At the height of the He-3 boom, nearly every Earth power ran a mining concern on Luna. Competition turned to sabotage; prisec bloodshed mounted. After Prosperity Mining Depot was bombed and hundreds of Melange miners died, Lunar workers demanded Earth punish the corps.

Diplomacy dragged. To Loonies—mocked as such by Earth Netcasters—the message was that Lunar lives ranked below Earth's appetite for fusion fuel. A motley alliance of workers and colonists rose: the Lunar Insurrection.

Earth and corporate responses escalated the crisis into the full Worlds War. Post-war Heinlein and Melange's monopoly rewrote Lunar power politics; many Loonies still distrust Earth risties and corps.