The Mobile Frontier

The outermost edge of expansion in any direction in the Terragen Sphere is often known as the Mobile Frontier, or frontiers, as there are many diverse and widely separated frontier regions.When seen over a period of several millennia mobile frontiers are not specific places, rather they are a specific kind of culture. As time passes by, the mobile frontier by its very definition changes location, but the memes remain the same. The mobile frontiers are found at the edge of terragen space, outside of the reach of the transapients, and consist of people who would like to keep it that way. Unlike hiders which fear transapients, and attempt to avoid all contact, the pioneers interact freely with terragen civilization, limited only by their lack of wormholes and godtech drives.

The fundamental cycle of a mobile frontier is simple, but different circumstances may bring many variations. In the first phase the
pioneers settle a system at the very edge of terragen space. The starting years are often tumultuous, various polities slowly grow,
but many parts of the system are entirely lawless, and many hardcore pioneers prefer it that way, relying only on their skill and wits to forge a living from the resources of the system. However, as time passes by, the system reaches the second phase. The
polities slowly grow in size, as newly arrived colonists, and old entrepreneurs seek the protection of a larger group. If the system
has only few resources these early polities may be in competition, but in most systems the polities spread to occupy power voids, rather than invading their neighbors' sphere of influence. However there are still plenty of empty spaces for the polities of one.

In the third phase the polities reach their largest extension. Though there are plenty of empty spaces left, all worthwhile resources are under the umbrella of a polity. While the free life may still be found in oort clouds or asteroid belts, the polities of one are constantly rubbing shoulders with the larger polities, and may be forced to follow rules and guidelines on which they have no influence. Somewhere between the second and the third phase, pioneers begin leaving the system for the new frontier. Reaching new worlds the cycle starts over.

The first and second phase worlds are the mobile frontier, with a population of hardy pioneers. There exist many worlds that fit the description of the first and second phase, however the mobile frontier culture is the pioneers and their exodus once the world
reaches the third phase. Often many of the inhabitants of a mobile frontier have participated in dozens of exoduses over the past
centuries or millennia, though in a few mobile frontiers each new exodus consists of an entirely new generation of pioneers.

The Kleinman frontier at the edge of Sagittarius NoCoZo space is a classical mobile frontier. Major clades are the Faber, Greenbound, Tavi, Grrol and Kleinman, but as is common hundreds of other clades are represented, either solo or in small groups. Over the last 2000 years, the frontier has traveled 1200 light years. Six times transapients' wormhole layers has overtaken the frontier to such a degree that pioneering became impossible, but every time the frontier has hitched a ride through wormholes and with transapients' colony ships to reach the edge again. The Kleinman frontier hosts a unique clade, the Kleinman clade, which only exists in the Kleinman frontier, having evolved into existence there during the last 2000 years.

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