Fotta Zonaii

System: Fotta Zonaii
Hex Location: 2133
Star Type: Double (distant) M1 V, M2 V
Number of Worlds: 5, 12
Gas Giants: 4 (hot Jupiter), 1
Planetoid Belt: Cometary and asteroid belt, Cometary belt

Starport Type: A
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 10%
Population: Medium-sized (900 million)
Political Affiliation: Independent
Tags: Sealed menace, Civil war, Psionic Knight academy

Revolutionary Guard soldier

Notes: This independent system is an Altairan colony, settled many centuries ago.  Although friendly with the Altairan Ascendency, it did not recognize its political overlordship, and continued to manage itself according to its own laws and customs.  Following the formation of Outremer by adventurous, iconoclast Shadow Knights which conquered many of the Altairan worlds and split what was left of the Ascendency into two pieces, refugees were scattered in many directions, but a significant number—tens of millions, at least—came here.  At first welcomed, as they became somewhat integrated into Zonaiian society, it became clear that ethnic solidarity was insufficient on its own.  The Ascendency refugees and their descendants were culturally quite distinct from the Zonaiians, and their preferred policy was one of greater militarism, authoritarianism, and aggressiveness towards Imperial forces and colonies in particular.  The Vorgan Than Viceroyalty is usually seen as the most expeditious target, and one that needs to be neutralized before attention can be turned to Outremer.  As tensions rise with Vorgan Than, the original natives, who largely belong to the Isolationist political party (over 65%) find themselves in bitter dispute with the descendants of the refugees.  This has spilled out into open civil war as the two factions struggle to decide which vision of Fotta Zonaii will prevail.  The conservative Isolationist faction, led by King Andaic Scrome was initially caught off guard that the Revolutionary Guard party would actually attempt a coup, and lost a great deal of ground in early days of the revolt.

Visiting Fotta Zonaii during this period of upheaval is not recommended; the situation is quite dangerous. That said, some do—and actually people (especially Altairans) have come in small numbers to train in an ancient Altairan knight tradition which is maintained on Fotta Zonaii but largely derelict elsewhere.  This isn't really an "academy" per se; rather, there are small communities here and there of masters of the Carga Kaloo arts, and those who wish to learn them seek a master and pledge themselves as apprentices.  Each master teaches only 1-5 or so apprentices as a rule; many will take none.  Although this is a traditional Altairan art, not all apprentices (and graduated masters) are necessarily Altairan.  Many masters point to the tradition being older than the Altairan Ascendency and truthfully belonging to the Marians (of which the Altairans were only one component.)

There are a number of Quarantine Zones on Fotta Zonaii as well, that have been quarantined nearly since settlement.  In the early days of the Zonaiian colonization and terraforming of the planet, strange debris was found scattered in some areas of the planet—the wreckage of ancient crashed space-ships, almost destroyed to the point of unrecognizableness.  It appears that these ancient ships were carrying something sinister, though—scientific experiments that attempted to bring some kind of thoroughly foreign entities from the Outer Darkness into our world and hybridize them with more familiar DNA.  Strange tentacled and chitinous creatures that had the vague form of a man, most locked in some kind of suspended animation still linger in nearly indestructible pods.  The colonists have tried to destroy these, but this tends to backfire; many entire settlements were obliterated in the early days of colonization; even "nuking from orbit" seems to have only made these quiescent rather than destroyed.  Zonaiian scientists blame the incredibly high tech and even thaumaturgical construction that bridges both the normal space-time universe and the Outer Darkness at the same time as the source of their durability.

The more concerning fact about these, of course, is that in the madness of fanaticism, Esean Kroni, the leader of the Revolutionary Guard, is actively ignoring the quarantine zones, trying to find these capsules.  Whether he wants to use them as a weapon on the Isolationists, or on the Vorgan Than is unclear, but luckily, he hasn't yet appeared to have found any.