<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Alphaverse, in the series Charlie Jade, is a parallel universe in the Multiverse). It is a technologically advanced, capitalist state with a population of twelve billion people. It's a high-tech universe gone mad, choking on technology.

When the international institutions failed and humanity was threatened with extinction, the world population in Alphaverse agreed to let the powers of industry care for their every need. War was bad for business and everyone slept better with the industrialists running things. Now, society is controlled by the economic power of a handful of profit-driven multinational corporations.

Every person in Alphaverse has a status chip embedded in their flesh, housing their status info, easily and frequently checked. There are four classes:

C1-A - Reserved for the most wealthy and privileged. 0.5% of total population. Tax exempt.

C1 - Highest status possible by merit, education, service, or promotion within the upper corporate and government system. 4.5% of population. Largest earners - lowest tax payers.

C2 - Middle management in all segments of corporate and service society. Taxpayers. Possible advancement to C1 on merit, never C1-A. 25% of population. Main consumer base for the economy - mandatory consumer spending at a level to assure year-end corporate profits, regardless of product quality or individual need.

C-3 - Workers, slaves. Socially unacceptable. Poor. Provides labor where automation is unavailable or too costly. 70% of population. Frequently relocated, abused, or eliminated under corporate authority.

The cities of Alphaverse are crowded and dirty, the air thick with smog. Raw materials and natural resources are scarce. Poverty and crime are rampant; law enforcement is swift and brutal.

Factbook

Population: 12 billion

Government Structure: Corporate Administrative Governance, as defined under Business Administrations First Act, s.991-41.

Class Structure: Class status (C1A, C1, C2, or C3) defined at birth under Uniform Standardization Code, with little interclass migration.

Environmental Issues: Air pollution (greenhouse gases, SO2 particulates) from early reliance on coal produces acidic rain globally; Water shortages and desertification across the equator; Water pollution from untreated wastes; 100% deforested. Nuclear accidents, waste sites make some areas inhabitable. High level of birth mutation and suicide in C2 and C3 populations.

Energy Production: Nuclear; fossil fuels - petroleum, coal.

Incarcerated Population: 160.4 million - 0.013% of global pop.

Life Expectancy at Birth:

• Total population - 51.43
• C1A - 91.13 years
• C1 - 87.41 years
• C2 - 49.88 years
• C3 - 34.10 years