Praesidium Qetesh

Qetesh

The Qetesh Praesidium is a large structure sitting in the upper atmosphere of Venus. The aerostat is just over a kilometer across, and has fifteen decks, not counting the mechanical sections and engineering space under the main dome. The praesidium has major economic ties to the Atlantic Federation, New Themyscira, and the Pacific Rim Coalition as well as several biogen corporate collectives and the InGen hypercorp.

In exchange for the routine advancements and improvements being made to the Glamorian phenoclade, along with a steady supply of cultural exports, the investors in Qetesh keep the facility in operational status.

The Glamourian Phenoclade

With human morphology now as malleable as clay on a potter's wheel, it was of little surprise that there would be a group of people interested and invested in creating the ultimate expression of female beauty. This was highly subjective, and was at the mercy of their whims and fetishes. The pursuit of the perfect female form was the second largest sink of genetic research and development, surpassed only by military supersoldier programs. Few went as far as creating an entirely new phenoclade, most were content with a piecemeal approach. Qetesh was chartered to create female perfection. The end result of this was the Glamourian phenoclade. The Glamourian is a highly engineered and stylized representation of a woman; strikingly tall, large breasts, narrow waist, large hips, and body sculpting for very high symmetry and features.

There is another name for the Glamourian clade, Bimbo. In the parlance of the Cosmic Era, a Bimbo isn't just a young woman of dubious intelligence and willing to be used as a sex object. It is a pejorative for women who undergo cosmetic modification to make themselves more sexualized. There are certainly Bimbo mods, especially with things like brain alteration, nerve tracing, genital modification, and so forth, to make them even more proficient at sexual interaction. The Glamourian doesn't have any of these mods. The Glamourian in a holistic package, a full deal. The majority of women who undergo the phenocladistic treatment have further enhancements made, including synaptic upgrades, and half opt for cybernetic upgrades.

Glamourians are more likely to be Human+ than the average population, smarter, healthier, and longer lived. They just happen to do it with a figure more suited to the covers of sex feeds or vintage art books.

Cultural Exports

Fashion: Qetesh has a large number of clothing designers and decorators who are involved in setting new trends in clothing and seasonal themes. The praesidium is a crucible of fashion design. This isn't runway reality show fare, but rather entire dream tank and research accelerator programs based around creating memetic expression and emotional states through the use of materials, colors, and textures.

Entertainment Feeds: With a strong basis in creating culture, Qetesh has a vibrant entertainment industry. This industry isn't based around creating the actual feeds, but is rather more involved in entertainment mining of the print media available in the CogNet (manga, comics, novels, fanfic), creating storyboards, and pitches for new entertainment themes. The facility creates a large amount of drama themes, romantic themes, rom-coms, and saucy sit-coms.

Pornography: Qetesh unsurprisingly is involved in creating pornography. As mentioned above, it isn't so much the actual production and distribution side. Unlike traditional vignette based porn, Qetesh is focused on high end SimSense porn, designed and marketed for women. This is a large part of the praesidium's income.

Daeva

Qetesh is named after an Egyptian fertility goddess. The center of the praesidium is the Daeva AISC. The AISC runs the entire aerostat, along with 2 subordinate L/AISC units. These run a significant amount of automation, limiting the amount of crew and personnel the facility needs to operate. Qetesh is unique among praesidiums as almost every member of the facility has a CogLink, allowing them near constant connection to the system. The residents do not have dedicated quarters, instead have racks that they sleep in, and link up in. Other facilities are communal, such as mess areas and restrooms. The 'private quarters' are actual virtual, inside the Daeva node of the CogNet. Each resident has a palatial home, with servants, and all the trappings of decadent luxury.

The question that we ask, is this real? It technically isn't. Does it matter? When we are tied into Daeva, it feels real, it looks real, it tastes real. Does it matter then that it is an illusion? That we sleep with a feeding tube, and catheters, that our palace is nothing more than a bunk in a rack of bunks? I've gotten used to the tubes, and I sleep well, and I live in two worlds to your one.

Plot Hooks

Any Port in the Storm - Qetesh is a small and relatively isolated location, deliberately placed in the atmosphere of Venus for thematic reasons (an all female praesidium should be floating in the skies of the planet named after a goddess instead of a god). As a cloistered location, it is a good place to put the McGuffin, or the VIP, or to serve as a good place to lay low for a while. The Glamourians are excellent diplomats and negotiators, as most people instinctively underestimate them, and assume that because of their looks that they are daft.

Genetic Codices - the praesidium is a repository of genetic information and gene splicing labs. As such, it is innately valuable. When it comes to covert augmentation, it isn't uncommon for operatives to be sent to locations like Qetesh for augments. The same goes for those rare individuals who enter protection programs. Few things are safer than offworld colonies with limited physical access.