Systems of Gateway Domain: EA1-3 collection
- Thread starter Morte
- Start date
Endpoint 1106 Tri-Empire/Ley
Endpoint 1106 D11079B-6 Na 431 X M2 V
Endpoint is an inhospitable rockball with a trace atmosphere. 40 million people live at TL6 under an impersonal bureaucracy, with very strict law (rigid control of civilian movement). There are 3 belts, and one gas giant.
Endpoint was once a reasonably successful trade centre of with 70 million citizens at TL9. It exploited its position as the first system outside the border to offer commercial services, a flag of convenience, and cargo management/forwarding. In 963 it was hit by a surreally destructive corsair raid out of Shur (1209 Tri-Empire/Ley). The raider fleet were trapped inside the planet’s 100-diameter limit by a system defence wing moving in from the belt. Rather than surrendering, or going to jump, they held the planet to ransom by threatening nuclear and kinetic strikes on crucial power and life support installations. In a moment of confusion they made good on the threat. The strikes killed 35 million people. A lucky few ones died immediately; most fell slowly and horribly after the withdrawal of life support. The political machinery was annihilated, but the civil service remained.
For the next few years, keeping the life support together was all that mattered. Government became largely a matter of doing what the experts at the environment ministry said, i.e. staying where you were put to keep the load on the air processors steady, and importing nothing but air scrubbers. Things did improve – the infrastructure is now safe and stable, and trade comes through again. But by the 980s, without anyone quite realising it, the planetary government had become an impersonal bureaucracy.
Like many such organisations, it is essentially disinterested in change. Laws are still tight and intrusive, though the necessity is over. There are still substantial tariffs on “non-essential” imports, leading to a dearth of high-tech goods in the shops, even though the days when command economics had a useful part to play are gone. The citizens of Endpoint aren’t quite so ready to see all this as “necessary” any more, and tensions have emerged in the last five years. Members of the administration have been heard to dismiss questions as “improper” or “disloyal”, rather than tackling them on their merits.
The starport is a ground installation, constructed on a new site clear of the old radioactive ruins. Facilities are fairly basic. Plenty of trading happens at the port and at a commercial orbital forwarding hub, but little of it involves the planet as an origin or destination.
Citizens still live in the old domes and caves though there is a definite tendency for new construction to be deeper under the surface. Visitors should heed the hazard warnings around closed off transit tubes and the like – radiation risks are well secured, but the more mundane areas are home to criminal gangs and a general mix of the disadvantaged.
Apart from the slight dearth of goods for sale, and the many memorials to the dead, Endpoint is much like any other airless rockball run by unloved bureaucrats.
Endpoint 1106 D11079B-6 Na 431 X M2 V
Endpoint is an inhospitable rockball with a trace atmosphere. 40 million people live at TL6 under an impersonal bureaucracy, with very strict law (rigid control of civilian movement). There are 3 belts, and one gas giant.
Endpoint was once a reasonably successful trade centre of with 70 million citizens at TL9. It exploited its position as the first system outside the border to offer commercial services, a flag of convenience, and cargo management/forwarding. In 963 it was hit by a surreally destructive corsair raid out of Shur (1209 Tri-Empire/Ley). The raider fleet were trapped inside the planet’s 100-diameter limit by a system defence wing moving in from the belt. Rather than surrendering, or going to jump, they held the planet to ransom by threatening nuclear and kinetic strikes on crucial power and life support installations. In a moment of confusion they made good on the threat. The strikes killed 35 million people. A lucky few ones died immediately; most fell slowly and horribly after the withdrawal of life support. The political machinery was annihilated, but the civil service remained.
For the next few years, keeping the life support together was all that mattered. Government became largely a matter of doing what the experts at the environment ministry said, i.e. staying where you were put to keep the load on the air processors steady, and importing nothing but air scrubbers. Things did improve – the infrastructure is now safe and stable, and trade comes through again. But by the 980s, without anyone quite realising it, the planetary government had become an impersonal bureaucracy.
Like many such organisations, it is essentially disinterested in change. Laws are still tight and intrusive, though the necessity is over. There are still substantial tariffs on “non-essential” imports, leading to a dearth of high-tech goods in the shops, even though the days when command economics had a useful part to play are gone. The citizens of Endpoint aren’t quite so ready to see all this as “necessary” any more, and tensions have emerged in the last five years. Members of the administration have been heard to dismiss questions as “improper” or “disloyal”, rather than tackling them on their merits.
The starport is a ground installation, constructed on a new site clear of the old radioactive ruins. Facilities are fairly basic. Plenty of trading happens at the port and at a commercial orbital forwarding hub, but little of it involves the planet as an origin or destination.
Citizens still live in the old domes and caves though there is a definite tendency for new construction to be deeper under the surface. Visitors should heed the hazard warnings around closed off transit tubes and the like – radiation risks are well secured, but the more mundane areas are home to criminal gangs and a general mix of the disadvantaged.
Apart from the slight dearth of goods for sale, and the many memorials to the dead, Endpoint is much like any other airless rockball run by unloved bureaucrats.
Arlula 1307 Tri-Empire/Ley
Arlula 1307 E4568BC-2 700 X M2 V
The 700 million inhabitants of Arlula groan under the rule of Tsarina Anilexia Kishtarova, 15th in the current line of Tsars. Since 693, when the mad Tsarina Tatania Militsova personally disembowelled the sainted Tsar Oleg Prickinovich and took the throne, the Tsars have clung to power though a network of informers and brutal troops imported from the barbaric Chulukin Islands. Imported TL5 machine guns help.
Arlula is a cold world, with large ice caps and two continents of nothing but tundra and sheet ice. A third continent, which straddles the equator for several thousand miles, is the centre of life. There are also numerous islands in the unfrozen equatorial belt, with people living on some of the less remote ones.
Tales are told of people escaping the Tsars, to live on far-off isles. Regular naval expeditions are sent to hunt them down and enslave them. The expedition commanders, who can expect a percentage of the proceeds, always manage to bring somebody back. In 917 one wag remarked that a certain commander Opishkin might almost be plucking his prisoners from within the bounds of the motherland, his turnaround was so quick. The comedian was suffocated by his (newly severed) tongue a week later. Nobody jokes about that anymore, but people in coastal areas watch for warships.
The population of Arlula is, so far as anyone knows, 100% human – the “Vargr problem” was solved in the ninth century by a pogrom incited to bring the people together. It was successful in both senses.
The Tsars don’t really like outsiders much, since some of them have seditious ideas (and occasionally intent). However, they do like the luxuries available for imperial credits and other off-world currency. The system has no gas giant and no icy asteroids, and since starship crews seem prepared to pay the phenomenal sum of one hundred imperial credits for 14 cubic meters of salt water, they are happy to oblige. The starport is located on a barren and rocky island with no inhabitants other than the starport personnel and a company of troops. Fuel is not available at the port itself, ships are expected to pay their Cr 100/dton for unrefined fuel then go and slurp it from a sheltered bay nearby.
Arlula does also export a small quantity of marine delicacies.
Apart from some weapons, and some luxuries at the palaces, there is little on Arlula above tech level 3. It has no satellite communications, no weather or surveillance satellites, and the starport lacks an orbiting beacon although it can be hailed by radio during daylight.
Visiting Vargr had best be invisible.
Arlula 1307 E4568BC-2 700 X M2 V
The 700 million inhabitants of Arlula groan under the rule of Tsarina Anilexia Kishtarova, 15th in the current line of Tsars. Since 693, when the mad Tsarina Tatania Militsova personally disembowelled the sainted Tsar Oleg Prickinovich and took the throne, the Tsars have clung to power though a network of informers and brutal troops imported from the barbaric Chulukin Islands. Imported TL5 machine guns help.
Arlula is a cold world, with large ice caps and two continents of nothing but tundra and sheet ice. A third continent, which straddles the equator for several thousand miles, is the centre of life. There are also numerous islands in the unfrozen equatorial belt, with people living on some of the less remote ones.
Tales are told of people escaping the Tsars, to live on far-off isles. Regular naval expeditions are sent to hunt them down and enslave them. The expedition commanders, who can expect a percentage of the proceeds, always manage to bring somebody back. In 917 one wag remarked that a certain commander Opishkin might almost be plucking his prisoners from within the bounds of the motherland, his turnaround was so quick. The comedian was suffocated by his (newly severed) tongue a week later. Nobody jokes about that anymore, but people in coastal areas watch for warships.
The population of Arlula is, so far as anyone knows, 100% human – the “Vargr problem” was solved in the ninth century by a pogrom incited to bring the people together. It was successful in both senses.
The Tsars don’t really like outsiders much, since some of them have seditious ideas (and occasionally intent). However, they do like the luxuries available for imperial credits and other off-world currency. The system has no gas giant and no icy asteroids, and since starship crews seem prepared to pay the phenomenal sum of one hundred imperial credits for 14 cubic meters of salt water, they are happy to oblige. The starport is located on a barren and rocky island with no inhabitants other than the starport personnel and a company of troops. Fuel is not available at the port itself, ships are expected to pay their Cr 100/dton for unrefined fuel then go and slurp it from a sheltered bay nearby.
Arlula does also export a small quantity of marine delicacies.
Apart from some weapons, and some luxuries at the palaces, there is little on Arlula above tech level 3. It has no satellite communications, no weather or surveillance satellites, and the starport lacks an orbiting beacon although it can be hailed by radio during daylight.
Visiting Vargr had best be invisible.
Burukansse 1511 Thorstone/Glimmerdrift
Burukansse 1511 A542548-B Ni Po 604 X M2 V
Burukansse is a world of 600,000 sophonts, living a peaceful and increasingly prosperous life at TL 11 under an elected democratic government. The twin engines of success are the class A starport and the highly successful shipyard. The starport has ground and orbital components, and caters to mainly to trade transiting between the Phelina main and Gazala. The shipyard, a venture funded by Hotalez & Cie in the 920s, specialises in a particular 400 dton trader design. This is built on a flattened spherical hull and fitted with jump drives ranging from J1 to J3 plus a 1g manoeuvre drive and, usually, a respectable armament. The Burukansse port and yards will do general repair work and maintenance if required, but they don’t try to compete with the trade/vacation/refit operation at Grand Endeavour three parsecs away.
The thin air on the planet might just about be breathable at sea level, by suitable acclimatised sophonts who don’t do anything strenuous too often, if it weren’t for the high carbon dioxide levels. So air treatment is required, and standard combination masks will work fine here. Most of the population live in arcologies, though some do live out in the wilds to support the high-tech fishing, mining and farming industries.
The IISS classify Burukansse as poor and non-industrialised world, which might seem counter-intuitive but is actually a fairly reasonable representation of trade patterns. There is a bit more money available for luxury goods than the trade codes suggest, however.
Burukansse is one system on the Phelina main that definitely does not cater to pirates and corsairs, not tolerate them by neglect. A variety of customs craft and SDBs, stiffened by a wing of five 1000 dton mini-monitors with bay weapons, keep a tight grip on system space.
Burukansse 1511 A542548-B Ni Po 604 X M2 V
Burukansse is a world of 600,000 sophonts, living a peaceful and increasingly prosperous life at TL 11 under an elected democratic government. The twin engines of success are the class A starport and the highly successful shipyard. The starport has ground and orbital components, and caters to mainly to trade transiting between the Phelina main and Gazala. The shipyard, a venture funded by Hotalez & Cie in the 920s, specialises in a particular 400 dton trader design. This is built on a flattened spherical hull and fitted with jump drives ranging from J1 to J3 plus a 1g manoeuvre drive and, usually, a respectable armament. The Burukansse port and yards will do general repair work and maintenance if required, but they don’t try to compete with the trade/vacation/refit operation at Grand Endeavour three parsecs away.
The thin air on the planet might just about be breathable at sea level, by suitable acclimatised sophonts who don’t do anything strenuous too often, if it weren’t for the high carbon dioxide levels. So air treatment is required, and standard combination masks will work fine here. Most of the population live in arcologies, though some do live out in the wilds to support the high-tech fishing, mining and farming industries.
The IISS classify Burukansse as poor and non-industrialised world, which might seem counter-intuitive but is actually a fairly reasonable representation of trade patterns. There is a bit more money available for luxury goods than the trade codes suggest, however.
Burukansse is one system on the Phelina main that definitely does not cater to pirates and corsairs, not tolerate them by neglect. A variety of customs craft and SDBs, stiffened by a wing of five 1000 dton mini-monitors with bay weapons, keep a tight grip on system space.
At the moment I'm just doing the worlds I need to fill the holes in the published adventures as I run them. The ones on my "needed but not started" list are...
EA 01 (finished)
Galik 1306 C437678-8 Ni 932 X G2 V
Khirliish 1308 C110400-D 940 X K4 V M5 V
Broad-C 1407 B76A636-B Ni Wa 220 X G5 IV
Berdane 1509 A551378-9 Po 531 X M2 V
EA 02 (anyone who does these by Thursday is my hero)
Siigi 1714 E594646-3Ag Ni 612 X M9 III
Miller’s Reach 2218 D344348-6 821 X G7 V
Am 2319 C110513-7 223 X M9 V K1 D
Aapizishga 1913 B262653-A Ni Ri 403 Cs M3 V
EA 03
Se 1903 B210351-A 304 Xx F1 III M7 D M7 D
LUNBER 2003 C265ACH-9 704 Xx K0 V F6 D
DREESEN 1906 D343985-6 In 703 Xx M1 V M3 V M8 D
In the medium term, I'm thinking I will concentrate my game on the area between the Stoner cluster (book due), and the Starfall cluster (book also due), which EA1-3 also touches. Say everything within 10 parsecs of Bubi (1810). I'll probably fill that area out gradually, most likely working from the spinward/rimward side. So if you want to avoid duplication...
That's assuming I don't kill the PC again, of course.
What I go for when I "do" a UWP is the current state of the world -- people (including me) tend to write a huge history to explain the weird UWP then collapse exhausted; they forget that adventures happen in the present, and that setting history is of interest to collectors and authors rather than gamers.
Info on politics, starport, any unusual law/prohibitions, and unusual trade opportunities are all good. I also like to set it in context with its neighbours. Astrophysics or ecological stuff are nice to have, but they're generally fluff (i.e. they don't normally affect play) and I just don't have the time for fluff what with running a game. And I'm particularly looking for any tensions in the setting, i.e. reasons for a patron to need adventurers. If I'm going to post a world, rather than use it and discard it, I like it to have at least one "hook" -- something a GM will read and think "I could get an adventure out of that".
EA 01 (finished)
Galik 1306 C437678-8 Ni 932 X G2 V
Khirliish 1308 C110400-D 940 X K4 V M5 V
Broad-C 1407 B76A636-B Ni Wa 220 X G5 IV
Berdane 1509 A551378-9 Po 531 X M2 V
EA 02 (anyone who does these by Thursday is my hero)
Siigi 1714 E594646-3Ag Ni 612 X M9 III
Miller’s Reach 2218 D344348-6 821 X G7 V
Am 2319 C110513-7 223 X M9 V K1 D
Aapizishga 1913 B262653-A Ni Ri 403 Cs M3 V
EA 03
Se 1903 B210351-A 304 Xx F1 III M7 D M7 D
LUNBER 2003 C265ACH-9 704 Xx K0 V F6 D
DREESEN 1906 D343985-6 In 703 Xx M1 V M3 V M8 D
In the medium term, I'm thinking I will concentrate my game on the area between the Stoner cluster (book due), and the Starfall cluster (book also due), which EA1-3 also touches. Say everything within 10 parsecs of Bubi (1810). I'll probably fill that area out gradually, most likely working from the spinward/rimward side. So if you want to avoid duplication...
That's assuming I don't kill the PC again, of course.
What I go for when I "do" a UWP is the current state of the world -- people (including me) tend to write a huge history to explain the weird UWP then collapse exhausted; they forget that adventures happen in the present, and that setting history is of interest to collectors and authors rather than gamers.
Info on politics, starport, any unusual law/prohibitions, and unusual trade opportunities are all good. I also like to set it in context with its neighbours. Astrophysics or ecological stuff are nice to have, but they're generally fluff (i.e. they don't normally affect play) and I just don't have the time for fluff what with running a game. And I'm particularly looking for any tensions in the setting, i.e. reasons for a patron to need adventurers. If I'm going to post a world, rather than use it and discard it, I like it to have at least one "hook" -- something a GM will read and think "I could get an adventure out of that".
Akhag 1718 Williamsburgire/Glimmerdrift Reaches
Akhag 1718 A624559-C Ni 614 X K0 V
[Note: this is based on an entry from BITS 101 Governments.]
Akhag is a strange society, living in a very thin, tainted atmosphere that requires filter/compressor masks. The 60000 inhabitants live a TL 12 lifestyle under a government the IISS could only class as a “feudal technocracy”. In fact, the world is run by the armaments industry – not the military, the arms makers. It could almost be considered a corporate state, except that instead of just the one corporation there are a whole variety of competing outfits. A couple of decades back they took joint control of the body politic by sabotaging the legitimate government’s gear, and equipping their mercenary hirelings with better. The gun-makers have somehow managed to retain control over the men with guns since then.
Akhag exports a lot of weapons, and a lot of star-mercs. The mercenary companies are always hiring people and have been known to charter passing trader ships in a pinch to move them around. You can buy pretty much anything military here with no questions asked provided it’s for export, barring a few weapons of mass destruction that need “end user certificates”. Law on the world is much stricter; guns are basically banned except to those enforcing the law.
The Class A port has ground and orbital components, plus yards that build Akhag’s fairly capable fleet. Most trade happens at the highport, there is little reason to visit the surface. The orbital is a great arms bazaar attracting all sort of unsavory characters, despite the smell of gun oil that the air scrubbers can never quite remove. It’s easy to get military gear at TL13 – weaponry is a specialty here – and TL14 can be had if you don’t mind paying and waiting.
Akhag 1718 A624559-C Ni 614 X K0 V
[Note: this is based on an entry from BITS 101 Governments.]
Akhag is a strange society, living in a very thin, tainted atmosphere that requires filter/compressor masks. The 60000 inhabitants live a TL 12 lifestyle under a government the IISS could only class as a “feudal technocracy”. In fact, the world is run by the armaments industry – not the military, the arms makers. It could almost be considered a corporate state, except that instead of just the one corporation there are a whole variety of competing outfits. A couple of decades back they took joint control of the body politic by sabotaging the legitimate government’s gear, and equipping their mercenary hirelings with better. The gun-makers have somehow managed to retain control over the men with guns since then.
Akhag exports a lot of weapons, and a lot of star-mercs. The mercenary companies are always hiring people and have been known to charter passing trader ships in a pinch to move them around. You can buy pretty much anything military here with no questions asked provided it’s for export, barring a few weapons of mass destruction that need “end user certificates”. Law on the world is much stricter; guns are basically banned except to those enforcing the law.
The Class A port has ground and orbital components, plus yards that build Akhag’s fairly capable fleet. Most trade happens at the highport, there is little reason to visit the surface. The orbital is a great arms bazaar attracting all sort of unsavory characters, despite the smell of gun oil that the air scrubbers can never quite remove. It’s easy to get military gear at TL13 – weaponry is a specialty here – and TL14 can be had if you don’t mind paying and waiting.
Tailend 2115 Williamsburg/Glimmerdrift Reaches
Tailend 2115 C786764-3 Ag Ri 204 X K7 V
This agricultural world recently became the effective subject of the adjacent Cixntha, which is airless and depends on either hydroponics or imported food. Tailend was tearing itself apart in a religious civil war, sparked by the (apparently spoofed) destruction of a sacred site. After three months of fighting had broken both sides’ backs, Cixntha stepped in as “peacekeeper”. This was an unusually proactive step for that system’s hidebound, bureaucratic government. Commentators have noted the rapid arrival of purchasing and development teams (“carpetbaggers”) from Cixntha’s Jervis Corporation, shortly after the fighting ceased.
Cixntha does its best to maintain a light touch, hiring mercenaries and contracting out infrastructure to avoid getting its own forces shot by indignant locals. Cixntha officials try to talk as if they’re not running the place at all, just “helping out”.
[Note: IMTU I also altered the description of Cixntha in EA2 to say it recently took over Tailend. There is no other plausible candidate for the role of external ruler.]
Tailend 2115 C786764-3 Ag Ri 204 X K7 V
This agricultural world recently became the effective subject of the adjacent Cixntha, which is airless and depends on either hydroponics or imported food. Tailend was tearing itself apart in a religious civil war, sparked by the (apparently spoofed) destruction of a sacred site. After three months of fighting had broken both sides’ backs, Cixntha stepped in as “peacekeeper”. This was an unusually proactive step for that system’s hidebound, bureaucratic government. Commentators have noted the rapid arrival of purchasing and development teams (“carpetbaggers”) from Cixntha’s Jervis Corporation, shortly after the fighting ceased.
Cixntha does its best to maintain a light touch, hiring mercenaries and contracting out infrastructure to avoid getting its own forces shot by indignant locals. Cixntha officials try to talk as if they’re not running the place at all, just “helping out”.
[Note: IMTU I also altered the description of Cixntha in EA2 to say it recently took over Tailend. There is no other plausible candidate for the role of external ruler.]
Udar’s Dagger 1817 Williamsburg/Glimmerdrift Reaches
Udar’s Dagger 1817 C79879C-4 Ag 204 X K1 V A6 D
[Based on an idea from BITS 101 Governments. This book rocks. Buy it.]
Udar’s Dagger started as a Second Imperium prison planet, which lost contact with its masters during the long night. In the post-prison society that evolved during the long night, the old idea of “doing your time” slowly metamorphosed the planet into a meritocracy where those who did well joined the ranks of government, and incidentally gained a better standard of life. This society eventually evolved once more, in a not-so-obviously meritocratic direction. Eventually the state institutionalized the individual’s duty to the group – on Udar’s Dagger you’re born in literal financial debt to the state and have to work it off. The “social value” of your activities adjusts your debt – activities like smoking or hang-gliding push it up, whilst signing up as a volunteer fireman reduces it. Once you’ve paid your debt to society, which mostly happens some time between the ages of 60 and never, you join the ruling class and administer all the debtors below you.
Infrastructure rises to the level of steam railroads and ships. The climate is fairly easy for humans – the atmospheric “taint” is actually marginal and due to high oxygen. Locals are born acclimatized, off-worlders need a reducing mask or a few weeks to get used to it. Fires are something of a problem. The starport is quite good for a class C, the orbital bulk freight facilities would probably make class B grade but the passenger side is a modest terminal outside the capital, Hilt.
Udar’s Dagger does well enough as a low-tech agricultural production world, exporting higher-margin foodstuffs and importing a small but broad variety of goods (including a remarkable amount of accounting software). It manages to get on with the neighbors. If any of the local worlds were in the habit of conquering low-tech agricultural worlds, Udar’s Dagger would have problem, but it seems Cixntha is just far enough away…
Udar’s Dagger 1817 C79879C-4 Ag 204 X K1 V A6 D
[Based on an idea from BITS 101 Governments. This book rocks. Buy it.]
Udar’s Dagger started as a Second Imperium prison planet, which lost contact with its masters during the long night. In the post-prison society that evolved during the long night, the old idea of “doing your time” slowly metamorphosed the planet into a meritocracy where those who did well joined the ranks of government, and incidentally gained a better standard of life. This society eventually evolved once more, in a not-so-obviously meritocratic direction. Eventually the state institutionalized the individual’s duty to the group – on Udar’s Dagger you’re born in literal financial debt to the state and have to work it off. The “social value” of your activities adjusts your debt – activities like smoking or hang-gliding push it up, whilst signing up as a volunteer fireman reduces it. Once you’ve paid your debt to society, which mostly happens some time between the ages of 60 and never, you join the ruling class and administer all the debtors below you.
Infrastructure rises to the level of steam railroads and ships. The climate is fairly easy for humans – the atmospheric “taint” is actually marginal and due to high oxygen. Locals are born acclimatized, off-worlders need a reducing mask or a few weeks to get used to it. Fires are something of a problem. The starport is quite good for a class C, the orbital bulk freight facilities would probably make class B grade but the passenger side is a modest terminal outside the capital, Hilt.
Udar’s Dagger does well enough as a low-tech agricultural production world, exporting higher-margin foodstuffs and importing a small but broad variety of goods (including a remarkable amount of accounting software). It manages to get on with the neighbors. If any of the local worlds were in the habit of conquering low-tech agricultural worlds, Udar’s Dagger would have problem, but it seems Cixntha is just far enough away…
Zarkhakugsi 1916 Williamsburg/Glimmerdrift Reaches
Zarkhakugsi 1916 C244678-9 Ag Ni 322 X M7 II A0 D
[Once more, based on a BITS 101 Governments entry. Note also, EA1-3 have various rumours about Droyne ships appearing out of Crucis Margin. It happens that there is a hi-pop TL15 Oytrip on the far side of that sector. I hope to run a conversion of Research Station Gamma here.]
Zarkhakugsi was settled by a government-backed corporate joint venture from Drahcir a few centuries ago, back in the days before Drahcir went isolationist. It already had an indigenous population – small feathery lizard-like creatures with vestigial wings that talked in chirpy voices and used basic tools. But the corporations quietly assumed that the human settlers would do the natural thing and kill them off, with a little covert technical backing from their employers. The settlers would have none of it, and made common cause with the natives against their government/employers.
Decades of guerilla war followed, as the rebels penned the corporate forces in their cities and starport and the “Corpies” sent grav-gunships out to kill the stinking “Rebs” when they could find them. The corporations would probably have won in the end – satellite surveillance and a willingness to defoliate crop fields go a long way, as does control of the anti-radiation treatments required to counter the planet’s atmospheric taint. But their “big power” backing vanished as Drahcir turned inwards, and their space-based personnel – who weren’t locked in a war mentality by daily fighting – decided that it was a big planet and they didn’t really mind sharing it with Chirpers. So the “Roiders” brokered a ceasefire with the aid of two well-judged falling rocks, and the beginnings of the current balkanized world emerged.
Over the next few centuries, the Rebs built a society of four small republics with an economy that was initially agricultural but has diversified over the years. They use sophisticated irrigation and reservoir systems since water evaporates quickly in the thin air. As outgoing, vibrant societies they welcome visitors and are happy to trade what they’ve got. Their society is predominantly TL6-7, with some higher tech luxuries and essentials (like radiation treatments). They are now the bulk of the population.
They get on fine with the Chirpers, who have largely gone back to their villages now that the need for cooperation is over. It is blindingly obvious that the two species could have pretty much ignored each other from the start. A few Chirpers have “gone human” and have more to do with the big people. In the last two years, certain very high tech (estimated TL15) Droyne equipment has shown up in the Chirper villages in small quantities by obscure means. It is mostly useful for soil treatment and genetic modification of crops, but it’s rung quiet alarm bells around the planet and indeed local space. No Droyne are known to have visited the world in recent years.
The Corpies live in their coastal arcologies and enclaves, and a big city on the site of the original dirt-side starport. They’re a little higher in technology than the Rebs. There is a complex array of governments and alliances, with some enclaves controlling their “outposts” on a purely nominal level and others using deadly threats like withdrawal of life support to maintain an iron grip. The Corpies fester in their strongholds eating hydroponic food and remind each other that they’re the “true” humans. They’ve been sounding a bit desperate, these last hundred years.
The Roiders are small in number but they have the highest technology base – a true TL9 society – and they control the main orbital starport and system defense forces. Also, they can drop rocks on everybody else. They act as umpires for the dirt-siders, putting out any small wars that flare up.
Visiting traders are most likely to deal with the Roiders, who run orbital warehousing and host brokerages, unless they have a specific reason to go down to the planet. The Corpies will be friendly enough provided you’re “pure” human and you haven’t got a visitors stamp from the Rebs on your papers. They export political paintings, with starkly stylized human supremacist imagery, which is reportedly enjoying a fad with certain members of the Loyal Sector Guard in Imperial space. The Rebs get on with everybody except the Corpies. Nobody visits the Chirpers much.
Visitors to Zarkhakugsi will need a normal compressor mask, and anti-radiation treatment if they spend more than a month on the surface.
Zarkhakugsi 1916 C244678-9 Ag Ni 322 X M7 II A0 D
[Once more, based on a BITS 101 Governments entry. Note also, EA1-3 have various rumours about Droyne ships appearing out of Crucis Margin. It happens that there is a hi-pop TL15 Oytrip on the far side of that sector. I hope to run a conversion of Research Station Gamma here.]
Zarkhakugsi was settled by a government-backed corporate joint venture from Drahcir a few centuries ago, back in the days before Drahcir went isolationist. It already had an indigenous population – small feathery lizard-like creatures with vestigial wings that talked in chirpy voices and used basic tools. But the corporations quietly assumed that the human settlers would do the natural thing and kill them off, with a little covert technical backing from their employers. The settlers would have none of it, and made common cause with the natives against their government/employers.
Decades of guerilla war followed, as the rebels penned the corporate forces in their cities and starport and the “Corpies” sent grav-gunships out to kill the stinking “Rebs” when they could find them. The corporations would probably have won in the end – satellite surveillance and a willingness to defoliate crop fields go a long way, as does control of the anti-radiation treatments required to counter the planet’s atmospheric taint. But their “big power” backing vanished as Drahcir turned inwards, and their space-based personnel – who weren’t locked in a war mentality by daily fighting – decided that it was a big planet and they didn’t really mind sharing it with Chirpers. So the “Roiders” brokered a ceasefire with the aid of two well-judged falling rocks, and the beginnings of the current balkanized world emerged.
Over the next few centuries, the Rebs built a society of four small republics with an economy that was initially agricultural but has diversified over the years. They use sophisticated irrigation and reservoir systems since water evaporates quickly in the thin air. As outgoing, vibrant societies they welcome visitors and are happy to trade what they’ve got. Their society is predominantly TL6-7, with some higher tech luxuries and essentials (like radiation treatments). They are now the bulk of the population.
They get on fine with the Chirpers, who have largely gone back to their villages now that the need for cooperation is over. It is blindingly obvious that the two species could have pretty much ignored each other from the start. A few Chirpers have “gone human” and have more to do with the big people. In the last two years, certain very high tech (estimated TL15) Droyne equipment has shown up in the Chirper villages in small quantities by obscure means. It is mostly useful for soil treatment and genetic modification of crops, but it’s rung quiet alarm bells around the planet and indeed local space. No Droyne are known to have visited the world in recent years.
The Corpies live in their coastal arcologies and enclaves, and a big city on the site of the original dirt-side starport. They’re a little higher in technology than the Rebs. There is a complex array of governments and alliances, with some enclaves controlling their “outposts” on a purely nominal level and others using deadly threats like withdrawal of life support to maintain an iron grip. The Corpies fester in their strongholds eating hydroponic food and remind each other that they’re the “true” humans. They’ve been sounding a bit desperate, these last hundred years.
The Roiders are small in number but they have the highest technology base – a true TL9 society – and they control the main orbital starport and system defense forces. Also, they can drop rocks on everybody else. They act as umpires for the dirt-siders, putting out any small wars that flare up.
Visiting traders are most likely to deal with the Roiders, who run orbital warehousing and host brokerages, unless they have a specific reason to go down to the planet. The Corpies will be friendly enough provided you’re “pure” human and you haven’t got a visitors stamp from the Rebs on your papers. They export political paintings, with starkly stylized human supremacist imagery, which is reportedly enjoying a fad with certain members of the Loyal Sector Guard in Imperial space. The Rebs get on with everybody except the Corpies. Nobody visits the Chirpers much.
Visitors to Zarkhakugsi will need a normal compressor mask, and anti-radiation treatment if they spend more than a month on the surface.
Michael Taylor
SOC-13
People are of course welcome to use Morte's Zarkhakugsi description ITTU.
Aapizishga (1913) Tri-Empire/Glimmerdrift Reaches
Aapizishga 1913 B262653-A Ni Ri 403 Cs M3 V
Aapizishga started out on its current course a few hundred years ago, when J3 ships were becoming common in non-military use. A coterie of bankers and super-rich investors decided that it made a good spot for a financial haven and incidentally a very pleasant place to work, play and retire. They took effective control of the planet by means that remain unclear, and installed Bwap administrators to run it. The economy is more diverse now, but Aapizishga is still a wealthy and extremely pleasant place. Poor people find it difficult to move home to Aapizishga but easy to leave.
Aapizishga is still administered by Bwaps, who made such a good job of running the place that their offspring took over. They now form an essentially hereditary caste with a monopoly on high-level administration, contracting out most government services to corporations and providing diligent oversight and quality assurance themselves. They keep pretty much to themselves when not performing inspections, since the air is very dry and they only feel comfortable in artificially humid environments.
When the moneymen took over Aapizishga they made some murky deal with Imperial nobles that turned it into an outlying Imperial Client. There has always been a small naval presence, mostly for intelligence gathering or anti-piracy work, and this has grown over the years as the main Imperial border crept outwards. Since the Solomani Rim War began, the naval detachment has gotten busier but no bigger with the increase in piracy and commerce raiding. In the last couple of years, rumors of Aapizishga applying for full Imperial membership have begun to circulate. These don’t seem to make much sense – it’s a long way from the border and offshore banking is big business. Something drastic would have to happen to push it into the empire.
This small world has breathable air but it is rather dry overall. The terrain varies from savannah to spectacular craggy mountains cut by river gorges. Outdoor pursuits are popular, especially managed game hunting. The wildlife gets huge, requiring some pretty serious weaponry (which is legal but covered by stringent safety rules).
The civil starport is groundside near the equator. The navy mostly operates out of a trio of orbital forts, with some offices and base housing on the surface.
Aapizishga 1913 B262653-A Ni Ri 403 Cs M3 V
Aapizishga started out on its current course a few hundred years ago, when J3 ships were becoming common in non-military use. A coterie of bankers and super-rich investors decided that it made a good spot for a financial haven and incidentally a very pleasant place to work, play and retire. They took effective control of the planet by means that remain unclear, and installed Bwap administrators to run it. The economy is more diverse now, but Aapizishga is still a wealthy and extremely pleasant place. Poor people find it difficult to move home to Aapizishga but easy to leave.
Aapizishga is still administered by Bwaps, who made such a good job of running the place that their offspring took over. They now form an essentially hereditary caste with a monopoly on high-level administration, contracting out most government services to corporations and providing diligent oversight and quality assurance themselves. They keep pretty much to themselves when not performing inspections, since the air is very dry and they only feel comfortable in artificially humid environments.
When the moneymen took over Aapizishga they made some murky deal with Imperial nobles that turned it into an outlying Imperial Client. There has always been a small naval presence, mostly for intelligence gathering or anti-piracy work, and this has grown over the years as the main Imperial border crept outwards. Since the Solomani Rim War began, the naval detachment has gotten busier but no bigger with the increase in piracy and commerce raiding. In the last couple of years, rumors of Aapizishga applying for full Imperial membership have begun to circulate. These don’t seem to make much sense – it’s a long way from the border and offshore banking is big business. Something drastic would have to happen to push it into the empire.
This small world has breathable air but it is rather dry overall. The terrain varies from savannah to spectacular craggy mountains cut by river gorges. Outdoor pursuits are popular, especially managed game hunting. The wildlife gets huge, requiring some pretty serious weaponry (which is legal but covered by stringent safety rules).
The civil starport is groundside near the equator. The navy mostly operates out of a trio of orbital forts, with some offices and base housing on the surface.
2207 Keepsake (Independent)
Keepsake 2207 X300300-2 Va 515 Xx G2 II M7 V
Keepsake mainworld is a small airless and waterless rockball, with a mean surface temperature of around 300 Kelvin. It has – or had – no known indigenous life. Keepsake was uninhabited until some time in the sixth century, when a small mining industry first developed. The miners grew in number to around 100,000, living in surface and underground habitats built at TL11-13 (quite advanced for the time), and then fell back to 20,000 or so as the strikes tailed out.
Some time in early 904, the planet was abandoned amidst confusion and disaster. Survivors reported a sudden wave “monster” attacks by savage proto-intelligent creatures that could survive in vacuum. Records are scant, since there is no sensor footage and no evacuees claimed to have seen these creatures and survived to describe them. Around five thousand sophs got off the planet in a chaotic evacuation which included some ships firing on the others to “enforce quarantine”, and orbital bombardment of “captured” surface sites with improvised kinetic weapons.
Marine recon units from Emka set down about a month later to investigate and found no such creatures. But there were a few savagely mauled corpses that hadn’t been cleaned up by the robotic sanitation system. The affair became one of the more celebrated mysteries in charted space, until it was convincingly attributed to a hallucinogenic/memetic hoax that “got out of hand”.
Keepsake mainworld is now almost a ghost planet. Miners do not like to work the planet, especially since a couple of restart operations were abandoned amidst strange rumors. A few hundred semi-savage descendants of the original miners roam the old caverns and habitats, living in automated habitats they do not understand. They use tools fashioned from scrap to create a TL2 society with TL12 food and life support. Jokes have it that they eat better than the belters who dominate the catalogued population of 5,000 sophonts. The belter population is new and in a state of flux – they moved in during the 980s after some superheavy metal strikes. The main belt contains enough ice asteroids to make life support for long term prospecting viable, so they have no particular reason to visit the system’s assorted planets.
There is no starport as such in the Keepsake system, but a small refining concern orbiting one of the gas giants will sell fuel to passing ships.
Keepsake 2207 X300300-2 Va 515 Xx G2 II M7 V
Keepsake mainworld is a small airless and waterless rockball, with a mean surface temperature of around 300 Kelvin. It has – or had – no known indigenous life. Keepsake was uninhabited until some time in the sixth century, when a small mining industry first developed. The miners grew in number to around 100,000, living in surface and underground habitats built at TL11-13 (quite advanced for the time), and then fell back to 20,000 or so as the strikes tailed out.
Some time in early 904, the planet was abandoned amidst confusion and disaster. Survivors reported a sudden wave “monster” attacks by savage proto-intelligent creatures that could survive in vacuum. Records are scant, since there is no sensor footage and no evacuees claimed to have seen these creatures and survived to describe them. Around five thousand sophs got off the planet in a chaotic evacuation which included some ships firing on the others to “enforce quarantine”, and orbital bombardment of “captured” surface sites with improvised kinetic weapons.
Marine recon units from Emka set down about a month later to investigate and found no such creatures. But there were a few savagely mauled corpses that hadn’t been cleaned up by the robotic sanitation system. The affair became one of the more celebrated mysteries in charted space, until it was convincingly attributed to a hallucinogenic/memetic hoax that “got out of hand”.
Keepsake mainworld is now almost a ghost planet. Miners do not like to work the planet, especially since a couple of restart operations were abandoned amidst strange rumors. A few hundred semi-savage descendants of the original miners roam the old caverns and habitats, living in automated habitats they do not understand. They use tools fashioned from scrap to create a TL2 society with TL12 food and life support. Jokes have it that they eat better than the belters who dominate the catalogued population of 5,000 sophonts. The belter population is new and in a state of flux – they moved in during the 980s after some superheavy metal strikes. The main belt contains enough ice asteroids to make life support for long term prospecting viable, so they have no particular reason to visit the system’s assorted planets.
There is no starport as such in the Keepsake system, but a small refining concern orbiting one of the gas giants will sell fuel to passing ships.
selunatic2397
SOC-12
Thanks Morte! This is great work...I'll be dropping these into my players paths soon. Thanks for sharing.
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