HOUSE OF JADE

"Each day, our brave troopers push deeper into the Green Lands, reclaiming what was lost. I have seen the reports - harvest in the secured zones increases threefold each season. Soon, the jungle will bow to our will, just as our ancestors once tamed these lands. The Neo-Cong are but a dying remnant of chaos, and our clone armies grow stronger with each deployment. This is not merely war - this is destiny. Through blood and sacrifice, we shall remake Hell itself into a garden." 

• Her Imperial Majesty Lin Wei, Jade Queen,
  Address to the Jade High Command before the Battle of Phu-Bac

The Fortress of Jade stands proud in the endless jungles of south-east Asia. This fortress palace is the very heart of the Jade Domain and houses the Jade Queen as well as the Jade Domain's military high command.

The Jade Domain is ruled by the Jade Queen, one of the most powerful non-AI rulers in the world.

Every eight years a new Jade queen rises out of the royal cloning facilities in the Fortress of Jade.

The new queen receives an accelerated neural programming to prepare her for leadership. The council of handmaidens will carefully select the template and programming to be used for every queen, to subtly influence the style of her reign.

Once a queen has reigned for eight years, she retires to the council of handmaidens and serves her successor as an advisor.

The handmaidens are the true power behind the throne. If a Jade Queen is regarded as fulfilling her duties as queen particularly well, her reign may be extended.

Equally, a queen that is not performing well, may find her reign violently cut short by an assassin's blade...

The palace guard are made and trained at the Fortress of Jade's own cloning facility. Such an important duty could not be trusted to clones bought from the Prime AI.

The Jade Domain is a militaristic state, and it is custom for the Jade Queen to be trained in combat and to be personally in command of her own elite guard unit, the Jade Sentinels.

After the Queen, the Jade High Command is the most important institution in the Jade domain. Being a Jade commander is a demanding position of immense honour and responsibility. Officers either rise through the ranks, or end up facing a firing squad.

To remind all those that serve in the Fortress of Jade of the importance of their duties, they are surrounded by the statues of those they send out into the jungle to give their lives in the defence of the Jade Domain.

The Jade Domain is locked in an endless war against the Neo-Cong, a ceaseless, brutal conflict that costs untold thousands of lives every year.

The small cloning facilities of the Jade domain are not sufficient for the thousands of casualties that need to be replaced on a regular basis. To sustain its military strength, new Troopers for the Jade domain are purchased from the PRIME facilities. Entire divisions arrive ready trained and fully equipped and can be sent straight to battle...

It is their blood, that holds the Jade Domain together.

After a 5-year service, the few Troopers to have survived that long retire from military service and become fully fledged citizens of the Jade Domain. Most of them will be scarred for life from the experience.

Dotted around the Jade Domain are mighty military fortresses. As it is near impossible to hold jungle terrain, these bases function as markers for the territory the Jade Domain claims, and it is from here that patrols set out into the jungle to engage the ever-present forces of the Neo-Cong.

Several cities of concrete and steel are dotted around the Fortress of Jade and together form the Jade Ddomain. Decades after the Great Collapse, when humanity abandoned its once vast and sprawling cities of skyscrapers, these fortress cities offer their inhabitants a certain degree of safety from the dangerous, desolated world around them.

Civilian life in the cities of Jade is simple and relatively peaceful, considering the domain is permanently at war. The death and terror of fighting against the Neo-Cong mostly happens in the depths of the surrounding jungle.

Troopers patrol the streets of the Jade cities. Neo-Cong terror attacks are frequent all over the Jade domain, but are mostly directed at industrial and military targets.

It is no easy feat for a Trooper to survive their 5 years of service in the green hell of the jungle, but those that do, may settle in one of the Jade cities and grow old in peace.

Many Trooper veterans find it almost impossible to adjust to this life though. They join a street gang and continue a life of violence.

The Jade Cities never sleep. As nigh falls, the streets and nightclubs come to life.

The average life expectancy of a Trooper in the Jade Domain is measured in weeks, not years. And while they are not officially permitted to enter nightclubs or bars during their entire 5 years of service, it is generally understood that off-duty Jade Troopers own the side alleys and the shadows of the night.

The emotional bonds between veteran Troopers are strong. Tomorrow in the jungle they may die. If they can, they will spend at least one night away from it all...