Mercury is the smallest planet in the Solar System and the closest to the Sun. Its orbit around the Sun takes 87.97 Earth days, the shortest of all the Sun's planets. It is named after the Roman god Mercurius (Mercury), god of commerce, messenger of the gods, and mediator between gods and mortals, corresponding to the Greek god Hermes (Ἑρμῆς).
History[]
In the 2080s, Mexico began a program to develop an alternative to reliance on the American monopoly on Helium-3 for fusion power. Alternatives using Tritium-Deuterium Fusion using terrestrially harvested sources of Tritium, however advances in quantum power transfer technology made the prospect of space-based solar power a viable option. Partially supported by Mexico's efforts to establish a military presence in space, Mexico established a research colony at Chao Meng-Fu crater at the Mercurial South Pole, later renamed Ōmeyōcān.
Over the next 20 years Mexico's colonies on the South pole grew to host a population of 6 million people controlling and maintaining a fleet of tens of millions of drones all dedicated to stripping the Mercurial surface of usable materials for the ultimate goal of building a Solar Power Dyson Swarm. By the time Project Ahuiateteo's true purpose was revealed, Mexico had successfully deployed enough solar power satellites to double the total energy out of the Latin American Union.
Fearing Mexico potentially supplanting the US as the premier world power, the United States Space Force commanded its colonists at Borealis to commence a similar effort to catch up to Mexico. This led to a literal competition for resources between American and Mexican drones that has severely hindered both country's efforts to increase the capacity of their respective Dyson Swarm as a relative stalemate on the planet's terminator between dueling swarms of drones prevents the access to the bulk of Mercury's resources.
Post-war the Mexican and American Dyson Swarms were amalgamated into the Sol Dyson Sphere, and planetary mining rapidly accelerated.