars signed an accord with the Belt Trade Union that would grant them privileged economic deals and increased military presence in the Belt, which was immediately flooded with their ships. In the same year, Mars was hit by the Brachmian Plague, a manmade virus intentionally spread by the United Earth to create chaos and destroy Mars, their response to Mars effectively taking military control of the Belt. A vaccine was easily produced, and the plague was defeated in merely a year, but the Gestalt suffered heavy drawbacks for the following decades.
In 3025, the Gestalt uncovered SiN’s plot to puppet the Black Star Army from behind the scenes to assassinate Manuel Costa, President of the City Federation. They prevented the attempt and exposed Earth’s plot to destabilize the Federation.
Government
The Ewige Kaiserin, also called Supreme Leader or 女皇, is the symbolic leader of the planet and represents an important cultural icon for all Martians. The Gestalt is actually government by the President and the Planetary Assembly, which dictates the state’s policies. The territory of Mars is organized in provinces, each led by a governor who is elected by the citizens of that province.
Main Intelligence Bureau
The Main Intelligence Bureau is the intelligence state apparatus of the Gestalt. Its objective is to defend planetary security from foreign intervention and can operate both domestically and abroad. It operates above Martian law and answers directly to the President and the Supreme Leader.
The agents of the Buro receive elite training in combat and espionage and they are equipped with the best technology Mars can get its hands on which, considering the astounding technological progress achieved by the Gestalt, is often the best in the Solar System.
Kernel
The Kernel is an artificial intelligence that synchronizes all technology within the Gestalt using Spatial Inter-Synchronization. It is the greatest technological achievement of the Gestalt, enabling it to coordinate a swarm of doll[^5] workers and soldiers that supercharge their economic output and allows the Martian Population to live more comfortably even in times of war.
Economy
The Martian economy is mainly driven by the doll population, which is coordinated by the Kernel. Dolls are responsible for 73% of labor time on Mars, a figure that is about seven times the average of other planets.
The state controls every aspect of economic output on Mars and workers autonomously administer their workplace. The Kernel plays a heavy role in the logistical calculation, collecting and analyzing monumental amounts of information to help Martian state officials plan production and distribution across the planet.
Private property has been made illegal on Mars twice: after the Glorious Revolution in 2919, and then again after a brief period of free market policies in the 2980s. Class contradictions have been ended on Mars between the 2990s and 3000s, though some elements of capitalistic mindset still persist due to foreign influences.
Mars is one of the pioneers of technological research, especially in the fields of SiS, robotics, and cybernetics. Their engineers constantly make new breakthroughs, making Mars the most technologically advanced planet in the Solar System. The Kernel and its swarm of dolls is the most advanced logistics system in history, their breakthroughs in SiS and cybernetics are constantly reshaping the lifestyles of billions across the Solar System.
Military
The Martian Military is the second most powerful in the Solar System, only second to Earth’s. Since the Glorious Revolution, they have expanded and improved the decaying Imperial Fleet into a new Heavenly Fleet that can confidently rival Earth’s. Unlike any other military, Mars makes generous use of dolls in their army, employing them in almost every position. They are the only force capable of managing such a military thanks to their Kernel, which synchronizes the dolls and makes them act as a swarm.
Planetology
The greatest struggle in the colonization of Mars was securing an efficient way to irrigate the entire planet. The Solar Empire and the Martian Empire built waterways that carried water from the poles to the rest of Mars. To this day however, most of the surface remains desertic, as water is mainly dedicated to urban and industrial or farming areas.
The most desolate areas of Mars, the Planitia where sandstorms often occur, are inhabited by few people and mostly used for large automated industrial sites. The climate at the poles is icy and cold, in stark contrast to the rest of the surface. Green areas have sprouted around the poles, creating forests and other temperate biomes.
The artificial greenhouse effect created through the terraforming project keeps the planet warmer at night and cooler during the day.
Culture
Gestalt Theory The political and economic system of Mars is based on Gestalt theory, a school of thought developed during the mid to late 29th century after the counter-cultural phenomenon that took place after the fall of the Solar Empire. The scholars of the time, philosophers and economists alike, were trying to analyze the fall of the Solar Empire to find the catalyst to its demise. An Xu (安许), a Martian writer, philosopher, and activist, provided his answer to the his century’s greatest question. He believed the core of the Solar Empire’s failure was in the elements of individualism and exceptionalism in the foundation of its system that constantly fueled contradictions between the core and the periphery of the Empire. The Emperor always privileged the core over the colonies, yet his state depended almost entirely on the industries and resources coming from the colonies. The mismanagements, rebellions, and then the Martian Empire, slowly eroded the Solar Empire’s foundation. Even without the Crash, the Empire would’ve fallen sooner or later, as all Empires do. Xu, however, had even harsher critiques of the newly established United Earth, which he considered a false progress, as it possessed the same exact nature as the Empire manifested in more covert ways. The difference, he thought, is the United Earth does not exert direct control over its colonies, so that the contradictions become justifiable. The pseudo-colonies, still controlled by Earth in all effective ways, are technically independent and self sufficient and do not have Earth to blame for their mismanagements. But the United Earth is no less individualist and perhaps even more capitalistic than the Solar Empire. Another flaw he noticed in both system is that they systematically analyzed subjects in isolation, without taking into account the system as a whole and its interconnected nature, often leading them to failure.
From this critique, Xu developed his Gestalt theory, the alternative to the isolating perspective, which proposed a holistic analysis method that always looked at the entire picture to analyze even a single element.
An Xu is also known for his critiques of the capitalist system of the United Earth, not only focusing on its brutality but also on its inherent class contradictions, the same ones that plagued the Solar Empire. He was a strong promoter of Communism, drawing from the lost Marxist tradition, and he emphasized the necessity for a Martian revolution that could replace the decadent Martian Empire with a Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
