Portfolio: Rise of the Red Festival

This portfolio originally appeared in Jump Point 10.1.
Each year, beginning in late January or early February, millions of gilded red envelopes are hidden across the UEE. Those fated to find one will discover a good-luck token or credit intended as a hopeful sign of the year to come. For centuries, giving friends and relatives red envelopes was one way to celebrate the Red Festival. Yet, it wasn’t until the 26th century that hiding the envelopes for anyone to find became part of the tradition after the Banu enthusiastically embraced it as a way to honor Cassa, their Patron of Luck. People took to the new tradition and relished the chance to find a little bit of luck tucked inside a discarded magazine or hiding atop a storage locker at the end of a dark space station hallway.

The Red Festival originated on Earth well before Humanity explored the stars when some early cultures carefully observed the moon and celebrated the start of a new lunar year. The holiday eventually became known as the Red Festival as its reach and influence spiraled further and further away from Earth’s orbit. Still, many of the traditions stayed the same, like wearing red and gold for good luck and exchanging gilded red envelopes. Humanity celebrated these traditions for millennia before colonists took them to Mars when it was settled in the 22nd century. While the Red Festival was celebrated on the red planet, its popularity wouldn’t explode until the early 25th century when an explorer claimed it helped him make history, and many others came to believe that celebrating it would bring luck to their journey.

Today the Red Festival is more popular than ever and widely celebrated across the UEE and Banu Protectorate. So how did a holiday focused on Earth’s lunisolar cycle become so beloved?

LIFT OFFWORLD
The United Nations of Earth (UNE) formed in 2380 to unify all of Earth’s nations under one government. It was a historic moment meant to bring people together and facilitate Humanity’s expansion into the stars. At the time, Earth was in a precarious position. Despite having terraformed Mars and the new system of Croshaw, Humanity’s homeworld was still desperately overcrowded and pristine wilderness increasingly scarce. Pollution choked many major cities and people’s quality of life was in decline. While advances in commercial spacecraft and terraforming tech made living offworld possible, it remained extremely expensive to leave Earth and surprisingly difficult to convince people that life offworld might actually be better. To address the issue, the UNE created the Easten Expansion Program to support navjumpers on their search for new frontiers and encourage people to fill colony ships. The program was met with modest success before being rebranded Project Far Star in 2412. Now considered a key driver of the Human Colonial Expansion Era, Project Far Star opened offices in major cities around Earth to recruit colonists, aid explorers with subsidized ship upgrades, and more.

In late 2429, Wendell Dopse visited the Project Far Star office in Shanghai and submitted an application to purchase a discounted jump drive. The application was approved and Dopse received the component in mid-January of 2430. He rushed to install it then meticulously cleaned his ship so it’d be spotless when the Red Festival began on January 25th. According to legend, Wendell Dopse spent the next two weeks celebrating the Red Festival with his family and reconsidering whether or not to leave them. On the final day of the festival, his family attended a lantern festival where Dopse helped his daughter with a particularly difficult riddle. The two spent hours taking in the impressive lanterns and talking through solutions when the answer suddenly struck him. Dopse looked up and saw a solitary lit red lantern rising through the sky. Away from everything else. Off on its own. Convinced it was a sign, he noted its course. Then he said goodbye to his family, raced to his ship, and flew in the direction the red lantern was headed. Days later Dopse discovered the jump from Sol to Davien, upending contemporary scientific thinking that predicted no additional jump point existed in the Sol system.

SPREAD OF THE RED FESTIVAL
Today, many people wonder if Wendell Dopse’s story about the red lantern might have been embellished. They point to numerous voyages Dopse took into that sector of Sol before receiving his jump drive. On those trips he tested and refined new scanning techniques that, after his discovery of Davien, other explorers adopted and inventors integrated into more advanced jump scanning technology. His success inspired others to try their luck launching on the final day of that year’s Red Festival. The practice became so commonplace that several landing zones were forced to place a cap on launches on that day to reduce congestion. They eventually instituted a lottery system to award launch slots after an investigation by the UNE revealed that some landing zone officials were selling slots to the highest bidder.

Shanghai also became considered a lucky place to launch. People traveled from across the world to leave from that landing zone, and many of them celebrated the Red Festival. For decades, the Project Far Star office in Shanghai recruited and helped send more colonists to live offworld than any other. The colonists’ eagerness to go, combined with their comms about what life was really like on these new worlds, convinced millions more to follow. They did and brought the traditions of the Red Festival with them.

In the 25th century, one of the biggest off-Earth celebrations of the Red Festival occurred in Davien where, in 2438, Humanity first encountered the Banu. Since then, Banu traders became a staple of the system and knew to stock their Merchantmans with red items and gilded envelopes around the Red Festival. While no one knows exactly who hid the first envelope for someone to find, the tradition began in Davien and expanded from there. Hiding and searching for these lucky envelopes became commonplace across the empire by the early 26th century, and as the tradition grew in popularity, so did the Red Festival. All thanks in part to Wendell Dopse’s discovery of Davien, the millions of colonists who celebrated the Red Festival, and the Banu who adopted and evolved its traditions.

Dieses Portfolio erschien ursprünglich in Jump Point 10.1.
Jedes Jahr werden Ende Januar oder Anfang Februar Millionen von vergoldeten roten Umschlägen in der ganzen UEE versteckt. Diejenigen, die einen dieser Umschläge finden, finden darin einen Glücksbringer oder ein Guthaben, das ein hoffnungsvolles Zeichen für das kommende Jahr ist. Jahrhundertelang war es üblich, Freunden und Verwandten rote Umschläge zu schenken, um das Rote Fest zu feiern. Doch erst im 26. Jahrhundert wurde das Verstecken der Umschläge zum Teil der Tradition, nachdem die Banu es begeistert als eine Art der Ehrung von Cassa, ihrer Glücksbringerin, angenommen hatten. Die Menschen nahmen die neue Tradition an und freuten sich über die Chance, in einer ausrangierten Zeitschrift oder in einem Lagerraum am Ende eines dunklen Ganges einer Raumstation ein kleines Stück Glück zu finden.

Das Rote Fest hat seinen Ursprung auf der Erde, lange bevor die Menschheit die Sterne erforschte, als einige frühe Kulturen den Mond sorgfältig beobachteten und den Beginn eines neuen Mondjahres feierten. Der Feiertag wurde schließlich unter dem Namen Rotes Fest bekannt, als sich seine Reichweite und sein Einfluss immer weiter von der Erdumlaufbahn entfernten. Viele der Traditionen sind jedoch gleich geblieben, wie das Tragen von Rot und Gold als Glücksbringer und der Austausch von vergoldeten roten Umschlägen. Die Menschen feierten diese Traditionen Jahrtausende lang, bevor Kolonisten sie im 22. Jahrhundert auf den Mars brachten. Das Rote Fest wurde zwar auch auf dem Roten Planeten gefeiert, aber seine Popularität explodierte erst im frühen 25. Jahrhundert, als ein Entdecker behauptete, es habe ihm geholfen, Geschichte zu schreiben, und viele andere glaubten, dass das Feiern dieses Festes Glück auf ihrer Reise bringen würde.

Heute ist das Rote Fest beliebter denn je und wird in der gesamten UEE und im Banu-Protektorat gefeiert. Wie kam es also dazu, dass ein Feiertag, der sich auf den Mondzyklus der Erde konzentriert, so beliebt wurde?

AUS DER WELT HEBEN
Die Vereinten Nationen der Erde (UNE) wurden im Jahr 2380 gegründet, um alle Nationen der Erde unter einer Regierung zu vereinen. Es war ein historischer Moment, der die Menschen zusammenbringen und die Expansion der Menschheit zu den Sternen erleichtern sollte. Zu dieser Zeit befand sich die Erde in einer prekären Lage. Obwohl der Mars und das neue System von Croshaw terraformt worden waren, war die Heimatwelt der Menschheit immer noch hoffnungslos überbevölkert und unberührte Wildnis immer seltener. Die Umweltverschmutzung erstickte viele Großstädte und die Lebensqualität der Menschen sank. Zwar machten Fortschritte bei kommerziellen Raumschiffen und Terraforming-Technologien ein Leben außerhalb der Erde möglich, aber es war nach wie vor extrem teuer, die Erde zu verlassen, und es war überraschend schwierig, die Menschen davon zu überzeugen, dass das Leben außerhalb der Erde tatsächlich besser sein könnte. Um dieses Problem anzugehen, schuf die UNE das Ost-Expansionsprogramm, um Navjumpers bei ihrer Suche nach neuen Grenzen zu unterstützen und die Menschen zu ermutigen, Kolonieschiffe zu füllen. Das Programm war nur mäßig erfolgreich, bevor es 2412 in Projekt Far Star umbenannt wurde. Das Projekt Far Star, das heute als eine der wichtigsten Triebfedern für die koloniale Expansion der Menschen gilt, eröffnete Büros in den großen Städten der Erde, um Kolonisten anzuwerben, Entdeckern mit subventionierten Schiffs-Upgrades zu helfen und vieles mehr.

Ende 2429 besuchte Wendell Dopse das Projekt Far Star-Büro in Shanghai und stellte einen Antrag auf einen vergünstigten Sprungantrieb. Der Antrag wurde genehmigt und Dopse erhielt das Bauteil Mitte Januar 2430. Er beeilte sich mit dem Einbau und reinigte sein Schiff gründlich, damit es blitzblank war, wenn das Rote Fest am 25. Januar begann. Der Legende nach verbrachte Wendell Dopse die nächsten zwei Wochen damit, das Rote Fest mit seiner Familie zu feiern und darüber nachzudenken, ob er sie verlassen sollte oder nicht. Am letzten Tag des Festes besuchte seine Familie ein Laternenfest, bei dem Dopse seiner Tochter bei einem besonders schwierigen Rätsel half. Die beiden verbrachten Stunden damit, die beeindruckenden Laternen zu betrachten und die Lösungen durchzusprechen, als ihm plötzlich die Antwort einfiel. Dopse schaute nach oben und sah eine einsame, leuchtende rote Laterne am Himmel aufsteigen. Weit weg von allem anderen. Ganz für sich allein. Überzeugt davon, dass es ein Zeichen war, notierte er sich den Weg. Dann verabschiedete er sich von seiner Familie, rannte zu seinem Schiff und flog in die Richtung, in die die rote Laterne unterwegs war. Tage später entdeckte Dopse den Sprung von Sol nach Davien und widerlegte damit die damalige wissenschaftliche Meinung, dass es im Sol-System keinen weiteren Sprungpunkt gab.

VERBREITUNG DES ROTEN FESTES
Heute fragen sich viele Menschen, ob Wendell Dopses Geschichte über die rote Laterne vielleicht ausgeschmückt worden ist. Sie verweisen auf zahlreiche Reisen, die Dopse in diesen Sektor von Sol unternahm, bevor er seinen Sprungantrieb erhielt. Auf diesen Reisen testete und verfeinerte er neue Scantechniken, die nach seiner Entdeckung von Davien von anderen Forschern übernommen und von Erfindern in eine fortschrittlichere Sprungscantechnologie integriert wurden. Sein Erfolg inspirierte andere dazu, ihr Glück am letzten Tag des diesjährigen Roten Festes zu versuchen. Diese Praxis wurde so alltäglich, dass sich mehrere Landezonen gezwungen sahen, die Anzahl der Starts an diesem Tag zu begrenzen, um die Überlastung zu verringern. Sie führten schließlich ein Lotteriesystem für die Vergabe von Startplätzen ein, nachdem eine Untersuchung der UNE ergeben hatte, dass einige Landezonenbeamte Startplätze an den Meistbietenden verkauften.

Shanghai wurde auch als glücklicher Ort für den Start angesehen. Menschen reisten aus der ganzen Welt an, um von dieser Landezone aus zu starten, und viele von ihnen feierten das Rote Fest. Jahrzehntelang rekrutierte das Projekt Far Star Büro in Shanghai mehr Kolonisten als jedes andere und half dabei, sie in die Außenwelt zu schicken. Der Eifer der Kolonisten und ihre Berichte über das Leben auf diesen neuen Welten überzeugten Millionen von Menschen, ihnen zu folgen. Sie taten es und brachten die Traditionen des Roten Festes mit.

Im 25. Jahrhundert fand eine der größten Feiern des Roten Festes außerhalb der Erde in Davien statt, wo die Menschheit 2438 erstmals auf die Banu traf. Seitdem sind die Banu-Händler ein fester Bestandteil des Systems und wissen, dass sie ihre Handelsschiffe rund um das Rote Fest mit roten Gegenständen und vergoldeten Umschlägen ausstatten. Niemand weiß genau, wer den ersten Umschlag versteckt hat, um ihn zu finden, aber die Tradition begann in Davien und breitete sich von dort aus. Zu Beginn des 26. Jahrhunderts wurde das Verstecken und Suchen nach diesen Glücksumschlägen im ganzen Reich üblich, und mit der wachsenden Beliebtheit dieser Tradition wuchs auch das Rote Fest. Das alles verdanken wir Wendell Dopses Entdeckung von Davien, den Millionen von Kolonisten, die das Rote Fest feierten, und den Banu, die die Traditionen übernahmen und weiterentwickelten.

This portfolio originally appeared in Jump Point 10.1.
Each year, beginning in late January or early February, millions of gilded red envelopes are hidden across the UEE. Those fated to find one will discover a good-luck token or credit intended as a hopeful sign of the year to come. For centuries, giving friends and relatives red envelopes was one way to celebrate the Red Festival. Yet, it wasn’t until the 26th century that hiding the envelopes for anyone to find became part of the tradition after the Banu enthusiastically embraced it as a way to honor Cassa, their Patron of Luck. People took to the new tradition and relished the chance to find a little bit of luck tucked inside a discarded magazine or hiding atop a storage locker at the end of a dark space station hallway.

The Red Festival originated on Earth well before Humanity explored the stars when some early cultures carefully observed the moon and celebrated the start of a new lunar year. The holiday eventually became known as the Red Festival as its reach and influence spiraled further and further away from Earth’s orbit. Still, many of the traditions stayed the same, like wearing red and gold for good luck and exchanging gilded red envelopes. Humanity celebrated these traditions for millennia before colonists took them to Mars when it was settled in the 22nd century. While the Red Festival was celebrated on the red planet, its popularity wouldn’t explode until the early 25th century when an explorer claimed it helped him make history, and many others came to believe that celebrating it would bring luck to their journey.

Today the Red Festival is more popular than ever and widely celebrated across the UEE and Banu Protectorate. So how did a holiday focused on Earth’s lunisolar cycle become so beloved?

LIFT OFFWORLD
The United Nations of Earth (UNE) formed in 2380 to unify all of Earth’s nations under one government. It was a historic moment meant to bring people together and facilitate Humanity’s expansion into the stars. At the time, Earth was in a precarious position. Despite having terraformed Mars and the new system of Croshaw, Humanity’s homeworld was still desperately overcrowded and pristine wilderness increasingly scarce. Pollution choked many major cities and people’s quality of life was in decline. While advances in commercial spacecraft and terraforming tech made living offworld possible, it remained extremely expensive to leave Earth and surprisingly difficult to convince people that life offworld might actually be better. To address the issue, the UNE created the Easten Expansion Program to support navjumpers on their search for new frontiers and encourage people to fill colony ships. The program was met with modest success before being rebranded Project Far Star in 2412. Now considered a key driver of the Human Colonial Expansion Era, Project Far Star opened offices in major cities around Earth to recruit colonists, aid explorers with subsidized ship upgrades, and more.

In late 2429, Wendell Dopse visited the Project Far Star office in Shanghai and submitted an application to purchase a discounted jump drive. The application was approved and Dopse received the component in mid-January of 2430. He rushed to install it then meticulously cleaned his ship so it’d be spotless when the Red Festival began on January 25th. According to legend, Wendell Dopse spent the next two weeks celebrating the Red Festival with his family and reconsidering whether or not to leave them. On the final day of the festival, his family attended a lantern festival where Dopse helped his daughter with a particularly difficult riddle. The two spent hours taking in the impressive lanterns and talking through solutions when the answer suddenly struck him. Dopse looked up and saw a solitary lit red lantern rising through the sky. Away from everything else. Off on its own. Convinced it was a sign, he noted its course. Then he said goodbye to his family, raced to his ship, and flew in the direction the red lantern was headed. Days later Dopse discovered the jump from Sol to Davien, upending contemporary scientific thinking that predicted no additional jump point existed in the Sol system.

SPREAD OF THE RED FESTIVAL
Today, many people wonder if Wendell Dopse’s story about the red lantern might have been embellished. They point to numerous voyages Dopse took into that sector of Sol before receiving his jump drive. On those trips he tested and refined new scanning techniques that, after his discovery of Davien, other explorers adopted and inventors integrated into more advanced jump scanning technology. His success inspired others to try their luck launching on the final day of that year’s Red Festival. The practice became so commonplace that several landing zones were forced to place a cap on launches on that day to reduce congestion. They eventually instituted a lottery system to award launch slots after an investigation by the UNE revealed that some landing zone officials were selling slots to the highest bidder.

Shanghai also became considered a lucky place to launch. People traveled from across the world to leave from that landing zone, and many of them celebrated the Red Festival. For decades, the Project Far Star office in Shanghai recruited and helped send more colonists to live offworld than any other. The colonists’ eagerness to go, combined with their comms about what life was really like on these new worlds, convinced millions more to follow. They did and brought the traditions of the Red Festival with them.

In the 25th century, one of the biggest off-Earth celebrations of the Red Festival occurred in Davien where, in 2438, Humanity first encountered the Banu. Since then, Banu traders became a staple of the system and knew to stock their Merchantmans with red items and gilded envelopes around the Red Festival. While no one knows exactly who hid the first envelope for someone to find, the tradition began in Davien and expanded from there. Hiding and searching for these lucky envelopes became commonplace across the empire by the early 26th century, and as the tradition grew in popularity, so did the Red Festival. All thanks in part to Wendell Dopse’s discovery of Davien, the millions of colonists who celebrated the Red Festival, and the Banu who adopted and evolved its traditions.