Hi here's my lore thing.
It still follows the Technocratic Meritocracy. Just with a lot of surrounding fluff.
===1===
Kaden slams his back against the aluminum wall as his body falls to the ground. The sound of fighting -- of gunfire, how did they even get guns -- so overbearing that it almost made ignoring the bleeding wound in his chest an easy task.
NO CONNECTION[/color]
Damnit damnit damnit damnit damnit. Just barely managing the impulse to punch the dim console terminal, Kaden takes a step back. Banging on the door. They probably had weapons now. If contact couldn't be regained then this ship is done. Kaden knew he just needed to regain contact with the first Lander.
His eyes glanced over to the slouched-over corpse of the Captain. No actual authority anymore, apparently. Especially when they killed the goddamn Captain. No amount of emergency first aid gauze could have saved him. At least, that's what Kaden told himself repeatedly. But he needed to focus. The Captain's mistake was in admitting the loss of communications, and thus effectively ceding his authority. If Kaden could regain contact, if he could just find out what the hell is happening in the communications link, he could regain authority. Save his life and the lives of everyone on board the Lander.
A tiny screen on the wall next to the emergency airlock blocking his potential killers lit up. Of course, they're using the safety override. Damn designers couldn't factor in a blood-starved mutiny.
Endless numbers of commands are typed into the communications console. Same result, until--
RECEIVING EMERGENCY COMMUNIQUE DOWNLOADED. ORIGIN: LANDER ONE. SEVERE INTEGRITY FAULTS. AS FOLLOWS:
----
An^#@ out there? Pl#%[corrupted data]* Booster ()!%@& --gone, %@&!!&#only survivor.
----
TIMESTAMP SUGGESTS CRITICAL FIRMWARE ERRORS. REPLACE IMMEDIATELY BEFORE SEPARATING LANDER FROM TRAVELLER.
Kaden almost sighs in relief before realizing just how bad the situation is now. Sure, it became a lot clearer -- something broke the communications equipment. How? No idea. Why? Zero idea. Hell, something like this may very well be affecting every Lander.
But then there's the worse bit of information. Piecing together the annoyingly sparse bits of uncorrupted data, Lander One is gone. And with it, his authority.
Rumbling vibrates the entire ship as it starts to tumble through the atmosphere. The rumbling almost drains out the sounds of the banging against the emergency airlock. The Lander would hit ground soon.
Kaden hits and slouches against the wall and slowly falls to the floor as the retrograde thrusters fire.
He's past thinking about himself here. The entire ship--no, every lander sent to this planet, is doomed. Since the launch, it's all been doomed. Maybe he could buy time to let himself find a way out the ship once it impacts. Probably not. No matter what he does, Kaden knows that he'd never see anyone in the other lands again. Especially not the brave and talented commanders sent on Lander One. Maybe they'd make a city or town around the lander, but that's all it ever would be. Nothing more.
Impact.
===2===
What we know of the Founders is sparse, at best.
We do know them for their legacy. For their achievement. The Network. What brought us all together again, and what powers the planet.
While we all call them the "Founders" and it's likely that's what you call them as well, their actual name is unknown. To this day, we haven't found that out. Despite interviewing anyone we can and looking at every piece of remnant data left behind, we don't know. Maybe they never had a name. But for us, it's fitting we call them by their achievement, and they were the ones that created the single most important piece of infrastructure and technology.
Hence, the Founders.
What? No, the Founders didn't engineer the chaos during the landings. The creation of the Network and likely the creation of the Founders as a group started years after all that. Chances are, the chaos and isolation was just --yes, yes: a fluke. A coincidence. Not something we could have predicted, and not something we could have prevented. The designers of the Traveller definitely wouldn't have sabotaged it, or designed it poorly. It just... happened.
Regardless, the work of the Founders is remarkable and Government researchers are still amazed at what they discover about the Network every day. It was built perfectly. Based on how it's made, we can predict that it was originally intended to just connect the cities. We believe that the Founders had cells in every city formed from the isolated landers. These cells were completely separate and independent at first, and just naturally came into being in the omnipresent chaos and lack of order in every city; but somehow they found each other before anyone else from their cities did, and formed into a single group. From there, they started creating the Network. Perhaps to coordinate amongst themselves. Perhaps to garner power. But whatever the reason, they did it.
The Network as it was originally created is not the Network you've heard of today. Its strong base and foundation and core protocols and technical aspects are still identical, yes, but once the Founders dissolved -- we'll get to why we think they did another day -- and eventually others stumbled across it, it was built upon.
Our actual communications networks and the internet do not use the Network. But they're built on top of it, using it as the base for practically everything. While this has allowed for stunning growth of technology and communications, it means the Network has access to practically every computer or piece of electronics there is, and access to what that thing does. The Network is omnipresent. You should stay away from it, but you need to know to respect it and what it's done for all of us.
===3===
Morgan rubbed her temple with her hand.
Already a great number of years from the chaos of the landings, yet she felt as if she had done nothing in that time. But with this discovery, maybe there could be something done. If her informant was right (and they usually were), then somehow there was a network connecting the area to another Lander-city. Maybe even to more cities than just one other one.
Morgan had an opportunity presented, and needed to take it.
Unfortunately, this opportunity came with its caveats. Compromise. Something Morgan had avoided until now, but needed to finally confront. The city had a dozen different groups claiming to be the official government, including hers. She would have to get some of them agree to help her gain enough influence to properly investigate and exploit this Network to use it. Then they'd have to work with whoever was in charge (if anyone was in charge) in the other city. And so on.
But it'd be worth it. The city has never known order or law. Just constant anarchy. She could protect some, but there were too many under the control of despotic groups and gangs. She needed to expand her power and influence to help them. She looked out the window of her room. While quite stubby, it still dwarfed the other buildings of the city in height. Nothing like a symbol of power (regardless of one's actual power) to get the others under control.
But she needed to work now. Her terminal screen tempted her attention with its orange glow. She could access so much through just text commands and output if she got access to this Network.
...
"So you're actually telling me that it can't be shut down?"
"Er--yes. Yes. It's... it's too ingrained already. Our comms needs it. Citizens need it. Everything needs it now."
"Tremendous. And we can't restrict its usage?"
"Nooo... nope. You see, it's j-just that it's already there. And built up--on top of. You can tell people not to use it?"
Morgan didn't respond. Not verbally, at least. Her body language strongly requested that the consultant should go somewhere... not here. And the consultant dutifully listened and shuffled off somewhere. Probably to his office. Doesn't matter.
Her place of work was much more extravagant now. Relatively, at least. Still dwarfing every other building in the city, but overlooking a more developed city and much taller itself. Her office had an official title appended to it now. Director. Director Morgan. She figured a proper title would help set the precedent and maybe lean things her way in the ongoing constitution creation taking forever. It didn't help that the opposition used the Network just as gleefully as Morgan used it to create the Government. It wasn't as useful to her anymore, but unfortunately, as she just officially discovered, it would not be going anyway anytime soon.
Policing usage wouldn't work. Not many people have the know-how to gain access and actually use it, but they'd raise up a storm anyway. Likely ruining the delicate balance she achieved.
It was frustrating. Tremendous amounts of work, yet still the people considered her Government to be more of a suggestion than an actual essential part of society. Elections only did so much. The coming years will be tough, she knew. But she also knew that she's already made a difference. Her Government may in fact always take second priority to those who can use the Network, but at least it can keep a single nation across the planet and unify people. Even if whoever was the top dog of the minute over the Network would have more influence than the Government.
She sighed. A long road lied ahead, likely with no reward, but she was determined.
=======
Basically, there's a government controlling the planet but it doesn't have extensive/good control over its citizenry. Instead, most of the power and influence is limited to those who can use the underlying network of the planet, suitably named the Network, while not being killed/eliminated/ran out by others. Influence via this Network is short-lived, but very useful. It's not like one person has "control" at any given time. It's a flowing non-static entity. People know about this and its power over the government, and are generally fine with it. Most can't do anything with it/don't bother. The elected government covers more mundane stuff (uuussually) and, along with vigilantes, acts as a moderating force over most people that try to use the Network for especially extreme/objectionable purposes.