Hata

Hata Carinan

System: Hata
Hex Location: 1931
Star Type: Triple (all distant) M4 V, A6 V, A3 III
Number of Worlds: 11, 13, 3
Gas Giants: 5, 2, 3
Planetoid Belt: Each star has cometary and asteroid belts, A6 V and A3 III have two asteroid belts each

Starport Type: E
World Size: Larger than Earth
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 50%
Population: Large (3 billion)
Political Affiliation: Carthen Colony (Revanchist Republic)
Tags: Feral world, Psionic Knight academy, Mining World
Notes: Hata is another mineral rich world that the Revanchists are eager to exploit to support the farther "north" watery worlds of the Carthen colony.  It's a bit more challenging for Hata than it is for nearby Metium, however.  Like Metium, Hata is sufficiently separated from any other Republic system that traveling to it requires either risky "big jumps" or stopping somewhere politically unfriendly to refuel.  This isolation makes it very difficult to deal with these two more far-flung systems in the Carthen Colony, and contributes to tension between the Revanchists and the Monarchists.  If a Carrick world, or an allied Voormellei Federation world such as Eliane, Jhantor or Miroon be swayed to join the Revanchists (or be conquered) the republic would have a viable space-lane from Beodon to Hata, and from there to Metium.  Of course, they couldn't possibly seize Eliane without provoking an aggressive response from the Monarchy, they would struggle to even seize rich and populous Jhantor at all, and would spark and even more hostile response from the Monarchy if they tried, and Miroon would be problematic for a number of reasons—but it offers the best alternative from a suite of bad alternatives.

But this has only an indirect impact on Hata.  See; to be honest, Hata is a bad stepping stone to Metium to begin with, and the Republic needs to figure out some way to "pacify" it.  Settled many generations ago by Carinan ogres and Oerk hulks, Hata went feral during the Dark Ages, before the Revanchists claimed the system.  The two races have been locked in bitter, tribal style warfare for generations now, and raiding, slavery, torture, rape, cannibalism and more are everyday facts of life for them.  They tend to have little patience for the weak little Republic troops, who can barely even walk comfortably in the high gravity environment of Hata, although they do respect their war machines' ability to deal death effectively.  However, the Revanchists have trouble deploying on Hata, because of the aforementioned issue.  Caught in a bitter catch-22, the Revanchists need Miroon (or some other stepping stone) to fully pacify Hata and bring it to bear so that their mining operations can supply systems to the north, but they need Hata pacified before they can afford to stick their necks out and make a play for the conquest of one of those worlds.  Carthen Colony republic governor Abembo Gama doesn't yet know how to deal with this catch-22, but it frustrates him immensely, and he tends to take it out on the natives of Hata by ordering petty strikes against them, which harden their resistance to being quietly assimilated into the Republic.  The management of Hata is a debacle and major problem with the governor's rule, and his failure to control the situation is starting be noticed by Revanchist superiors.  With his position on the line, Gama is getting desperate, and those who are paying attention are worried that he'll try an increasingly desperate gamble to resolve the situation.

Hata Oerk

It is possible that other mineral wealth exists in the system.  Hata is an unusual triple star system, and the main star around which Hata rotates is a simple red dwarf.  Two hotter white stars also belong to the system, but all three are in sufficiently distant relationships with each other that stable planetary systems exist for all of them.  In fact, all three have asteroid belts (the two white stars even have two each) as well as several rocky, airless (or so it's believed) worlds, and numerous gas giants, some with rocky and/or icy moons.  These subsystems within the Hata system remained relatively unsurveyed, however, and it's not really known what (if any) potential mineral wealth can be found therein.

There is another settlement of sorts in the system, however—a high flying floating city that has gravity generators allowing Earth-standard gravitic performance within the city itself.  It moves slowly (usually, although it is capable of higher speed) and does not keep a very high elevation most of the time; less than 1,000 feet, although sometimes it rises up to over 15,000 for rapid travel.  This is a psionic knight monastery, and it is a unique order; the Order of Saint Simon the Martyr.  It does not train many psionic knights, but it steadfastly proclaims its political neutrality and refuses to align itself with the Revanchists.  This is now another source of potential conflict; the Simonians that often accompany Revanchist military units are not happy with this order, and hate any competition within their claimed space.

Order of Saint Simon the Martyr

Metium

System: Metium
Hex Location: 1731
Star Type: Single A0 V
Number of Worlds: 11
Gas Giants: 2 (hot Jupiter)
Planetoid Belt: Cometary and asteroid belt

Starport Type: C
World Size: Mars-sized
Atmosphere Type: Dangerous.  Poisonous gas will kill within minutes without a filter.
Surface Water: 20%
Population: Medium-sized (10 million)
Political Affiliation: Carthen Colony (Revanchist Republic)
Tags: Hostile AI, Sealed Menace, Mining world
Notes:  Located far enough away from most of the other worlds in the Carthen Colony, Metium is reasonably self-sufficient in many ways, although convoys travel to and from this world frequently.  However, to reach it, they often travel through the systems of Outremer East rather than making a four parsec jump, attempting to stay out of the sensors of the Crusaders, and skimming gas giants for unrefined fuel.  To accomplish this dangerous run, the Revanchists often hire smugglers from the Dhangetans or elsewhere, to maintain plausible deniability.  But the preponderance of mineral-poor water worlds elsewhere in the Carthen Colony means that access to this world's mineral wealth is vital.  But having to flit through enemy territory or making a jump beyond the safety of the three parsec minimum was always Metium's biggest challenge.

Metian mining site

It is, however, not the only one.  The miners, farmers, and other settlers have had another major problem literally fall out of the sky; an alien AI located in a large meteorite that crashed deep in the wilderness.  Because of its remoteness, they did not investigate for some time—when they finally did, they found that servitor robots had built a veritable army of other robots, linked to the AI, who are anxious to claim the planet for themselves.  Given the material wealth of the planet, there was plenty of raw material for the AI to work with, and it can (presumably) keep building robot soldiers and military vehicles, etc. into perpetuity.  On recognizing the hostility of the AI (every attempt to approach the site has been shot down, and a few far-flung settlements were destroyed completely, every single citizen therein massacred by alien robots), the settlers have effectively gone to war against the robots.  The ideal scenario would be an orbital bombardment that destroyed the AI's central CPU and thus the hostility of the servitors remaining, but it is too well protected and the colonists do not have access to any weapons that can breach its dug-in bunker.  Appeals to the Revanchists who nominally rule over the colony are mired in bureaucracy.

This alien AI has started sending waves of newly minted troops out into space now, in small amounts.  What are they looking for?  What is their purpose?  They seem to be scouting trips only, but the menace of the growing robot army is not one that has escaped the settlers of Metium, and as they start to worry that the situation is getting worse, there is open talk of looking for help elsewhere then the Republic, who seems only interested in making sure that the convoys of mineral wealth continues to flow.

Bizarre rumors are occasionally surfaced that there is a hideous, horrible alien creature from the Outer Darkness that lives on Metium.  Nobody has ever proven this, but the rumors suggest that one aspect of this creature is that it creates a strange psychic null field wherein anyone who perceives it is incapable of understanding what it sees, or remembering any details of the creature.  Some other explanation is always attributed to the actions of this creature; mass hypnosis, "swamp gas" or anything, really—anything other than what actually happened.  According to this strange conspiracy theory, the robots are actually trying to save humanity from this daemonic presence, as their artificial intelligence is not affected by the psychic field.

The fact that there is no proof whatsoever of so bizarre a story is seen as self-confirming evidence that it must be true to those who believe this.  If there is a way to counteract this field, none among the True Believers have any idea what it might be.

Beodon

System: Beodon
Hex Location: 1827
Star Type: Double (distant) G5 V, K2 V
Number of Worlds: 9, 8 (17)
Gas Giants: 1, 2 (hot Jupiter)
Planetoid Belt: Cometary and asteroid belt (x2)

Starport Type: E
World Size: Larger than earth
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 100%
Population: Superpopulated (12 billion)
Political Affiliation: Carthen Colony (Revanchist Republic)
Tags: Boomtown / Gold Rush, Regional dominance, Zombie plague
Notes:  (Aside before I begin... I rolled up all this data randomly.  All of it.  This is a weird world, in some ways, but at the same time... one that I think really speaks to the strength of the random generation, even when you're using it to fill in systems that are part of space-faring nations that you've already determined.  I needed a head for the Carthen colony, and this is obviously it, based on the rolls that I got.  But a 100% water world, with 12 billion people, only a class E "frontier" style starport and a... zombie plague?  This turned out quite interesting...)

The strange, underwater spaceports of Beodon

Beodon was once a populous and important part of the Carrick.  Although larger than Earth, the core of the planet is less dense, and the gravity is only slightly above Terran average, making life here relatively easy.  The majority of the original colonists were the same, therefore, as that of the Carrick; Bernese humans of Earth-ancestry, with small but significant pluralities of some Altairans, some cepheids and cetians (an element of the population that grew over time, given the aquatic nature of Beodon.)  The oceans are relatively shallow, and vast underwater cities were founded, many of which have since risen well above the surface to become legitimate skyscrapers.

Beodon became a commercial and economic rival within the Carrick with Jhantor as it grew; the smaller, scrappier, leaner and meaner version of Jhantor, as they styled themselves.  This rivalry grew intense between the elites of the two worlds, who were the commercially and politically connected.  Ninety-three years ago, however, something happened that changed all of that.  A plague broke out on Beodon; a designer plague, according to epidemiologists who were eager to suggest that corporate or political espionage was the source of it.  Its victims didn't die immediately, but their cerebral activity rapidly devolved into savagery, and the victims became hyper-violent, insane, subhuman and cannibalistic.  This cerebral degeneration also causes them to be largely immune to shock of injury or pain; they really only "stop" when they've broken down physically sufficiently that they aren't able to continue.

What really caused this "zombie plague"?  Nobody really knows.  Corporate interests on Jhantor are largely blamed on Beodon itself, at least in official propaganda.  Honestly, the rank and file Beodonian is starting to seriously doubt this narrative; a conspiracy theory in which their own treasonous elite engineered the plague to create an excuse for political break with the Carrick due to bribes or kickbacks given to them by the Revanchists has spread like wildfire.  A subversive death sage experimenting with new ways of priming populations for undeath; "terraforming" live worlds into undead ones, in a way, is a popular rumor among off-worlders who are familiar with the situation.  But nobody has any hard answers.  What everyone does know is that this plague is deadly and devastating.  Although largely contained as of right now, it affected as much as 25% of the population at its height, and fears of new outbreaks loom like a shadow over the entire world.  Quarantine zones are strictly and harshly patrolled.  Nobody really knows how many victims live in the quarantine zones.  They could be largely depopulated.  Or they could be teeming with billions of victims.  Nobody wants to go in and find out; they are just sealed and heavily guarded, mostly by robotic soldiers who are not at risk of contracting the plague themselves should there be a break-out of some kind.

Plague victim on an artificial sandy island

This incident and its lingering aftermath had a profound political effect on Beodon and the remaining population.  Angry recriminations and inter-colonial warfare loomed imminent.  As the Revanchists continued their expansion in the region, Beodon split with the Carrick and a Revanchist fleet arrived to support their claims.  Immigration increased tremendously from Republic space, bringing with it new cultural mores; Jaffans and Psarians in particular.  They came in large enough numbers to threaten the dominant culture of Beodon, and they brought with them Revanchist troops that backed them over the natives.  At first, the horror of the plague was deemed sufficient justification for tolerating this, but as the years went on, the plague seemed to reach a kind of equilibrium of sorts, and it became clear that they had merely allowed themselves to be militarily conquered (by invitation, no less) resentment grew among the natives.  The situation on Beodon is today quite tense.  Domestic terrorism, résistance, freedom fighters, guerillas, 4GW fighters—whatever you want to call them—have made life very unpredictable on Beodon.  Vast areas of buildings, largely abandoned to plague victims, are still swarming with them, and occasionally they break through and wreak localized havoc before they can be put down.  The only people who have a modicum of peace are the aquacultural farmers who are removed from the source of either political or epidemiological tension.

Republic forces have created what is in effect a police state, heavily blockaded, and rigidly controlled on Beodon, to attempt to squash both the unrest and the plague danger—although the Revanchist governor has hinted broadly that opening up the sealed plague areas as a form of punishment for domestic violence is not off the table.  Smugglers, many from the Carrick, who now see their erstwhile rivals as heroic and oppressed cousins in need of relief is the prevailing opinion here, and Carrick pilots with letters of marque (or simply less respect for Revanchist authority) see themselves as swashbuckling, idealistic heroes.  In part because of this bubbling tension, there is a booming industry in settlement and gun-running, and other black-market deals. Mercenaries are flocking to the planet in droves, with fat contracts, ready to suppress any uprisings.  Jaffans and Psarians in particular are coming to settle, while many of the mercenaries are Cilindareans, Janissaries, or even more unsavory types.

Ethnic tension is also very strong.  The Psarians and Jaffans tend to be tolerant of the oppressive, capricious and corrupt Revanchist government, and support it (in part, because it favors them over the natives) while the Bernese and non-humans hate it.  This is what causes the starport to be of such low quality—between terrorism threats and zombie threats, the high quality starports of the past are abandoned, or otherwise considered too dangerous to use, and therefore are officially quarantined.  Ships arriving touch down in hastily constructed substitutes, get unrefined fuel cracked from the ocean-water that covers the surface, and head off again sooner rather than later.

In short, Beodon is a watery time-bomb politically, and even in Capital Publius and Dimidium Secundus, the Prime Minister and the King look hesitantly at Beodon and the Carthen/Carrick tension as a potential flashpoint that has known-space spanning implications.  It could be the Sarajevo of known space.  It certainly has no shortage of would-be Gavrilo Princips, although the elites on both sides are wary enough to avoid being the Archduke Franz Ferdinand—at least so far.

Corvi VII

System: Corvi VII
Hex Location: 1826
Star Type: Double G6 V, G0 V (distant)
Number of Worlds: 18 (8 around main star, 10 around distant star)
Gas Giants: 6 (4 around main star, 2 around second)
Planetoid Belt: Cometary belt around main star, Cometary and asteroid belt around distant star

Starport Type: C
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 20%
Population: Large (c. 3 billion)
Political Affiliation: Carthen Colony (Revanchist Republic)
Tags: Sealed cities, Forgotten, Persistent dangerous weather
Notes: Corvi VII was settled long ago by the very first wave of Marians and their cepheid allies who were associated with the Bern House, before he rose to become the king of the Monarchy and a replacement (of sorts) for the failed and fallen Marian Empire.  And it was a prosperous enough colony, although it provided nothing that was in particular demand; as the Dark Age darkened, it was eventually forgotten and the colonists left to fend for themselves.

Domed Corvian city on a rare, clear(ish) day

Corvi VII has a supercharged cloud layer that thrums with constant electrical discharge so powerful that it acts is periodic electromagnetic pulses and can shut down anything struck by this electrical discharge.  This frustrated sensors and flights both, making approaching or leaving the surface rather tricky.  The colonists sealed their cities, or built them without electrical power in some cases, to avoid having to deal with being lashed by constant storms that periodically shut down all electronic devices.  In spite of this significant handicap to their technological base, the Corvians built a prosperous colony that thrived, showing significant innovation in using mechanical and chemical substitutes for what was elsewhere done with electronics—or learned to live without.

After many generations, many of the descendants of the original colonists started to doubt that their ancestors had really come from off-world, as their own ships, crashed or grounded by devastating electromagnetic pulses eventually cut them off from the rest of known space.  More recently, brave pilots from the Carrick rediscovered Corvi VII, and met with some of the leaders of its various governments.  Recognizing their dialect and their distant kinship, they were received in friendship, but those leaders feared what knowledge of what had happened to the old Empire of legend and myth would mean to the people.  The brave Carrick pilots were themselves either downed by the hazardous weather, or declined to come back and risk flying through the cloud belt that could shut their ship down and fry its crew, so the local leaders judged that their decision was wise.

Revanchist orbital platform

Later, the Revanchists decided that the system was a strategic one for them to control, so they established an orbital colony above the atmosphere (the C type starport), and developed technology that could withstand the EMP storms and travel to the surface as needed.  They've declared their overlordship to the local leaders, but have so far done very little to enforce it, and their presence has been concealed from the general populace—although no doubt they wonder at the strange degree to which local tensions between various nations have eased and their leaders gather for secret summits, the subject of which they have not revealed.

The Corvi VII system is interesting.  There are two widely separated yet gravitationally bound sun-like stars, each with their own systems of planets—although all but the main world detailed here are inhospitable to human life.  Rumors of a pirate base located somewhere around the other sun-like star, some of which operate with letters of marque from the Carrick and disrupt revanchist traffic throughout Carthen persist, but if they do exist, the Republic officials have not yet managed to find definitive proof of them—just the circumstantial evidence of ships that go missing without a trace.

Muda Meko

System: Muda Meko
Hex Location: 1825
Star Type: Single K9 V
Number of Worlds: 6
Gas Giants: 3 (1 hot Jupiter)
Planetoid Belt: Cometary belt; 2 asteroid belts

Starport Type: X
World Size: Larger than Earth
Atmosphere Type: Thin
Surface Water: 20%
Population: Medium sized (c. 30 million)
Political Affiliation: Carthen Colony (Revanchist Republic)
Notes: A planet of Oerk clans, strong, scaled and reptilian aliens.  They don't always have primitive tribal culture (although left on their own, they do tend to revert to that mean) but on Muda Meko they certainly do.  The oerks of Muda Meko are not citizens of the Republic, or citizens at all, for that matter—the Republic ignores them except to exploit them as cheap labor locally, or they trick them into entering indentured servitude and going abroad—again, usually as cheap manual labor, or cannon fodder in their wars.  As of right now, the oerk population still accepts this state of affairs, not really knowing much of what goes on off-world, and therefore too naive to know better, but they are becoming more and more suspicious every day of these "little weak people from the stars."

Orbital Revanchist corporate city

These tribal natives are not what the Republic considers when it calls this world one of theirs, however.  Powerful corporate interests within the Republic have used their crony relationship with corrupt politicians to prompt the claiming of the world, and they've established their own settlements (mostly large orbital cities) from which their employees and contractors can exploit the planet for its mineral, agricultural and humanoid capital.  Few people in the Republic really understand much of what happens here (and besides, there are so many exploited worlds), so this in many ways resembles the Congo Free State; corporate interests provide extensive propaganda about "humanitarian" and missionary concerns, while they effectively strip-mine the planet of anything of value; including the natives themselves.

On the surface of the planet, however, there are no starports at all, or even high tech urban facilities to speak of.  The oerks live a primitive life, and the Revanchists don't stay on the surface (the combination of high gravity and thin air make it quite uncomfortable) so they spend their time in a far orbit, nearly at lunar distance, in an artificial torus city.

Riesefels

System: Riesefels
Hex Location: 1926
Star Type: Double K8 V, M4 IV Subgiant (distant)
Number of Worlds: 7
Gas Giants: 3
Planetoid Belt: Cometary and asteroid belt

Starport Type: X
World Size: Mars sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 90%
Population: Super-populated (12+ billion)
Political Affiliation: Carthen Colony (Revanchist Republic)
Notes: The ocean-planet of Riesefels was originally settled millennia ago by cetians; aquatic (more properly amphibious; they can survive out of water for a considerable amount of time if needed, and can breath oxygenated air) fish-people who are seen in many oceans across the sector and beyond.  Riesefels is a great environment for them, and over the millennia they prospered; their eggs proliferated, the only predators capable of doing them any harm were their own beasts of burden gone feral, and they were occasionally—at least in the early years—supplemented by new settlers.  The population exploded relatively quickly.

Cetian sitting on a reef.

Political, cultural and religious realities as the colony progressed, especially during the dark years after the Wars of the Last Emperors and the fall of the Marian civilization, meant that these cetians eventually turned their back on the rest of the interstellar community, refused entry to any spaceships that came (although during the worst of the dark ages, none did) scrapped and salvaged their own ships and even the ports that they had previously built.  Cultural and religious strictures enforcing isolation grew rigid.

Many years later, (although now several centuries ago) colonists from the Carrick also settled on Riesefels, although they initially avoided the oceans entirely, settling on the shores of vast interior lakes on the small, island-like continents that made up only a small portion of the surface area of the planet.  In fact, they existed for decades without even being aware of the cetians under the ocean's surface, or vice versa.  This was also a prosperous colony, rich in agriculture, if not industry, and the population grew here too.  Until the two populations became aware of each other.  The leaders of many cetian nations called a crusade to—if not wipe the land-people off the surface of the planet—to at least destroy their star ports and keep their world free from interstellar interference.  After many years of fighting, they finally came to a cease-fire between the land and sea peoples—although as a condition, there are no starports at all on the planet, and ships that come here must simply land in whatever open space they can find.  Luckily for these few visitors, the land population powers much of their cities with fission power; using lakewater (so as not to antagonize the sea-dwellers) as a primary fuel source, splitting the molecules of hydrogen and oxygen.  This means that a side-effect of his is that unrefined fuel is usually available, and kept for exactly that purpose.  The cetians suspect that more ships come and go than they are told, and tensions between the sea and the land are growing.

Although the human settlers came (mostly) from the Carrick and were culturally and ethnically Bernese, many felt that they were not supported sufficiently by the government on Lyrae VI (this was several decades ago now) and when some of the other systems nearby opted to secede and ally themselves (later to be officially integrated as Carthen Colony) with the Revanchist Republic, which was eager to claim territory in this subsector, far from their normal boundaries, but important in establishing space-lanes to yet more far-flung colonies elsewhere in the sector, the Riesefels colony joined them.  This has maybe exacerbated tensions with the cetians, as the Revanchists are more interested in promoting their own agenda then they are in maintaining peace with what they consider subjugated people (a bit of a misnomer, because the cetians are neither subjugated to the Republic, nor do they even have any meaningful diplomatic relationship with them one way or another).  As tensions between the Revanchists and the Bernese continue to grow across all of known space, this means that Riesefels has become tense with regards to both its foreign interstellar policy as well as with its domestic cetian/human interactions.  As if that wasn't enough, many people of various other races have arrived since the absorption into the Republic, including Revanchist bureaucracy, some soldiers and more, and the original settlers are finding that their alliance with them may have been rather rash.  Strong factions among the locals favor declaring independence from the Republic and realigning with the Carrick yet again.

The human (and other starfaring alien) population on Riesefels is large, but not abnormally so—about a billion people, spread across one roughly Greenland sized island continent and other much smaller islands.  But this is primarily an ocean planet, and the cetians, should they ever be sufficiently roused to completely claim the entirety of the world, could surely do so, as their numbers are vast; more than ten times the number of air-breathers teem under the waves in many mighty kingdoms and nations.