Memorial Foundation

Memorial Foundation is one of the three factions in Heaven Will Be Mine. It represents the Space program, and the advancing of Culture's agenda in struggling for a foothold in reality.

Description
Memorial Foundation is currently represented by its single remaining loyal branch, Native Sphere Existential Safety (NSES). The NSES branch is tasked with protecting humanity from theoretical threats outside of the native sphere. Its other branches included Existential Research (NSER), which was tasked with charting paths forward into the future, and Existential Expansion (NSEE), which was tasked with preparing planets with the physical and cultural terraforming necessary to sustain human life.

The Return Resolution
At the beginning of the game, the player is shown a sequence of documents regarding the stance and progression of the three factions following the onset of the war in space. The Return Resolution, dated January 1, 1980, reads:

It’s January 1, 1980.

And the long and Cold War, where humanity united against its nemesis, an Existential Threat from beyond the stars, has been over for a long time.

Since the fifties, we have been fighting a war against an Existential Threat that we cannot understand, cannot perceive, and is powerless against the technology of Earth.

That is a pretty stupid sort of war to fight, isn’t it, when there’s enough of a mess down here to worry about. Humanity is already the undisputed authority of reality, and we have the physics to prove it. It’s time to return to Earth (♁), our home, the seat of the universe.

Before Earth takes us back in pieces, let’s go home with grace.

On the first anniversary of the decommissioning of the International Space Program, we, Memorial Foundation Native Sphere Existential Safety, in agreement with our home planet’s unanimous decision, declare:

There is no future for humanity in space.

Let’s come home.

—The Return Resolution, Memorial Foundation Native Sphere Existential Safety

History
Memorial Foundation was formed from the remaining members of the original space program, and represents the Earth in the war between factions, although it is acknowledged by at least Luna-Terra that it is unlikely that humanity would welcome them back.

Memorial Foundation briefly occupied the failed colony in Ares, leaving in August of 1978.

Affiliations
Luna-Terra, the once double-crosser of the organization, is currently contracted to Memorial Foundation as a bounty hunter, currently tasked with the job of retrieving Saturn and the stolen Interloper Prototype String of Pearls that was developed in secret by Celestial Mechanics.

At the present, there is a recently-concluded truce amongst the three factions due to the leaking and theft of the Interloper Prototype String of Pearls by Celestial Mechanics standby test pilot Saturn.

End of Truce email from NSES Speaker Hallimede
SUBJECT: TRUCE ENDING EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

ORIGIN: Native Sphere Mass Communication

AUTHOR: Memorial Foundation Existential Safety

To all members of the former Memorial Foundation Native Sphere Existential Research Division, now known as Celestial Mechanics, this message serves as a formal acknowledgement that this branch has violated our trust and broken the provisions of the 1981 Memorial Foundation Consensus by violating clause 3, the development of a variable gravity engine, and clause 7, installation of a variable gravity engine into the Ship-Self String of Pearls.

Celestial Mechanics will no longer be listed as part of Memorial Foundation. They will be formally re-listed as an independent entity and considered a true Existential Threat by Memorial Foundation Native Sphere Existential Safety. We are still offering forgiveness, so please defect as soon as possible while the appeal grace period is still in effect. Please otherwise expect tidal retaliation for existential endangerment of human Culture.

—Halimede, Princess, Memorial Foundation Native Sphere Existential Safety

External communication from Memorial Foundation troops
As the game progresses, the player is shown a sequence of comms from various participating entities affiliated with the three factions, detailing their perspective of the war in space following its onset. An external communication sent by a group of Memorial Foundation troops, dated August 31, 1978, reads:

Ever since the day Mars began, Mars has been doomed.

No, there will never be a planet "Mars." That’s a name reserved for places where human life, gravity, and Culture reign.

This is just bitter Ares. But like the stringy, inedible weeds that grow when nothing else does, Cradle’s Graces is dug in, and we can’t get them out.

The colonies are wrecked, the terraforming engines are broken, the gravity furnaces are out of control. There’s no resources left on this planet, no strategic value. This planet doesn’t even exist. It is an inert rock.

There’s no point in fighting. There’s no need to fight. Ship-Selves can’t keep you alive alone forever, and even if that was the case, we could leave tomorrow and claim victory. Most of the Memorial Foundation NSES fleet already did. That’s why there’s barely any of us left, and why we can’t get them out.

What, why don’t I go home too? And leave all those idiots to just fucking die on a rock?

Who do you think we’re doing this for?

External communication sent on August 31, 1978 by Memorial Foundation troops.