Maiko's Note
Robert B. Dunlin was not a utopian. He was a cartographer of freedom.
And like all good cartographers, he saw where the roads ended.
While governments drafted treaties and empires redrew gravity wells into frontlines, Dunlin asked a question too dangerous for Earth to allow: What if we don’t play their game?
He didn’t rage. He didn’t rebel. He left.
The Empire would later call him a dangerous idealist. But every child of Endunedul who runs freely under the stars walks the path he cleared.
The records carved into temple stone? I decoded their source files. They are his words. His hopes.
He did not build a ship. He built a seed.
And from it, the forest grew.
Visionary of the Stars
Robert B. Dunlin and the Rothbard Foundation
Faction:
Rothbard Foundation
"We do not flee Earth. We preserve its liberty in the stars."
– Robert B. Dunlin, keynote speech at the First Interstellar Colonization Summit, 2094
1. Overview
Robert B. Dunlin (born 2038 - died aboard Theseus in 2118) was the founder of the Rothbard Foundation and the ideological father of the generation ship mission that would eventually lead humanity to Madun. A scholar, visionary, and idealist, Dunlin championed a radical philosophy of libertarian anarchy, envisioning a civilization freed from Earth’s centralized power structures.
2. The Rothbard Foundation
Founded in 2079, the Rothbard Foundation was named after economist and political theorist Murray Rothbard. It attracted a global cohort of wealthy patrons, scientists, engineers, and idealists seeking to create a new society - free from coercion, built on voluntary cooperation, and founded on the principles of self-governance.
Under Dunlin’s leadership, the Foundation quietly amassed funds, talent, and technologies. The result was the Theseus, humanity’s first viable generation ship. Construction began in 2083 in Earth orbit, hidden behind a veil of scientific diplomacy and private aerospace initiatives.
3. Why Leave Earth?
Dunlin’s decision to abandon Earth was not born of escapism, but of principled exile. By the mid-21st century, the planet’s political map had hardened into a grim parody of unity. Once a tapestry of diverse nations, Earth had been absorbed into three global superstructures:
The United West - a bloc of Western democracies consolidated into a single bureaucratic entity, increasingly dominated by corporate-state alliances. In Dunlin’s view, it had become an American empire cloaked in liberal ideals.
The Global Solidarity Pact - a counterforce led by Eastern and Global South nations, forged in opposition to Western dominance. While outwardly promoting anti-imperialism and equity, it too evolved into a tightly controlled hierarchy of party elites.
The Prosperity Conglomerate - a loose confederation of countries left out of the first two, promising economic growth and inclusion. In truth, it was a fragile shell propped up by resource extraction, corruption, and debt dependency.
To Dunlin, these Unions were not ideological choices, but monopolies of power. Each promised prosperity and order. None offered freedom.
“I do not fear empires ruled by emperors. I fear empires ruled by committees.”
– Robert Dunlin, private correspondence, 2081
There was, in his words, “no corner of Earth left to step outside the system.” So he looked up - and made a new path.
4. The Brink of the System War
As the Theseus neared final readiness, tension across the inner Solar System escalated to the edge of total war. The three great Earth-based power blocs - The United West, The Global Solidarity Pact, and The Prosperity Conglomerate - had extended their influence far beyond the atmosphere, colonizing orbital stations, asteroid mining hubs, and planetary outposts from the Moon to Titan.
What began as territorial disputes over orbital real estate and Martian water rights quickly evolved into militarized standoffs across key transit corridors - Ceres, the Lagrange Gateways, the Kuiper lanes. Economic sabotage, espionage, and sabotage of launch windows became common. Trade convoys disappeared in deep space. The first shots had not been officially fired, but no one doubted they soon would be.
It was in this climate that Robert Dunlin, despite - or perhaps because of - his idealism, accelerated the launch timetable of the Theseus. He knew that once war erupted, any unaligned vessel of generational scale would be seized or destroyed under emergency pretexts by the Union space forces. Colonization, once a vision of human flourishing, was now just another theater of imperial contest.
On the day of departure, the Theseus left orbit under silent protocols, its transponder cloaked, its mission file scrubbed. The crew awoke to find Earth already a fading blue spark behind them. Dunlin had stolen their future from the jaws of collapse - not out of cowardice, but out of defiance.
"We did not flee Earth," he later recorded. "We escaped its gravity - in every sense."
5. Dunlin’s Role
Dunlin personally oversaw every stage of the mission: from the selection of settlers (based on ideological compatibility and skill diversity), to the educational systems designed to preserve values aboard ship, to the long-term plan for planetary colonization. He never lived to see Madun, dying of old age decades before arrival - but his speeches, writings, and philosophy remain etched into the foundation of the Endulani culture, the only group to retain his teachings.
Legacy
Though the mission fractured after arrival, and the Foundation dissolved into myth for many, Dunlin’s ideas live on in scattered ways across the cultures of Shawadjàn. The Endulani, especially, revere him not as a prophet but as a wise ancestor - someone who tried to give freedom a second chance.
Monuments and fragments of his speeches still survive, carved into the stone walls of Endulani temples and preserved in the oral traditions of the Shint’twalani.
7. Factions of Pre-Departure Earth
The Rothbard Foundation
A libertarian-anarchist research and colonization initiative founded by Robert B. Dunlin. Their goal was to escape centralized planetary powers and establish a new, decentralized civilization among the stars. Builders of the Theseus.The United West
A technocratic superstate formed from Western democracies. Presents itself as a beacon of freedom, but operates under the tight control of a political elite. Dominant in AI development, economic control, and orbital infrastructure.The Global Solidarity Pact
A rival global power bloc formed in reaction to Western hegemony. Centered around collectivist ideals, environmental restoration, and social equity—though in practice often equally authoritarian. Controls much of Earth's southern hemisphere and major lunar habitats.
The Prosperity Conglomerate
A loose alliance of nations and corporate holdings left out of the other two blocs. Despite its name, it largely consists of Earth’s poorest regions, exploited for labor and resources by the more powerful Unions. Known for megacities, industrial sprawl, and raw material export.The Solar Defense Consensus
A fragile agreement between the three Unions to regulate weapons and troop movements in space. Collapsing tensions between factions led to its breakdown shortly before the Theseus launched.The Interstellar Exit Protocol
An emergency lockdown plan - never officially activated - designed to prevent unauthorized vessels from leaving the Solar System. Dunlin feared it would be triggered before Theseus could escape.The Theseus
A generational starship secretly funded and launched by the Rothbard Foundation. It carried volunteers into deep space to create a new civilization free from the constraints of Earth's failing power structures.
Maiko's Note
Robert B. Dunlin was not a utopian. He was a cartographer of freedom.
And like all good cartographers, he saw where the roads ended.
While governments drafted treaties and empires redrew gravity wells into frontlines, Dunlin asked a question too dangerous for Earth to allow: What if we don’t play their game?
He didn’t rage. He didn’t rebel. He left.
The Empire would later call him a dangerous idealist. But every child of Endunedul who runs freely under the stars walks the path he cleared.
The records carved into temple stone? I decoded their source files. They are his words. His hopes.
He did not build a ship. He built a seed.
And from it, the forest grew.
