RyansWorld: Lunar Protectorate

'''Special Note: Please note that this scenario is meant to be read as entertainment, not as an accurate prediction of the future. Also note that the viewpoints and opinions that may come across in this scenario are not necessarily the viewpoints and opinions of the author.'''

The Lunar Protectorate is the name for the collection of cities and colonies that exist on the lunar surface in the 22nd Century. The Moon has its own parliament and can make its own laws on paper, but, as its name suggests, it is a protectorate of the United Nations, dependent on the global economy.

A protectorate, in its inception adopted by modern international law, is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity. In exchange for this, the protectorate usually accepts specified obligations, which may vary greatly, depending on the real nature of their relationship. However, it retains formal sovereignty and remains a state under international law. A territory subject to this type of arrangement is also known as a protected state.

Citizens who were born on the Lunar Protectorate automatically have citizenship in the United States of Earth (eventually becoming the Republic of Sol); allowing them to reside on Earth indefinitely without having to marry a resident of Earth. Citizens born on Earth, however, do not automatically have citizenship on the Lunar Protectorate. Due to its status of being an atheist colony with some freedom of religion allowed, only secular officials (judges, mayors, justices of the peace, etc.) are allowed to perform weddings (same-sex or heterosexual) and funerals on this planet. Religious officials (from Earth or any other planet) will not be allowed to perform wedding and funeral-related rituals as it promotes religion as being "superior to the secular tradition of the Lunar Protectorate."

General summary


The five main political parties are the Social Progressive Liberal Party (pro-civil rights), the Liberal Party (which operates as a moderate party between the Conservatives and the SPLP), the Conservative Party (very pro-small business), the pro-industry Climate Change Party, and the pro-independence Lunar Republic Party (who never gained more than 1% of seats in the Lunar Parliament as of 2251). As the civilized universe's leading manufacturers of kitchen meat incubator devices, unemployment rates on the Lunar Protectorate are always below 4.5%. Kitchen meat incubators may allow users to synthesize their own meat products; thus bringing a permanent end to meat markets and butchers. A set of pre-programmed options allow people to control the size, shape, and texture of the meat that they produce at home without the need to kill animals and through the use of animal DNA. Cheap models simply do the growing of the meat while top-end models would allow users to share in vitro meat recipes to each other through the Intergalactic Web.

A warm summer day on what would be considered to be Earth's July is still -40 degrees Celsius (approximately -40 degrees Fahrenheit). The Moon has been completely terraformed and is dominated by boreal forests. Many of these forests attract year-round tourists from Earth, summer tourists from Venus, winter tourists from Mars and historical tourist groups from the far-away planet of Gliese 581 g. Average life expectancy for people on the Lunar Protectorate is 112.5 for males (and 117 for females).



Single, widowed, and divorced colonists on the Lunar Protectorate enjoy a 90 Earth hour workweek while married colonists only have to enjoy a 45 Earth hour workweek. The concepts of being a homemaker or a stay-at-home parent are almost completely non-existent due to the long work hour requirements for every citizen of the Lunar Protectorate. In addition to voluntary laborers and tourists, penal workers are often "transported" here for morality crimes committed while on Earth; prisoners eventually become stereotyped as deviant gangsters and decertified surgeons. After serving 76% of their 30-year sentence, they can return to Earth provided that they can pay $10,000 in probation fees and pass a psychiatric examination. Returning to Earth at the end of the sentence doesn't require the inmate to pay the probation fees and to undergo the exam.

Most non-penal residents of the Lunar Protectorate are stereotyped as being "aloof space farmers" wearing designer tees and jeans underneath their space suits. Many artifacts from their early colonization period (2066-2106) can be found at the Lunar Protectorate Heritage Wiki on the Intergalactic Web. By the year 2065, it was decided by the High Fashion Council that wearing ex-girlfriend jeans was more cultured than wearing any other style of jeans.

History
Established in the year 2066, the average size of a colony on the Lunar Protectorate is less than 200,000 people although the capital city New Los Angeles has a population of 500,000 people. By the year 2245, the population of New Los Angeles would rise to 5,000,000 people - qualifying the Lunar Protectorate for its own Parliament even as the First Galactic War was grinding to an end. Pornography can be viewed by anyone on this planet; even by children who can sit in a movie theater for two hours. Besides Puerto Rico (which never declared television to be illegal in the first place), television was declared legal here in the year 2106 to protest against the United States of Earth. New Taipei and Lunopolis are two of the largest cities on the surface after New Los Angeles.

Before capitalism was abolished by an act of Parliament in the year 2272, the ultra-elegant Pizza Hut Bistro, the "fancy" coffee shop Starbucks and the former casual hangout place/restaurant Taco Bell managed to open businesses on the Lunar Protectorate and become profitable. The abolition of capitalism on the Moon forced all for-profit corporations to become non-profit organizations on the threat of being arrested for "crimes against the economy." Due to the open-source nature of conducting business on the Lunar Protectorate, a central banking system was never conceived; citing the greed that surrounded the central banks of the Vulgar 20th Century.

Taco Bell allows the use of cannabis everywhere on its property while Pizza Hut Bistro has a separate dining room for "smokers" and a separate dining room for "non-smokers;" similar to Michigan's smoking policy of the early-1990s.

Culture
Most television stations operate on a shoe-string budget offering mostly public domain movies and television sitcoms from the years 1956 through 2006. Very few attempts are made to make original programming and the results are often inferior to classic shows like ALF, All in the Family, and Gilligan's Island. Wikipedia has most of their backup servers based here in order to ward off fears of societal collapse. In the year 2096, the World Wide Web officially became the Galaxy Wide Web when connections to the extraterrestrial colonies were established. There are 72 different television stations operating in the Lunar Protectorate. Some of these signals can be illegally picked up on Earth through Windows Media Player (television was banned on Earth back in the year 2041 due to concerns about strong sexual content and graphic violence). All the 72 television signals are strong enough to be picked up from anywhere on the planet.

When visiting a McDonald's on the Lunar Protectorate, the elderly and small children might feel a faint smell of cannabis at all times. Cannabis use in the Lunar Protectorate is a civil right and is not illegal; financial programs are put in place for people in poverty to balance their bills, groceries and occasional cannabis use at the same time. While not everyone uses cannabis, people are required to respect cannabis users on the Lunar Protectorate. Stigmatizing them can result in anything from a $500 fine to 5 years in jail depending on the social status of that person. There are no television or movie ratings system on this planet; anyone can go see an explicit film as easily as they can see a Walt Disney feature film. Online public schools are for-profit on this protectorate unlike the rest of the civilized universe where it is considered to be not-for-profit. Unlike the United States of Earth, the Lunar Protectorate never ratified the Better Entertainment Act of 2018.

Christianity never gains much of a foothold on the Lunar Protectorate. Instead, religions like Islam (observed by 15% of the planet's residents), Buddhism (observed by 10% of legal residents), Hinduism (observed by 5% of the population) and atheism (observed by 60% of the planet's residents) are considered to be the norm. The 10% who do practice Christianity on the Lunar Protectorate tend to live in rural skyscraper farming collectives and have an average age of 44 for males (and 46 for females). Religious clerics and members of the clergy are restricted to doing basic worship services on the Lunar Protectorate; only secular officials are permitted to perform weddings and funerals by the laws of the Lunar Protectorate.

Would you live on the Lunar Protectorate? Yes, if there are the right kind of jobs for me. Yes, but only if my friends came along with me. Not until I win the lottery again win millions of dollars. No, because I don't want to lose my friends and I don't want to have to start over in a strange planet. What would you hate the worst about the Lunar Protectorate? The weather is too cold. I don't like the idea of cannabis being legal for all adults. I don't want my son/daughter being able to view violent movies. Nothing