Well, sort of - I'd prefer some sort of explanation for it, even if it involves handwaving. (I rolled it up using Bk3 or was it Starter Traveller.)
Hellholes of the Third Imperium
- Thread starter captainjack
- Start date
Well, sort of - I'd prefer some sort of explanation for it, even if it involves handwaving. (I rolled it up using Bk3 or was it Starter Traveller.)
captainjack
SOC-13
In the meantime, here is one I wrote up over at Mongoose's site due to a discussion about how high tech high pop industrial world might reasonably also qualify as poor.
Stolen directly from our own Golan, I present a High tech, industrial high population Poor World......
Nevis B5339DC-C
Originally a hardscrabble colonial outpost, half penal colony, half dumping ground for losers and refugees from the collapse of the Vilani Empire, Nevis entered the long night in great obscurity and remained there until recontacted early in the third Imperium. Minimally habitable, and possessed of no great natural or artificial resources, Nevis shuddered along with only occasional contact and no known raids. Population –originally estimated to be in the 6-7 range was dropping (estimated 5 at recontact), and the local government had become quite repressive in encouraging austerity and survival at all costs.
Ironically, recontact by scout service encouraged the government to bankrupt the remaining resources and economy in attempting to find a local resource to export. And find it they did. A life form native to an inner, less pleasant planet in the system was transplanted to Nevis, in the hopes of developing a new source of protein. Unfortunately, it failed to completely adapt; and while it grew modestly, it was unable to reproduce , and additionally required intensive culturing to survive. All in all it would have been written off as yet another disaster in the colonies miserable history; except that final studies found that one result of decay after the life forms death was capable of easy processing into <insert really, really cool spice ,drug or pharmaceutical>, locally referred to as Freem. Attempts to process the product on its native planet failed, and it became clear that the final product was a result of the source life form having initial exposure to its home environment, partial adaptation to Nevis’ ecosystem, and the interaction of native & Terran decay organisms following death; Further, the longer the lifeform was able to survive on Nevis, the greater the yield of Freem.
The local Government petitioned for, and received partial intervention by the scout service, allowing them to control access to the crucial final steps in the process, and to be able to negotiate its export from a position of strength; once deals were signed, and bribes finalized, the Government appealed for limited economic contact with its new partners, and the favored megacorps simultaneously turned the screws for access from the other side. *
The result of the discovery, and the subsequent development of the processing industry and economic boom was to either save the planet or doom it, depending on which side of the fence you lived on.
The need to produce the lifeforms on their native planet and then safely gather and move them to Nevis for secondary habituation (and eventually processing) pulled in significant off planet capital to massively expand the offworld infrastructure and spaceport , and resulted in a boom to nevis’ previously rudimentary space capacity. Off planet corporations involved in <fill in the blank with the wicked exploitive substance industry> shovelled money into the main city, and generously padded the accounts of the the local government and the few wealthy native industrialists. Rapidly a huge infrastructure was built on Nevis, absolutely dedicated to the management and production of Freem.
As the boom continued, money and technology rapidly became available, and the only remaining bottleneck was population – the husbandry required on Nevis was highly manpower intensive, and absolutely crucial. Accordingly, as time passed and the credits rolled in, the government moved or forced most of the agricultural and industrial population into Freem production, and simply purchased needed food and goods from off planet. Additional labor was obtained by the same means that Nevis was originally settled by, as well as the reintroduction locally of the concept of immigration indentures.
Today, the system is a monument (of sorts) to the company town system of industry and a monoculture economy; almost no-one living in the system is uninvolved with the Freem trade, and the vast bulk of the population is little more than subsistence labor, generally hideously indebted to the government. It also should be noted that most of the rank and file suffer from the addictive nature of Freem, and would have significant problems leaving the system.
Thus, life on Nevis can only be said to have improved for the worse; there have been several investigations of reports of outright slavery on the planet, but the government and corporations involved have always been able to just skirt Imperial intervention. There have also been attempts to “export” the source of Freem, but all have failed – as a result, the “customs” patrol in the Nevis system is extremely large, tough and hardbitten. Similarly, with a huge mass of workers to manage, the police militia is also large, well equipped, and almost entirely composed of off planet advisors. The government is still completely native, but almost all administrative and management positions in the “Nevis General Freem Corporation” are offworlders employed by the guest megacorps. The government has not changed except thru death or petty internal intrigues**, is still highly controlling and repressive, and completely self perpetuating . Indeed, the governing class is essentially hereditary, and, for all intents and purposes, a ruling caste.
* It should be noted that the “Freem Scandal” (as the wholesale manipulation of the IISS contact regulations
came to be known), did result in a complete revision of contact and interdiction procedures, as well as not a few retirements in the Scout Administration.
**for instance, the vice minister of economic development being fired and his responsibilities divided up between the Ag department and the department of trade; not exactly a tanks-in-the-square type of coup.
Stolen directly from our own Golan, I present a High tech, industrial high population Poor World......
Nevis B5339DC-C
Originally a hardscrabble colonial outpost, half penal colony, half dumping ground for losers and refugees from the collapse of the Vilani Empire, Nevis entered the long night in great obscurity and remained there until recontacted early in the third Imperium. Minimally habitable, and possessed of no great natural or artificial resources, Nevis shuddered along with only occasional contact and no known raids. Population –originally estimated to be in the 6-7 range was dropping (estimated 5 at recontact), and the local government had become quite repressive in encouraging austerity and survival at all costs.
Ironically, recontact by scout service encouraged the government to bankrupt the remaining resources and economy in attempting to find a local resource to export. And find it they did. A life form native to an inner, less pleasant planet in the system was transplanted to Nevis, in the hopes of developing a new source of protein. Unfortunately, it failed to completely adapt; and while it grew modestly, it was unable to reproduce , and additionally required intensive culturing to survive. All in all it would have been written off as yet another disaster in the colonies miserable history; except that final studies found that one result of decay after the life forms death was capable of easy processing into <insert really, really cool spice ,drug or pharmaceutical>, locally referred to as Freem. Attempts to process the product on its native planet failed, and it became clear that the final product was a result of the source life form having initial exposure to its home environment, partial adaptation to Nevis’ ecosystem, and the interaction of native & Terran decay organisms following death; Further, the longer the lifeform was able to survive on Nevis, the greater the yield of Freem.
The local Government petitioned for, and received partial intervention by the scout service, allowing them to control access to the crucial final steps in the process, and to be able to negotiate its export from a position of strength; once deals were signed, and bribes finalized, the Government appealed for limited economic contact with its new partners, and the favored megacorps simultaneously turned the screws for access from the other side. *
The result of the discovery, and the subsequent development of the processing industry and economic boom was to either save the planet or doom it, depending on which side of the fence you lived on.
The need to produce the lifeforms on their native planet and then safely gather and move them to Nevis for secondary habituation (and eventually processing) pulled in significant off planet capital to massively expand the offworld infrastructure and spaceport , and resulted in a boom to nevis’ previously rudimentary space capacity. Off planet corporations involved in <fill in the blank with the wicked exploitive substance industry> shovelled money into the main city, and generously padded the accounts of the the local government and the few wealthy native industrialists. Rapidly a huge infrastructure was built on Nevis, absolutely dedicated to the management and production of Freem.
As the boom continued, money and technology rapidly became available, and the only remaining bottleneck was population – the husbandry required on Nevis was highly manpower intensive, and absolutely crucial. Accordingly, as time passed and the credits rolled in, the government moved or forced most of the agricultural and industrial population into Freem production, and simply purchased needed food and goods from off planet. Additional labor was obtained by the same means that Nevis was originally settled by, as well as the reintroduction locally of the concept of immigration indentures.
Today, the system is a monument (of sorts) to the company town system of industry and a monoculture economy; almost no-one living in the system is uninvolved with the Freem trade, and the vast bulk of the population is little more than subsistence labor, generally hideously indebted to the government. It also should be noted that most of the rank and file suffer from the addictive nature of Freem, and would have significant problems leaving the system.
Thus, life on Nevis can only be said to have improved for the worse; there have been several investigations of reports of outright slavery on the planet, but the government and corporations involved have always been able to just skirt Imperial intervention. There have also been attempts to “export” the source of Freem, but all have failed – as a result, the “customs” patrol in the Nevis system is extremely large, tough and hardbitten. Similarly, with a huge mass of workers to manage, the police militia is also large, well equipped, and almost entirely composed of off planet advisors. The government is still completely native, but almost all administrative and management positions in the “Nevis General Freem Corporation” are offworlders employed by the guest megacorps. The government has not changed except thru death or petty internal intrigues**, is still highly controlling and repressive, and completely self perpetuating . Indeed, the governing class is essentially hereditary, and, for all intents and purposes, a ruling caste.
* It should be noted that the “Freem Scandal” (as the wholesale manipulation of the IISS contact regulations
came to be known), did result in a complete revision of contact and interdiction procedures, as well as not a few retirements in the Scout Administration.
**for instance, the vice minister of economic development being fired and his responsibilities divided up between the Ag department and the department of trade; not exactly a tanks-in-the-square type of coup.
Last edited:
Renaissance Man
SOC-12
Nasiya
Pre intervention: C788522-8 P Ga Ag NI
Post-intervention – C788532-8 Ga Ag NI
Hot World
Secondary Faction (Type 0) The Cabadan Crime Syndicate
Unusual Custom -- Sex
Nasiya is a backwater world with approximately 300,000 inhabitants clinging to a number of islands at the southern pole, where the temprature is moderate enough (average 30 degrees) to easily sustain life. The rest of the world is covered by a single vast ocean, with a small continent at the equator that is far too hot to sustain life (averaging 70 degrees). The nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere is laden with water vapour, which, combined with the heat of the world makes for massive, violent storms, some of which lasting for months at a time. Life in the island states of Nasiya might be considered a tropical paradise, were it not for the stifling humidity and constant threat of titanic storms. Nasiya has two, small, misshapen rocks as moons, causing subtle tides.
The first inhabitants were Solomani colonists from the Rule of Man, and their descendants remain as the bulk of its permanent population. The Long Night decimated the colony however, driving it back to the stone age and erasing all but the faintest memory of the Nasiyian's interstellar past. Their climb back to a modicum of modernity has been a slow one, since Nasiya has little to offer in terms of interstelller trade. Things began to change however, as the Imperial naval presence in the subsector became thinner and intersteller travellers came to rely on Nasiya as a shadowport and haven for smuggling and vice.
The culture of the Nasiyians has a number of peculiarities which might have attracted less-than-savoury intersteller travellers. First, they are fiercely independent, respect freedom and free thinking, and sympathize with those who might bridle at Imperial laws and customs. Second, all of the island states share a strong tradition of hospitality, mutual aid and openness to outsiders, a necessary precondition to a functional society under such environmental duress. Third, they are unusually permissive in matters of sex and sexuality, and typically form polyamorous bonds involving three or more members of varying sexes. This last characteristic is an artifact of the initial difficulties faced by the Solomani colonists during the Long Night -- to avoid dieback and maintain genetic diversity, the government of the time mandated multiple sex partners. This policy remained in place for so long that it became a cultural norm as enduring as the monogamous pair-bond typical among many groups of humaniti. Jealousy is considered a great sin, and is ruthelessly repressed. Most Nasiyians are functionally bisexual, though heterosexual preferences are considered normative.
New sexual partners are readily accepted on either a casual (called hurriya) or permanent (matun) basis. Rituals are performed in either case to commemorate and sanctify the event. With hurriya, small gifts are exchanged and a song is traditionally sung loudly by the participants, with the purpose of informing others in the social group that the event will take place. This notification is vitally important as a courtesy to others who may have hurriya or matun relations with the participants, allowing them to forestall feelings of jealousy or mistrust. In practice, today hurriya is often done by merely notifying others publicly (which is more proper) or privately (which is frowned upon) of the coming sexual encounter. To not do so is considered shameful and carries as much or even more stigma than infidelity in monogamous society. Matun relations are more involved, carry a number of privleges and responsibilites centred around a common child-rearing and economic life. It is expected that most members of society be bonded through matun fairly soon after they reach sexual maturity. Matuniyas are given the right to and responsibility for children – any children born from hurriya relations must be given to a matuniya. Nasiyans have a robust tradition of adoption and fostering, though contraceptives have made the practice less necessary.
Because of the practice of hurriya, Nasiya became something of an attractive layover for the crews of merchant vessels and other curious travellers. Hurriya is often perceived as prostitution to outsiders, and indeed, with many Nasiyans in poverty, necessity precedes attraction as the primary motive for their sexual acts with outworlders. The exchange of gifts commensurate to ones station is nevertheless a necessary part of the hurriya ritual and is not seen as shameful in any way to other Nasiyans. While offworlders unfamiliar with the practice may find the expectation of payment in Imperial credits perfectly mundane, they are often puzzled that their Nasiyan "prostitute" insists on giving them a small charm, dance or other work of art before performing the deed.
Over time, the presence of interstellar traffic polarized wealth in the society, making settlement heads and their kin very wealthy at the expense of the average citizen. Until recently, the main government on the world was nominally comprised of overlapping layers of participatory democratic institutions, many citizens live too marginal an existence to take an active part in politics. A rival power had also risen to great prominence on the world - a large clan of local criminals and offworlders called the Cabadan Syndicate. Their base of support was in Cabadan state, the second largest island in the polar archipelago. The Syndicate was initially quite useful to the central government as an arm's length conduit for outworlder wealth. While Nasiyan's must be acquiescent to the Third Imperium on the surface, they understood that without the black market trade the local economy would collapse. The government pretended to pursue the Syndicate and the Syndicate pretended to care, operating with some measure of discretion and allowing both to prosper. However, the criminal element of Nasiya eventually became so rich that it moved into markets elsewhere in the subsector, perhaps even beyond. The Cabadan syndicate of Nasiya has in recent decades become extremely wealthy and powerful, and eventually it attracted the attention of the Imperial authorities for crimes ranging from smuggling to bank fraud to piracy.
The IISS understood that as a participatory democracy, the Nasiyan government required public assent to truly pursue an active policy against the Syndicate. And because the Nasiyan public recognized that without the Syndicate the economy would collapse and Nasiya's development would stall, public assent would require a massive bribe. "Plan Nasiya" was minted by a newly appointed Duke to be just that. The Nasiyan government would recieve billions of credits of military and economic aid, but would have to strengthen its police force, attack Syndicate strongholds and turn over captured Syndicate leaders to Imperial law. All of this was controversial from the beginning. But when the new policy resulted in scads of civilian and police deaths as the Syndicate turned to intimidation and terrorism, the public united against the Syndicate. Pressure mounted, which led to more Syndicate reprisals. The heads of some of the Syndicate's regional operations were captured or killed which led to power vacuums and infighting. Imperial naval intelligence, diplomatic representatives, military "advisors" and megacorporations had an active hand in Nasiyan affairs, pushing the planet to civil war.
The situation on Nasiya deteriorated quickly. The initial public enthusiasm for Plan Nasiya faded as the bodies piled up. The Nasiyan army seized control of towns and cities and expelled police forces considered too corrupt to do their jobs, an unprecedented move that sparked heavy resentment. Meanwhile, the massive Syndicate became even more dangerous and unpredictable as the many factions waged open battles in streets and starports on Nasiya and many other systems. The threat of open Imperial intervention was very real. A number of political citizens opposing the further implementation of Plan Nasiya were assassinated by Imperial elements.
A group of local anti-Cabadan politicians backed by the Imperium effected a coup. Calling themselves the League for a New Nasiya (LNN), they suspended the Nasiyan democratic institutions "temporarily" and established a security state, ostensibly to rid the world of the "terroristic and criminal Cabadan Syndicate."
Imperial Marine special forces directly attacked the Cabadan pirate base and fought openly with syndicate operatives. After years of smuggling contraband, with near limitless resources, the Syndicate was almost as well armed as the Imperial detachment sent to deal with them. The ensuing warfare engulfed the whole system. 200,000 Nasiyans died as a result of the initial conflict. Thousands more would die in the following two years as the remnants of the Syndicate aligned themselves with anti-government guerrillas and Nasiyan nationalists against the occupying force. Unwilling to get bogged down in a long-term engagement on a planet of so little intrinsic value, the Imperium withdrew, satisfied that the Cabadan Syndicate had been rendered harmless. The League was eventually overthrown, and a new government with extremely anti-Imperium views is now in power. The impressive democratic forms of the previous era are promised, but have yet to materialize. The people are restive but exhausted and very, very poor.
Pre intervention: C788522-8 P Ga Ag NI
Post-intervention – C788532-8 Ga Ag NI
Hot World
Secondary Faction (Type 0) The Cabadan Crime Syndicate
Unusual Custom -- Sex
Nasiya is a backwater world with approximately 300,000 inhabitants clinging to a number of islands at the southern pole, where the temprature is moderate enough (average 30 degrees) to easily sustain life. The rest of the world is covered by a single vast ocean, with a small continent at the equator that is far too hot to sustain life (averaging 70 degrees). The nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere is laden with water vapour, which, combined with the heat of the world makes for massive, violent storms, some of which lasting for months at a time. Life in the island states of Nasiya might be considered a tropical paradise, were it not for the stifling humidity and constant threat of titanic storms. Nasiya has two, small, misshapen rocks as moons, causing subtle tides.
The first inhabitants were Solomani colonists from the Rule of Man, and their descendants remain as the bulk of its permanent population. The Long Night decimated the colony however, driving it back to the stone age and erasing all but the faintest memory of the Nasiyian's interstellar past. Their climb back to a modicum of modernity has been a slow one, since Nasiya has little to offer in terms of interstelller trade. Things began to change however, as the Imperial naval presence in the subsector became thinner and intersteller travellers came to rely on Nasiya as a shadowport and haven for smuggling and vice.
The culture of the Nasiyians has a number of peculiarities which might have attracted less-than-savoury intersteller travellers. First, they are fiercely independent, respect freedom and free thinking, and sympathize with those who might bridle at Imperial laws and customs. Second, all of the island states share a strong tradition of hospitality, mutual aid and openness to outsiders, a necessary precondition to a functional society under such environmental duress. Third, they are unusually permissive in matters of sex and sexuality, and typically form polyamorous bonds involving three or more members of varying sexes. This last characteristic is an artifact of the initial difficulties faced by the Solomani colonists during the Long Night -- to avoid dieback and maintain genetic diversity, the government of the time mandated multiple sex partners. This policy remained in place for so long that it became a cultural norm as enduring as the monogamous pair-bond typical among many groups of humaniti. Jealousy is considered a great sin, and is ruthelessly repressed. Most Nasiyians are functionally bisexual, though heterosexual preferences are considered normative.
New sexual partners are readily accepted on either a casual (called hurriya) or permanent (matun) basis. Rituals are performed in either case to commemorate and sanctify the event. With hurriya, small gifts are exchanged and a song is traditionally sung loudly by the participants, with the purpose of informing others in the social group that the event will take place. This notification is vitally important as a courtesy to others who may have hurriya or matun relations with the participants, allowing them to forestall feelings of jealousy or mistrust. In practice, today hurriya is often done by merely notifying others publicly (which is more proper) or privately (which is frowned upon) of the coming sexual encounter. To not do so is considered shameful and carries as much or even more stigma than infidelity in monogamous society. Matun relations are more involved, carry a number of privleges and responsibilites centred around a common child-rearing and economic life. It is expected that most members of society be bonded through matun fairly soon after they reach sexual maturity. Matuniyas are given the right to and responsibility for children – any children born from hurriya relations must be given to a matuniya. Nasiyans have a robust tradition of adoption and fostering, though contraceptives have made the practice less necessary.
Because of the practice of hurriya, Nasiya became something of an attractive layover for the crews of merchant vessels and other curious travellers. Hurriya is often perceived as prostitution to outsiders, and indeed, with many Nasiyans in poverty, necessity precedes attraction as the primary motive for their sexual acts with outworlders. The exchange of gifts commensurate to ones station is nevertheless a necessary part of the hurriya ritual and is not seen as shameful in any way to other Nasiyans. While offworlders unfamiliar with the practice may find the expectation of payment in Imperial credits perfectly mundane, they are often puzzled that their Nasiyan "prostitute" insists on giving them a small charm, dance or other work of art before performing the deed.
Over time, the presence of interstellar traffic polarized wealth in the society, making settlement heads and their kin very wealthy at the expense of the average citizen. Until recently, the main government on the world was nominally comprised of overlapping layers of participatory democratic institutions, many citizens live too marginal an existence to take an active part in politics. A rival power had also risen to great prominence on the world - a large clan of local criminals and offworlders called the Cabadan Syndicate. Their base of support was in Cabadan state, the second largest island in the polar archipelago. The Syndicate was initially quite useful to the central government as an arm's length conduit for outworlder wealth. While Nasiyan's must be acquiescent to the Third Imperium on the surface, they understood that without the black market trade the local economy would collapse. The government pretended to pursue the Syndicate and the Syndicate pretended to care, operating with some measure of discretion and allowing both to prosper. However, the criminal element of Nasiya eventually became so rich that it moved into markets elsewhere in the subsector, perhaps even beyond. The Cabadan syndicate of Nasiya has in recent decades become extremely wealthy and powerful, and eventually it attracted the attention of the Imperial authorities for crimes ranging from smuggling to bank fraud to piracy.
The IISS understood that as a participatory democracy, the Nasiyan government required public assent to truly pursue an active policy against the Syndicate. And because the Nasiyan public recognized that without the Syndicate the economy would collapse and Nasiya's development would stall, public assent would require a massive bribe. "Plan Nasiya" was minted by a newly appointed Duke to be just that. The Nasiyan government would recieve billions of credits of military and economic aid, but would have to strengthen its police force, attack Syndicate strongholds and turn over captured Syndicate leaders to Imperial law. All of this was controversial from the beginning. But when the new policy resulted in scads of civilian and police deaths as the Syndicate turned to intimidation and terrorism, the public united against the Syndicate. Pressure mounted, which led to more Syndicate reprisals. The heads of some of the Syndicate's regional operations were captured or killed which led to power vacuums and infighting. Imperial naval intelligence, diplomatic representatives, military "advisors" and megacorporations had an active hand in Nasiyan affairs, pushing the planet to civil war.
The situation on Nasiya deteriorated quickly. The initial public enthusiasm for Plan Nasiya faded as the bodies piled up. The Nasiyan army seized control of towns and cities and expelled police forces considered too corrupt to do their jobs, an unprecedented move that sparked heavy resentment. Meanwhile, the massive Syndicate became even more dangerous and unpredictable as the many factions waged open battles in streets and starports on Nasiya and many other systems. The threat of open Imperial intervention was very real. A number of political citizens opposing the further implementation of Plan Nasiya were assassinated by Imperial elements.
A group of local anti-Cabadan politicians backed by the Imperium effected a coup. Calling themselves the League for a New Nasiya (LNN), they suspended the Nasiyan democratic institutions "temporarily" and established a security state, ostensibly to rid the world of the "terroristic and criminal Cabadan Syndicate."
Imperial Marine special forces directly attacked the Cabadan pirate base and fought openly with syndicate operatives. After years of smuggling contraband, with near limitless resources, the Syndicate was almost as well armed as the Imperial detachment sent to deal with them. The ensuing warfare engulfed the whole system. 200,000 Nasiyans died as a result of the initial conflict. Thousands more would die in the following two years as the remnants of the Syndicate aligned themselves with anti-government guerrillas and Nasiyan nationalists against the occupying force. Unwilling to get bogged down in a long-term engagement on a planet of so little intrinsic value, the Imperium withdrew, satisfied that the Cabadan Syndicate had been rendered harmless. The League was eventually overthrown, and a new government with extremely anti-Imperium views is now in power. The impressive democratic forms of the previous era are promised, but have yet to materialize. The people are restive but exhausted and very, very poor.
Last edited:
captainjack
SOC-13
Nice job ! And I'm delighted to to see some other hellholes. This one, I particulalry like as it clearly is a hellhole that has been created from a basically nice place by extraworld contact.
Very nice, RM !
(not currently having a stultifyingly boring job has, I fear put a dent in my traveller writing...and, no I'm not going to complain..
)
Very nice, RM !
(not currently having a stultifyingly boring job has, I fear put a dent in my traveller writing...and, no I'm not going to complain..
)epicenter00
SOC-13
Reading through this list, I realize that one of the factors that make many planets unpleasant is the idea of cannibalism (and here I thought I was unique - hah!). Cannibalism in a few levels is present in the hellhole I made. The world is also an exploration of the idea behind the phrase "the sins of our fathers..."
Daaku X4EAA30-0 Red Zone
Daaku (debased Vilani: "Millstone") is an unpleasant world, not because of local predators (there are none), nor exotic diseases (again, none), or any other natural cause - beyond its blandness.
Daaku is the largest satellite of the local gas giant. It is a Frankenstein monstrosity thought to be the result of the impact of some "intruder" planet and one of the local moons some millions of years ago. The impact nearly destroyed the moon, but instead left it oddly stretched under the results of the tidal stresses of the gas giant it orbits. While not as severely "egg-shaped" as many worlds, it is visibly "off" looking even to the naked eye. This event has left Daaku with a pronounced "wobble" in it daily rotation, though it's also thought that the impact probably also gave the previously tidally-locked moon its rotation. The impacting body is theorized to be a nova remnant of some sort, extraordinarily rich in heavy metals and particularly lanthanum. However, due to the tidal stresses, there are few enough exploitable veins of metal on the world, as the metal is richly, but quite eventually distributed throughout the crust of the world. A result of this metal-rich impact (combined with tidal stress) has left the world with a molten core and a very strong magnetic field, explaining why the world has not been ruthlessly scoured of life by the radiation of the gas giant it orbits. The radiation is sufficiently severe to prevent most ships from landing on the world, and it requires specially shielded ships (or armored warships) to make landings.
The world is unusually blessed with water, flooding fissues hundreds of meters deep, but mostly covers the world in a murky but shallow world-sea averaging about a meter in depth. Due to the nature of the world and its frequent earthquakes and high gravity, the world essentially lacks any visible terrain features - in effect it is a mudflat that covers an entire world. Due to the interactions with the local life (see below), radiation off of the gas giant, and to a lesser extent geothermal processes as well as solar energy, much of the world's water is actually present in an ever-present haze or mist that cloaks the world in clouds. Conditions on the world's surface are humid and stiflingly hot - a mist or fog reducing visibility to about 10m at best, with an average surface temperature of 30 C or so. With light diffusion and the dimness of the local primary (due to distance - Daaku gets most of its heat from the local primary), the world can be said to go from twilight to night-time.
Life did evolve on this world before human arrival, though it was still primitive. The world's ecology seems to mostly consist of a kind of quasi-yeast. Stirred and enriched by geothermal processes and human activity, the world teems with this yeast-like plant, leaving the water feeling sluggish and dense, ranging from a stew-like consistency to that of mush depending on local conditions. Though the plants produce abundant oxygen, their decomposition also gives much of the world a potent stench. Importantly, the world's lifeform (actually a family of lifeforms) are based on left-handed amino acids.
It's unknown when the first settlers arrived on the world, if they intended to settle the world or they were shipwrecked, marooned, or exiled to the world - it's doubtful in the extreme they were intentional colonists - no records exist of the planet's settling and regardless such an unpleasant world would be unlikely to have been settled. What is known is that settlers were Vilani. While left-handed amino acids are normally not useful to humans as food, the problem was a familiar one to the Vilani, where the local ecology on Vland was similar, it's thought most of the Vilani starved on the world, unable to eat the local para-yeast, however, some of the Vilani were able to. Obviously these Vilani were the only ones to survive and reproduce to the point where the entire population is now able to metabolize the yeasts. Human action on this world is thought to have caused a population explosion of the yeast. With human respiration helpfully converting the abundant oxygen back into carbon dioxide, human movement helping to stir up the water, and human excrement to stimulate fertilization, the yeast thrived like never before. In addition, the yeast in some act of dark providence, in combination with the Vilani survivor's metabolism, to provide the nutrients necessary for long-term human life. With food available simply for the scooping or slurping, humanity's survival on the world was ensured.
It's unknown how long things persisted in this way, but that it persisted many centuries into the Long Night is clear. At this time, a Solomani-crewed vessel, the DeKruyter, arrived on the world. In landing, the ship made a fatal error. The world's mud, encouraged by the frequent earthquakes of the world, create an ideal "sucking mud" situation (in geology terms "liquifcation") - within hours something as heavy as a starship would be (and was) hopelessly mired in mud several meters deep, utterly unable to ever leave the planet again without aid. What the Solomani found on the world was disturbing - it teemed with life - the stinking yeasts and more disturbingly, the nearly blind, idiotic natives. Through the centuries, without any tool-making materials (mud and quickly rotting bone), fire, as well insidious lack brain development brought upon by a lack of visual stimulation had reduced the Vilani settlers to near idiocy.
The crashed survivors of the DeKruyter eventually were faced with a terrible dilemma. Their Solomani biologies could not metabolize the least lifeforms (indeed some strains were poisonous to the Solomani). Food stocks were running out. At this point, there was a split in the Solomani crew. Some committed suicide rather than exploit the obvious food source. The rest exploited the local food source - the Vilani on the world itself. The Solomani used a number of rationalizations from basic survival to the fact that the people on the world were barely above animals anyway to exploit them for food. Regardless, due to conditions, within a few generations, the Solomani survivors had grown accustomed to the idea of cannibalism even while their own culture and civilization grew more and more desperate and debased. Once the stocks of ammunition of the DeKruyter ran out, the crew fashioned crude clubs and axes from parts of the ship and crude armor (lashed together with human hair). The feared complete sinking of the ship never occurred - some of the ship is still visible and is used as fortress by the Solomani "nobility" of the world, divided from the debased Vlani simply by virtue of tool-use.
The situation may have endured like this, until recontact was established 494 by Kuulikak Eshtur, an Imperial belter whose scans turned up a veritable treasure trove of metals on the world. A careful sort, and possessing TL13 gravitics, she was careful to keep her ship hovering over the deceptively calm mudflats near the wreck of the DeKruyter. Eshtur quickly determined the problem with the world - mining would never be profitable. Yet, perhaps out of some empathy for the survivors she carefully made contact with the Solomani survivors (who because of their limited genetic base and a desire not to breed with the "animals" around them had grown shockingly inbred - most of the "Solomani" possessing 11 or 12 digits). However, her first ceremonial dinner showed her that the native's local (and repulsive) dining habits and the glee which they practiced it in would forbid them ever from rejoining galactic society. Nevertheless, she was willing to trade with the natives, giving them food, and in return the natives gave her human bones as they were the local currency. The silvery sheen instantly stood out to her. It seemed that in the long isolation, the Vilani biology had learned to filter out toxic metals on the world by depositing them in their bones (which also strengthened them against the small but dense world's gravity). The world's humans did the work of sifting the mineral rich waters and concentrating them in the bones. As repulsive as it seemed, she could "mine" the bones of the natives and refine them into usable metals.
It's unknown what kept her trading with the natives - what rationalizations Eshtur made, but soon she was trading guns and ammunition to the "nobility" in return for the bones of the Vilani. Using the weapons she had provided, the slaughter of the Vilani could commence in earnest, metric tons of bones and bone deposits yielding many minerals but especially lanthanum. Eshtur quickly grew wealthy from the trade.
In the present, the world is interdicted by order of the Imperial Navy, paid for in bribes by the Baronial family of Eshtur. The repulsive trade still goes in secret - bones in return for ammunition, the harvested populace replenishing itself as fast as it is harvested, as in the dark, with nothing to do but eat and mate the population constantly grows to the limit of local resources.
The only hiccup in the process was done 200 years ago when one of the scions of the Eshtur clan, Gaalaakagia Eshtur, Baroness inheritor, seized by a fit of remorse, attempted to mercifully euthanasia the population of the world with nuclear weapons. She was stopped by other clan members crewing the trade vessel after only using two - but the resulting fallout and mutation has only served to make what is already a wretched population even more debased.
Daaku X4EAA30-0 Red Zone
Daaku (debased Vilani: "Millstone") is an unpleasant world, not because of local predators (there are none), nor exotic diseases (again, none), or any other natural cause - beyond its blandness.
Daaku is the largest satellite of the local gas giant. It is a Frankenstein monstrosity thought to be the result of the impact of some "intruder" planet and one of the local moons some millions of years ago. The impact nearly destroyed the moon, but instead left it oddly stretched under the results of the tidal stresses of the gas giant it orbits. While not as severely "egg-shaped" as many worlds, it is visibly "off" looking even to the naked eye. This event has left Daaku with a pronounced "wobble" in it daily rotation, though it's also thought that the impact probably also gave the previously tidally-locked moon its rotation. The impacting body is theorized to be a nova remnant of some sort, extraordinarily rich in heavy metals and particularly lanthanum. However, due to the tidal stresses, there are few enough exploitable veins of metal on the world, as the metal is richly, but quite eventually distributed throughout the crust of the world. A result of this metal-rich impact (combined with tidal stress) has left the world with a molten core and a very strong magnetic field, explaining why the world has not been ruthlessly scoured of life by the radiation of the gas giant it orbits. The radiation is sufficiently severe to prevent most ships from landing on the world, and it requires specially shielded ships (or armored warships) to make landings.
The world is unusually blessed with water, flooding fissues hundreds of meters deep, but mostly covers the world in a murky but shallow world-sea averaging about a meter in depth. Due to the nature of the world and its frequent earthquakes and high gravity, the world essentially lacks any visible terrain features - in effect it is a mudflat that covers an entire world. Due to the interactions with the local life (see below), radiation off of the gas giant, and to a lesser extent geothermal processes as well as solar energy, much of the world's water is actually present in an ever-present haze or mist that cloaks the world in clouds. Conditions on the world's surface are humid and stiflingly hot - a mist or fog reducing visibility to about 10m at best, with an average surface temperature of 30 C or so. With light diffusion and the dimness of the local primary (due to distance - Daaku gets most of its heat from the local primary), the world can be said to go from twilight to night-time.
Life did evolve on this world before human arrival, though it was still primitive. The world's ecology seems to mostly consist of a kind of quasi-yeast. Stirred and enriched by geothermal processes and human activity, the world teems with this yeast-like plant, leaving the water feeling sluggish and dense, ranging from a stew-like consistency to that of mush depending on local conditions. Though the plants produce abundant oxygen, their decomposition also gives much of the world a potent stench. Importantly, the world's lifeform (actually a family of lifeforms) are based on left-handed amino acids.
It's unknown when the first settlers arrived on the world, if they intended to settle the world or they were shipwrecked, marooned, or exiled to the world - it's doubtful in the extreme they were intentional colonists - no records exist of the planet's settling and regardless such an unpleasant world would be unlikely to have been settled. What is known is that settlers were Vilani. While left-handed amino acids are normally not useful to humans as food, the problem was a familiar one to the Vilani, where the local ecology on Vland was similar, it's thought most of the Vilani starved on the world, unable to eat the local para-yeast, however, some of the Vilani were able to. Obviously these Vilani were the only ones to survive and reproduce to the point where the entire population is now able to metabolize the yeasts. Human action on this world is thought to have caused a population explosion of the yeast. With human respiration helpfully converting the abundant oxygen back into carbon dioxide, human movement helping to stir up the water, and human excrement to stimulate fertilization, the yeast thrived like never before. In addition, the yeast in some act of dark providence, in combination with the Vilani survivor's metabolism, to provide the nutrients necessary for long-term human life. With food available simply for the scooping or slurping, humanity's survival on the world was ensured.
It's unknown how long things persisted in this way, but that it persisted many centuries into the Long Night is clear. At this time, a Solomani-crewed vessel, the DeKruyter, arrived on the world. In landing, the ship made a fatal error. The world's mud, encouraged by the frequent earthquakes of the world, create an ideal "sucking mud" situation (in geology terms "liquifcation") - within hours something as heavy as a starship would be (and was) hopelessly mired in mud several meters deep, utterly unable to ever leave the planet again without aid. What the Solomani found on the world was disturbing - it teemed with life - the stinking yeasts and more disturbingly, the nearly blind, idiotic natives. Through the centuries, without any tool-making materials (mud and quickly rotting bone), fire, as well insidious lack brain development brought upon by a lack of visual stimulation had reduced the Vilani settlers to near idiocy.
The crashed survivors of the DeKruyter eventually were faced with a terrible dilemma. Their Solomani biologies could not metabolize the least lifeforms (indeed some strains were poisonous to the Solomani). Food stocks were running out. At this point, there was a split in the Solomani crew. Some committed suicide rather than exploit the obvious food source. The rest exploited the local food source - the Vilani on the world itself. The Solomani used a number of rationalizations from basic survival to the fact that the people on the world were barely above animals anyway to exploit them for food. Regardless, due to conditions, within a few generations, the Solomani survivors had grown accustomed to the idea of cannibalism even while their own culture and civilization grew more and more desperate and debased. Once the stocks of ammunition of the DeKruyter ran out, the crew fashioned crude clubs and axes from parts of the ship and crude armor (lashed together with human hair). The feared complete sinking of the ship never occurred - some of the ship is still visible and is used as fortress by the Solomani "nobility" of the world, divided from the debased Vlani simply by virtue of tool-use.
The situation may have endured like this, until recontact was established 494 by Kuulikak Eshtur, an Imperial belter whose scans turned up a veritable treasure trove of metals on the world. A careful sort, and possessing TL13 gravitics, she was careful to keep her ship hovering over the deceptively calm mudflats near the wreck of the DeKruyter. Eshtur quickly determined the problem with the world - mining would never be profitable. Yet, perhaps out of some empathy for the survivors she carefully made contact with the Solomani survivors (who because of their limited genetic base and a desire not to breed with the "animals" around them had grown shockingly inbred - most of the "Solomani" possessing 11 or 12 digits). However, her first ceremonial dinner showed her that the native's local (and repulsive) dining habits and the glee which they practiced it in would forbid them ever from rejoining galactic society. Nevertheless, she was willing to trade with the natives, giving them food, and in return the natives gave her human bones as they were the local currency. The silvery sheen instantly stood out to her. It seemed that in the long isolation, the Vilani biology had learned to filter out toxic metals on the world by depositing them in their bones (which also strengthened them against the small but dense world's gravity). The world's humans did the work of sifting the mineral rich waters and concentrating them in the bones. As repulsive as it seemed, she could "mine" the bones of the natives and refine them into usable metals.
It's unknown what kept her trading with the natives - what rationalizations Eshtur made, but soon she was trading guns and ammunition to the "nobility" in return for the bones of the Vilani. Using the weapons she had provided, the slaughter of the Vilani could commence in earnest, metric tons of bones and bone deposits yielding many minerals but especially lanthanum. Eshtur quickly grew wealthy from the trade.
In the present, the world is interdicted by order of the Imperial Navy, paid for in bribes by the Baronial family of Eshtur. The repulsive trade still goes in secret - bones in return for ammunition, the harvested populace replenishing itself as fast as it is harvested, as in the dark, with nothing to do but eat and mate the population constantly grows to the limit of local resources.
The only hiccup in the process was done 200 years ago when one of the scions of the Eshtur clan, Gaalaakagia Eshtur, Baroness inheritor, seized by a fit of remorse, attempted to mercifully euthanasia the population of the world with nuclear weapons. She was stopped by other clan members crewing the trade vessel after only using two - but the resulting fallout and mutation has only served to make what is already a wretched population even more debased.
ThunderChilde
SOC-13
There but for grace of God go I. What a truly dreadful place to have concieved, was this feverish story for this thread, or something to torment players with?:nonono:
Nightmarish indeed, nuking it till it glows would be too kind.
mega:
I hesitate to point out a few things, I do belive, being Vilani, that story telling would have become a hugely important activity, keeping thier minds occupied.
How do they avoid drowning, and keep the young from drowning? Dang planet prolly supports a few billion people or more, if they keep from drowning.o:
If they are yeasty, it would likely be an alchohol ocean eventually, and kill its self off, humans with it. Distened livers and all. Pickeled human snacks, mmm mmm. Hiver delicasy perhaps.
Nightmarish indeed, nuking it till it glows would be too kind.
mega:I hesitate to point out a few things, I do belive, being Vilani, that story telling would have become a hugely important activity, keeping thier minds occupied.
How do they avoid drowning, and keep the young from drowning? Dang planet prolly supports a few billion people or more, if they keep from drowning.
o:If they are yeasty, it would likely be an alchohol ocean eventually, and kill its self off, humans with it. Distened livers and all. Pickeled human snacks, mmm mmm. Hiver delicasy perhaps.
epicenter00
SOC-13
There but for grace of God go I. What a truly dreadful place to have concieved, was this feverish story for this thread, or something to torment players with?:nonono:
Nightmarish indeed, nuking it till it glows would be too kind.
I hesitate to point out a few things, I do belive, being Vilani, that story telling would have become a hugely important activity, keeping thier minds occupied.
How do they avoid drowning, and keep the young from drowning? Dang planet prolly supports a few billion people or more, if they keep from drowning.
They probably did have a very important storytelling tradition. The problem is that without much stimulation, eventually, even the impetus for telling stories goes away.
And yes, I used it in a game. The players were part of a MoJ "shadow justice" team put together by Grand Princess Iphengia after one evening where she was helping her father (you know, that Emperor Strephon guy) entertain some guests, namely older, high ranking Scouts (since she's their patron). Some of them had too much to drink and started telling her stories about some of the terrible things they'd witnessed nobles in the Imperium doing. She tried to discount them, but couldn't - especially when she asked if they'd seen these planets first-hand or just heard about them. They'd seen, of course, and heard. Of nobles "behaving badly" and the IN covering for them with Red Zones and so on.
The players were put together out of hardened vets and so on, vetted by the MoJ (including a SEH winner) and tasked with following up on these terrible rumors about stuff that Imperial nobles "behaving badly" were up to. Many of the games were red herrings - they'd show up and investigate some rumor and find out it was totally false but would find something else interesting to occupy their time. Sometimes, there was a grain of truth. Other times, the rumor turned out to be true. This was one of the latter cases and it was up to the players to decide what to do about the situation.
The players were basically given a "get out of jail, free" and a "license to kill" at their discretion. For that world, the players solved the situation when they contacted the next Baroness heir, Isavaala, and told her the situation. She took responsibility for it in old way (you know, the "I leave a pistol on the desk and leave the room and expect you'll do the right thing" way). Along with the players, she located a large comet, suitable enough to wipe out human life on the planet and with the help of the player's ship, put it on a collision course with the world. Then she took a 6G ship's boat and landed on the world aloneto await the end with the Imperial subjects her family had failed in their responsibility to, for so long.
Renaissance Man
SOC-12
Thanks. I drew some inspiration from modern-day Mexico and their current issues with the Sinaloa, Arellano-Felix and Gulf cartels.
captainjack
SOC-13
Pontifex
D 84A872 -4: Extreme Cold : many competing ideologies
Description
Pontifex is a large ice-covered rockball tidally locked into a 3:2 resonance with an IR brown dwarf. It receives enough heat on closer parts of its inner hemisphere to allow open water to form. The atmosphere is only notationally classified as 4, as it only exists as the inner hemisphere warms up during summer and snowing out during most of the year. The resonant orbit keeps the open water slowly moving across the planet as it slowly rotates and keeps atmosphere from accumulating on one hemisphere, as it snows out. Unsurprisingly, the circulation patterns are often extremely violent and unpredictable. As the companion emits only in the infrared, the planet is perpetually dark, except for vivid aurora effects. The local ecology was responsible for the thin oxygen element in Pontifex's atmosphere; it was essentially a monoculture of an algae analogue using both anaerobic and aerobic pathways, active during the melt periods, existing only as inert, frozen spores otherwise. It has largely been replaced by mobile aquaculture of terran/vilani import.
History
Pontifex (originally Johdl) was originally settled by the first empire as a bridge point across a gap connecting three small mains. As such, it was entirely dedicated to starship support, supply and cargo transshipping. With the collapse of the Vilani Empire, it was largely left on its own in the trade stagnation that occurred during the final years of the empire and teetered on the edge of complete collapse, but managed to survive until trade picked up as the Terran controlled area spread; at this point, although never fully incorporated into the second empire it attracted a second wave of Terran settlers in the form of administrators, and, importantly, starship service entrepreneurs. In this incarnation, it was essentially a semi-independent system, continuing to provide services, but also adding recreation and entertainment for passing crews, as well as taxing all commerce passing thru, officially to support its local system defense forces. For a time, the system boomed, particularly as the bureaux restrictions on trading disappeared, allowing it to become a marketplace serving three distinct mains, as well as a transit support point.
Unfortunately, the collapse of the second imperium took Pontifex by surprise, and with an incursion by local [insert predatory polity or minor raiding race]lost almost all connection to the empire in less than three years. Within five years, ships from the mains had stopped arriving almost entirely. The effect of isolation and an overspecialized economy, coupled with Pontifexes entrepreneurial ethos, was devastating. Within another five years, the bulk of the starship service and mercantile interests ported at pontifex had either failed, or left in search of opportunity unfortunately taking almost all jump capable ships. Pontifex, at that time with a social UWP of 632, lost perhaps 5% of its population to this exodus –but unfortunately, almost all of the professional, technical and administrative members of its society. What it had left was a poorly educated and generally impoverished population of unemployed ex-service economy employees, and a dark and frozen planetscape.
Development Post Second Imperium
Surprisingly, the population did not suffer an immediate die-off; the planet was a long-term habitation, and had basic, if minimal, self-sufficiency. They were nonetheless isolated from all outside contact during the long night, and while population increased, the difficulties of survival on Pontifex ensured that technology would deteriorate to the lowest level possible to support life. Unfortunately, in addition to being lost, it was also largely forgotten – and the area was vaguely recontacted by the third empire late in its expansion, when J3&4 ships were available and in general use. Accordingly, the local trade groups had no overwhelming need to pass thru Pontifex; J1 ships serviced the mains, and higher jump ships connected them. Currently, it is an almost forgotten backwater.
Current Information
Pontifexes’ society is Balkanized into large communal groups following the melt, living off aquaculture, and mining oxygen as needed from the cold areas. Technology is low, education lacking, and illiteracy almost universal. Survival is hard but possible, and there is very little stimuli other than speech. At some point, perhaps unfortunately, they found religion and philosophy, and in the long darkness, found lots of opportunity to discuss it.
While disputation seldom becomes violent on a large scale (due to the harshness of the world and general impoverishment), Pontifexian society is all about argument and debate, either philosophical or religious, and violence on an individual scale is quite common.
While many of the religious or philosophical systems on Pontifex are generally primitive or animistic, quite a few are esoteric and highly structured, apparently drawing from amongst every known Terran religion, as well as many homebrewed theologies, epistemologies, phenomenologies and elaborate conspiracy conspiracy theories.
Additionally, quite a few societies are dedicated to completely shunning any outside contact, and will determinedly ignore the existence of outsiders; several have religious prohibitions against various types of speech, such as questions, active voice sentences, or puns; others require communication to be in complicated rhyme alliteration, or most incomprehensibly, indirect metaphor. Rituals pervade every aspect of life, and, in cultures that deign to notice outsiders, it is almost impossible to avoid causing religious disgust or insult with the simplest of actions. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Pontifexian society also acts as a huge but slow, distributed think tank, occasionally producing surprisingly sophisticated insights into mathematics, physics, and any science requiring little more than a mind, a pencil, and someone to argue with. It also produces amazingly intricate and elaborate art and music.
Several highly advanced mathematical systems, and advances in theoretical physics have originated here, abeit couched in religous allegory and poetry.
In many ways, pontifex is an idea mine. Fortunes have been made by making such insights into practical applications; and doubtless more could occur, if only the layers of religious elaboration can be penetrated, taboos avoided, and brawls over (for instance) transubstantiation of mind vs epigenesis of soul.
Travel information
A small cultural research scout base in cooperation with several academic groups support travel to and from the planet. Despite its isolation, Pontifex has become a mecca for cultural and comparative theology studies, as well as theoretical physicists and mathematicians; it has also gained a reputation as one of the most mind crushingly boring places for anyone uninterested in these topics to have to endure. It is suggested that Pontifex may become the first planet redzoned due to potentially lethal levels of tedium and toxic pedantry.
_______________
D 84A872 -4: Extreme Cold : many competing ideologies
Description
Pontifex is a large ice-covered rockball tidally locked into a 3:2 resonance with an IR brown dwarf. It receives enough heat on closer parts of its inner hemisphere to allow open water to form. The atmosphere is only notationally classified as 4, as it only exists as the inner hemisphere warms up during summer and snowing out during most of the year. The resonant orbit keeps the open water slowly moving across the planet as it slowly rotates and keeps atmosphere from accumulating on one hemisphere, as it snows out. Unsurprisingly, the circulation patterns are often extremely violent and unpredictable. As the companion emits only in the infrared, the planet is perpetually dark, except for vivid aurora effects. The local ecology was responsible for the thin oxygen element in Pontifex's atmosphere; it was essentially a monoculture of an algae analogue using both anaerobic and aerobic pathways, active during the melt periods, existing only as inert, frozen spores otherwise. It has largely been replaced by mobile aquaculture of terran/vilani import.
History
Pontifex (originally Johdl) was originally settled by the first empire as a bridge point across a gap connecting three small mains. As such, it was entirely dedicated to starship support, supply and cargo transshipping. With the collapse of the Vilani Empire, it was largely left on its own in the trade stagnation that occurred during the final years of the empire and teetered on the edge of complete collapse, but managed to survive until trade picked up as the Terran controlled area spread; at this point, although never fully incorporated into the second empire it attracted a second wave of Terran settlers in the form of administrators, and, importantly, starship service entrepreneurs. In this incarnation, it was essentially a semi-independent system, continuing to provide services, but also adding recreation and entertainment for passing crews, as well as taxing all commerce passing thru, officially to support its local system defense forces. For a time, the system boomed, particularly as the bureaux restrictions on trading disappeared, allowing it to become a marketplace serving three distinct mains, as well as a transit support point.
Unfortunately, the collapse of the second imperium took Pontifex by surprise, and with an incursion by local [insert predatory polity or minor raiding race]lost almost all connection to the empire in less than three years. Within five years, ships from the mains had stopped arriving almost entirely. The effect of isolation and an overspecialized economy, coupled with Pontifexes entrepreneurial ethos, was devastating. Within another five years, the bulk of the starship service and mercantile interests ported at pontifex had either failed, or left in search of opportunity unfortunately taking almost all jump capable ships. Pontifex, at that time with a social UWP of 632, lost perhaps 5% of its population to this exodus –but unfortunately, almost all of the professional, technical and administrative members of its society. What it had left was a poorly educated and generally impoverished population of unemployed ex-service economy employees, and a dark and frozen planetscape.
Development Post Second Imperium
Surprisingly, the population did not suffer an immediate die-off; the planet was a long-term habitation, and had basic, if minimal, self-sufficiency. They were nonetheless isolated from all outside contact during the long night, and while population increased, the difficulties of survival on Pontifex ensured that technology would deteriorate to the lowest level possible to support life. Unfortunately, in addition to being lost, it was also largely forgotten – and the area was vaguely recontacted by the third empire late in its expansion, when J3&4 ships were available and in general use. Accordingly, the local trade groups had no overwhelming need to pass thru Pontifex; J1 ships serviced the mains, and higher jump ships connected them. Currently, it is an almost forgotten backwater.
Current Information
Pontifexes’ society is Balkanized into large communal groups following the melt, living off aquaculture, and mining oxygen as needed from the cold areas. Technology is low, education lacking, and illiteracy almost universal. Survival is hard but possible, and there is very little stimuli other than speech. At some point, perhaps unfortunately, they found religion and philosophy, and in the long darkness, found lots of opportunity to discuss it.
While disputation seldom becomes violent on a large scale (due to the harshness of the world and general impoverishment), Pontifexian society is all about argument and debate, either philosophical or religious, and violence on an individual scale is quite common.
While many of the religious or philosophical systems on Pontifex are generally primitive or animistic, quite a few are esoteric and highly structured, apparently drawing from amongst every known Terran religion, as well as many homebrewed theologies, epistemologies, phenomenologies and elaborate conspiracy conspiracy theories.
Additionally, quite a few societies are dedicated to completely shunning any outside contact, and will determinedly ignore the existence of outsiders; several have religious prohibitions against various types of speech, such as questions, active voice sentences, or puns; others require communication to be in complicated rhyme alliteration, or most incomprehensibly, indirect metaphor. Rituals pervade every aspect of life, and, in cultures that deign to notice outsiders, it is almost impossible to avoid causing religious disgust or insult with the simplest of actions. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Pontifexian society also acts as a huge but slow, distributed think tank, occasionally producing surprisingly sophisticated insights into mathematics, physics, and any science requiring little more than a mind, a pencil, and someone to argue with. It also produces amazingly intricate and elaborate art and music.
Several highly advanced mathematical systems, and advances in theoretical physics have originated here, abeit couched in religous allegory and poetry.
In many ways, pontifex is an idea mine. Fortunes have been made by making such insights into practical applications; and doubtless more could occur, if only the layers of religious elaboration can be penetrated, taboos avoided, and brawls over (for instance) transubstantiation of mind vs epigenesis of soul.
Travel information
A small cultural research scout base in cooperation with several academic groups support travel to and from the planet. Despite its isolation, Pontifex has become a mecca for cultural and comparative theology studies, as well as theoretical physicists and mathematicians; it has also gained a reputation as one of the most mind crushingly boring places for anyone uninterested in these topics to have to endure. It is suggested that Pontifex may become the first planet redzoned due to potentially lethal levels of tedium and toxic pedantry.
_______________
Last edited:
Easterner9504
SOC-13
Bad worlds
Some extremely inventive descriptions and situations.
Hive- Great description but I'm confused as to why the place struck you as being awful. The high pop, no tech I would presume. However If some math wizzes work it out I suspect this planet has a greater surface area than Earth, supporting a high pop from the low oceanography level.
Spindizzy - I completely fail to understand why people vanish there or the two intercepts. Just off the dial TL?
Prison Planet- The plague world seemed bad enough, secret prisons don't get it done. You can't maintain a conspiracy of silence with active staff at the prison as over the centuries that much staff loose in the galaxy will blab. Nor can you imprison the staff when they retire as their replacements will see their own fate & rebel.
See movie Valkyrie for how conspiracies really work. With no troops of their own they borrowed some and co-opted them to overthrow gov't. as soon as they found they were being used they shot the conspirators. In film & book conspiracies often have vast bodies of troops standing about ignoring all evil, secrecy and odd doings about them. In reality they'd blow the whistle....everytime. All conspirators have to be loyal and dedicated to a cause, no casual members as they will out the conspirators every time.
Loved the Ta description, my favorite truck stop. Not sure why you classify it so bad though, TL? My understanding I think LKW discussed it is TL is local manufacturing capability. with that low a TL it makes sense they don't have large scale manufacturing ability but no reason why various hiigh tech items not imported. In Third World you can arrive at an airport on the cutting efge of 1965 tech (when it was built) get in ground vehicle and watch the TL drop by the mile. So no reason it had to be as bad as described....though having visited the TA in Eloy, Az you may be right.
Some extremely inventive descriptions and situations.
Hive- Great description but I'm confused as to why the place struck you as being awful. The high pop, no tech I would presume. However If some math wizzes work it out I suspect this planet has a greater surface area than Earth, supporting a high pop from the low oceanography level.
Spindizzy - I completely fail to understand why people vanish there or the two intercepts. Just off the dial TL?
Prison Planet- The plague world seemed bad enough, secret prisons don't get it done. You can't maintain a conspiracy of silence with active staff at the prison as over the centuries that much staff loose in the galaxy will blab. Nor can you imprison the staff when they retire as their replacements will see their own fate & rebel.
See movie Valkyrie for how conspiracies really work. With no troops of their own they borrowed some and co-opted them to overthrow gov't. as soon as they found they were being used they shot the conspirators. In film & book conspiracies often have vast bodies of troops standing about ignoring all evil, secrecy and odd doings about them. In reality they'd blow the whistle....everytime. All conspirators have to be loyal and dedicated to a cause, no casual members as they will out the conspirators every time.
Loved the Ta description, my favorite truck stop. Not sure why you classify it so bad though, TL? My understanding I think LKW discussed it is TL is local manufacturing capability. with that low a TL it makes sense they don't have large scale manufacturing ability but no reason why various hiigh tech items not imported. In Third World you can arrive at an airport on the cutting efge of 1965 tech (when it was built) get in ground vehicle and watch the TL drop by the mile. So no reason it had to be as bad as described....though having visited the TA in Eloy, Az you may be right.
Last edited:
captainjack
SOC-13
Thanks !And thanks for the comments below. May I elucidate , without seeming to argue ?
It sucks due to the huge population of hostile, inbred cannibal loons. It's a cross between Bordered in black (Niven) and Tekumel (MAR Barker). A major building material, Ive decided is human bones. LOTS of human bones. Think of the mammoth-bone longhouses of the ice ages, and substitute people. Ick.
I believe an argumentative sod on another website decided that the actual surface are/population approached that of japan over the whole continent.
It's a stretch to imagine it works, but first, food is everywhere, self producing, and easy to access; and secondly, I can't remember if I mentioned this, but its at a population peak before a massive dieoff, which occur regulalry with about 90%-98% mortality-generally due to a new plague and/or starvation due to the food resource being exponentially depleted, .
Area 51 in space. Tech 16+ weapon testing ground, jumpspace psi research, a misjump vortex, a time gate, a gate to the Warhammer 40K universe, perhaps even the Emperor's Astrogolf course....you name it. Snoops check in, they don't check out.
Yes, you're right, I always hate conspiracies that make those assumptions, also. Best I can suggest is that it's not more than a decade or two old......
Its a player trap, much as area 51 is.
I'm delighted that someone caught that and waved it at me....the TA outside of Bakersfield is its inspiration. The one in Az is a beaut, too as those go.
Its bad not because of the TL, but rather the utter, utter boredom.
Not all hellholes kill you !
And again, glad you enjoyed them enough to comment on them !
Easterner9504
SOC-13
Prison Planet
The Starfist series has such a prison, called Darkside. everyone's heard of it. No one knows where it is.
An interesting series, somewhat TRAVELLER-ish but uneven, some really good books sandwiched around garbage stories.
The Starfist series has such a prison, called Darkside. everyone's heard of it. No one knows where it is.
An interesting series, somewhat TRAVELLER-ish but uneven, some really good books sandwiched around garbage stories.
Peter Schutze
SOC-12
prison planet .... who's to say its not run military/heirarchy style or escape from NY rather than regular guards ?
that cuts down considerably on the outsiders 'in the know' espectially if usually its seen as a covert-op 'cache food here' tasking or a restricted subbasement of a much larger complex set-up
that cuts down considerably on the outsiders 'in the know' espectially if usually its seen as a covert-op 'cache food here' tasking or a restricted subbasement of a much larger complex set-up
Easterner9504
SOC-13
Guards
Because soldiers aren't mindless minions. They retire, they write books, they talk. Secrets hard to keep w/o fanaticism.
Because soldiers aren't mindless minions. They retire, they write books, they talk. Secrets hard to keep w/o fanaticism.
Or confinement themselves.
Easterner9504
SOC-13
Who imprisons, the prison guards?
Which creates an endless cycle. The ex-soldiers tell the new guards, eventually a revolt knowing they get the same.
Which creates an endless cycle. The ex-soldiers tell the new guards, eventually a revolt knowing they get the same.
captainjack
SOC-13
Well, like I said, I'm skeptical about the practicality of the setup. Some justifications, however, would include a sampling of the following:
As much automation and robotic use as possible. A small team of very dedicated professionals could keep the secret much better if they only have to worry about each other. The idea of a mostly robot run prison is pretty spooky, too, when you think about it. Each prisoner has a 1:1 24/7 guard.
The existence of the prison is known, it's location is not. The staff need not have any way of finding out where they are, or where they were. Its a biiiig galaxy. They volunteer for a one to three year hitch completely incommunicado except for official info and news, , are delivered in sealed ships, make BIIIG credits, and then muster out somewhere far away. At best they'll know its hidden on a planet that is deadly. LOTS of those.
It's brand new. Well, relatively. The prison has been secretly built, and just staffed and filled. Security is new, tight and still shiny.
The inspiration (somewhat) was cross between Alcatraz and the max security prison in Face Off. Thinking about this, what I realized is that the lack of secrecy is the plot hook. In fact, if secrecy is 100% successful, it's useless from a gaming perspective.
In fact, if I really was designing a max security prison of that type, secret and all, I'd simply low berth the prisoners. The great part is that the staff need never know what their corpiscles are there for. Tell them they are terminal illnesses, plague, sleepers, etc. .
Another rotten trick would be to keep the inmates dosed with fast drug, or even medical fast drug. Maybe, even the staff.......
Hmmmmm. Scenario, anyone ?
Similar threads
