Projekt Utopia
Membership and training are open to all interested novas, under the direction of Drs. Henri Mazarin and Farah Rashoud (who are said to hold true authority over the Project). Utopia's most famous programs include Team Tomorrow, nova teams trained to deal with large-scale emergencies; its many Rashoud Facilities, training and support centres for newly Erupted novas; and Operation Eden, a terraforming project which famous turned Addis Ababa and Ethiopia into the "breadbasket of Africa". It also runs many smaller projects ranging from marketing to scientific research, to maintain funding and further its cause in every aspect of human life.
The Project was publicly announced on August 13, 1998, though it had existed for a few months prior. Initially controlled by Margaret Mercer, directorship was transferred to Justin J. Laragione when Utopia when public. Many prominent novas at the time signed up with Utopia immediately, including Antaeus, Steve Debow, Trudy Vandermann, Lightning and Caestus Pax.
On December 8 the same year, the Triton Foundation donated US $10 million to to help fund Mazarin and Rashoud's future research on novas, following the publication of their seminal paper, Nova Powers and Physiology: Initial Findings and Observations. The first Rashoud facility opened in New York on September 8, 1999. Despite initial fears from some that the facilities are little more than Utopia recruitment offices, the first is successful and many more are built all over the world.
Team Tomorrow were revealed to the world on January 1, 1999 amid a media frenzy, instantly raising Utopia's public profile; their first operation, a few weeks later, capturing the leaders of Islamic Dawn in Iran, is a great success.
In the months following the Moscow Crash, Utopian novas assisted with relief efforts worldwide and eventually come up with a plan to alleviate the financial crisis. Despite this and its work to prevent problems associated with the Millennium bug, the Project starts to attract criticism, with sceptics worrying about its independence, seeming power over the UN and almost perfect public approval rating. Despite this, Utopia's popularity only rises in the wake of Operation Clean Sweep, a global environmental clean-up in which the Ozone layer is repaired and atmospheric CFCs eliminated
