Suly

Orbital shipyards at Suly

System: Suly
Hex Location: 2430
Star Type: Single K0 V
Number of Worlds: 8
Gas Giants: 1
Planetoid Belt: Cometary belt

Starport Type: A
World Size: Mars-sized
Atmosphere: Earth-like
Surface Water: 50%
Population: Large (c. 2 billion)
Political Affiliation: Independent
Tags: Oppressed Natives, Local Specialty, Primitive Aliens
Notes: (I do love the serendipity of the dice, sometimes.  I had decided before I even started rolling—and I didn't fudge any of the rolls other than to reroll one world tag that I just had in the last system—that this would be a Planet of the Apes world.  I had no idea that I'd roll up a Type A starport, oppressed natives or primitive aliens.  That actually kind of... makes it a little bit cliche.  The poor apes are the primitive, oppressed natives, who contribute labor to the local specialty—the making of starships; one of the few systems locally that does so—of all the systems developed in this area, Fotta Zonai and Miroon are the only A type starports are the only others, and both have issues that make them less desirable for some of the locals to shop at for ships.  Fotta Zonai makes many military ships more than commercial ships, and they are of Altairan designs and not for sale to other powers.  Miroon also makes some ships, but their industry is more of a very small, cottage industry bespoke type affair.  This makes Suly a truly unique place to shop for ships—at least until I roll up another Type A star port, if I do, at another system locally.  But still; I had imagined that I'd have a more or less advanced ape civilization, not a primitive one, but since I'm mostly unwilling to fudge dice rolls without good reason, well—this is what I got.)

Suly is an interesting world, and interesting especially as a colonial holding.  Small-bodied Sirian reptoids established contact with the world following the Dark Ages, and found that it had been heavily populated by Earth-extraction apes, genetically modified before even the time of the Old Kingdoms, to have human-scale intelligence (for the curious, the average IQ for the space-faring society that left Earth was about 105 with a 15 point SD; the apes are not quite that high.  With a 95 average IQ and a 13 point SD, they do tend to be a little less intelligent, but not nearly as much so as certain populations left behind on Earth.  For most people, the slightly lower average intelligence would rarely be particularly noticeable.

Suly is a basically Earth-like world, although a little smaller.  It has mild temperatures, very tiny permanent ice-caps, and has wide tropical belts and even wider subtropical and temperate zones.  While there is no asteroid belt in the Suly system, Suly itself has a large ring made up of nickel iron blocks that are presumed to be the remains of a decent-sized asteroid-like body or moon that broke up many millions of years ago.

Gor worker

Some of the cities on Suly and in orbit through the rings are reasonably cosmopolitan in nature, which works for the local government, which bills itself as a manufacturing source of choice locally for commercial and individual starships.  Many starships that operate in the Colonies were made back home, of course, or elsewhere, and only come to the colonies as the colonists bring them.  Many of these starships are quite old, lovingly and carefully maintained for generations before finally needing to be retired.  But for those who don't bring their ships from outside, and need new ones, and have the money to pick them up, ships manufactured in the shipyards of Suly are the most commonly found in the Carrick, in Carthen, in the Vorgan Than, and even through much of the "southern" portion of the Dhangetan Cartel.

The local government is a joint venture between Sirian reptoids (about 10% of the population) and the chiefs and clan leaders of the apes.  Many of the common-folk of the apes live relatively primitive lives, and are exploited for cheap labor, reaping very little benefit of the economic windfall that their higher social class betters roll in.  This doesn't bother most of them as much as one might think—in reality, the apes often prefer a simple life, and have developed the philosophical foundation that simple, rural agrarian clan life is the natural way of life God intended for the apes—and they don't much care what the genetic engineers who increased their intelligence intended for them either.  But many are exploited and do simple laborer work at poor wages.  Usually those who tire of this work leave and disappear back into their tribes and are replaced by others who want the experience—in reality, the wealth that they earn, while scanty, is sufficient to give them significant advantage back home.

This careful balance is maintained by the fact that few of the primitive apes on the planet are truly aware of the vast wealth disparity between their leaders (and the reptoids), and their somewhat Luddite philosophy makes them less inclined to care than some others might be.  As a safety valve for those whom it rankles, apes do on occasion leave the planet to join the larger, interstellar community.

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.

Freeport

System: Freeport
Hex Location: 2131
Star Type: Single B5 V
Number of Worlds: 8
Gas Giants: 3
Planetoid Belt: Cometary and asteroid belts

Starport Type: C
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 60%
Population: Large (c. 1 billion)
Political Affiliation: Independent
Notes: Freeport is an interesting place, and that's mainly because of the history and settlement pattern that built it.  Named many centuries ago by it's founder, a retired Janissary who was looking for a place to set up with his retinue and loyal brothers-in-arms away from the greater territory of the Cilindarean Arm and its allies, Freeport has grown tremendously due both to high birthrate as well as reasonably high immigration.

Onidas Mosonor was a hero of the Slave Wars as a young man and was part of the elite guard that ended up freeing the Janissaries permanently from the control of the Marian Empire.  As an older man, he was a feared, respected and successful general of the Last Emperors Wars.  His reputation among Cilindareans and Janissaries both was impeccable.  He was so respected, in fact, that there was serious talk of elevating him to Anaxaster of the Cilindareans, but he was wise enough to know that that would only provoke intense conflict; the Cilindareans were proud enough that large numbers would never accept a foreign Anaxaster, even a highly respected one, and the Cilindarean Arm would be fractured and broken.  Taking only his most loyal battalion and their families, he left Cilindare into self-imposed exile and created the settlement of Freeport.  With him went many Janissaries and Cilindareans both, but to some degree, they turned their backs on their former Motherland in order to save it, and established a peaceful colony where they could live in freedom and peace.  They didn't exactly beat their radium rifles into plowshares, but they did become rural agrarians for the most part, and maintained their martial traditions as a form of citizen militia.  (They are, after all, located close to Voormellei and Tekeli-li, and neither were their idea of good neighbors.)  Freeport thrived, and grew—partly due to immigration from jaded Cilindareans and Janissaries who romanticized the agrarian former soldier lifestyle immortalized by Mosonor and his followers, but especially through a thriving and furious birthrate as the colonials found that peaceful farming suited them tremendously well.  Today, the descendants of these mixed Cilindarean and Janissary settlers make up about 45% of the population of Freeport, and they still maintain autonomous governments that are largely unconnected from the other population groups, although they do exist in friendly confederation.

Another 20% of the population is emancipated robots.  Many of them are "natives" of Freeport, having been built here, but many come from various parts of known space looking for haven.  In fact, Freeport has been accused by some of enabling and tolerating a robot "underground railroad" for them, which may in fact be true, but its more simply that it is an unflinching matter of public policy that citizens of Freeport are guaranteed freedoms.  Many of the robots that come here are not, of course, admitted as citizens and have to move on, but the same has always been true of the human citizens as well, and immigration controls have been strict to avoid watering the place down with culture that is incompatible with the ideals of the founders, which would therefore jeopardize the birthright of those for whom the colony was built—the descendants of the original colonists.

The last 35% or so of the population are refugees and the descendants of refugees from the Revanchists.  These are mostly Jaffans—"rainbows" as they're sometimes called—who have risen above the rabbity instincts of the r-strategist herd that makes up the majority of the Revanchist citizens.  For various reasons, they desire and admire true freedom, not the mockery of freedom that the Republic offers, and many such dissidents have come to Freeport over the last few hundred years.  Sicha Nasheii was the intellectual and literal leader of these, but many more continue to stream away from the Republic territory; particularly the nearby Carthen colony (which is, admittedly, not strictly speaking a Jaffan colony).  Although the original founders are sympathetic to the disillusionment that they have faced with the Revanchist party line, they are also wary of these, and tend to have granted them their own autonomous territories within the Freeport system or on the Freeport surface, rather than allowed to live in large numbers among them.  The Jaffans are also subject to a great deal of suspicion, as "sleepers" and other terrorists infiltrate them to a relatively high degree.  This has caused a great deal of slumbering, nascent conflict to be if it cannot be dealt with effectively, somehow.

Freeport itself is a fertile, Earth-like world in most respects, although the daytime sky is surprisingly dim and hazy due to upper atmosphere salmon-colored dust clouds that have been suspended for as long as the colonists have lived here, at least.  Its most famous terrain are the rolling chaparral hills colored in colorful plant growth, but it is by far not the only type of terrain on the planet, which features as much variety as Earth does.

Oerken

Once famous as a semi-lawless place, far from the bright center of the galaxy, and ruled by the Dhangeti and other gangsters, Oerken has undergone quite the transformation in the last 1,000 years. Oh, it's still harsh desert, with the vast fields of dunes covering much of the surface, and the Cragland wastes cover other large areas. And it's still lawless. If anything, it's in fact quite a bit more lawless than it was under the Dhangeti. 

As the home world of Simon the Arch-Knight and the nameless scientist who's super-weapon created the plague (and who may have permanently destroyed the ecosystem of what was once a fertile planet), Oerken has become a major pilgrimage site for knights, historians, and more who all want to see what makes this hot wasteland so special. Indeed, some have developed philosophies that the harsh environment is what led to the strength and fortitude of Simon and his original Knights of the Zen Cross.  Would-be utopian communities of various stripes dot the surface here and there. Some of them thrive, after a fashion, but many more wither and die as their philosophical fervor fades and they move on to other things, or fall prey to hostile natives... or worse. 

Many of those who now live on Oerken either serve the needs of the pilgrimage tourist trade, or parasitically feed on it. Oerken is still a dangerous place, and one haunted by mercenaries, bounty hunters, criminals and worse. While the Dhangeti gave up on the planet in disgust rather than fight Sacristan pilgrims and more over such paltry resources as the planet afforded, the only powers to fill in the void left by their departure have been regional and highly unstable. One does not ask which crime lord is ascendant on Oerken one asks which crime lord is ascendant today.

System: Oerken
Hex Location: 1536
Star Type: Double star (close) F9 V, M1 V
Number of Worlds: 5 (three of which are in an extremely close triple planet arrangement, although only Oerken Prime, the main world, is inhabited.)
Gas Giants: 2
Planetoid Belt: Scattered asteroid belt

Starport Type: D
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 5%.  Some subsurface aquifers do exist, however, and the uninhabited planets are mostly airless ice-rich worlds.
Population: Medium (300 million)
Political Affiliation: Independent
Notes: A desolate frontier world that yet sees a fair bit of traffic, Oerken is a bit of an embarrassment to all.  The Dhangeti used to rule here, but even then, their role was light.  They were more interested in harvesting what resources the planet had than in developing it as a a colony.  Diamonds were once plentiful here, and it's reputed that they may be the remains of a former thriving ecosystem, blasted under heat and pressure by an ancient super-weapon until their carbon content was crystalized.

Typical Oerken landscape

Today, Oerken is a harsh, xeric world.  If that is something other than myth, then whatever ecosystem used to exist on Oerken is long gone.  Some life forms persist, including large herds of sandkine and mannoths, as well as various dangerous predators.  And an old, legacy population of humans live here as dervish-like desert dwellers and subsistence farmers who drill deep into the crust to access small amounts of aquifer water.  The Oerkenites are wary of the greater galactic community, and interact with them infrequently, if they can.  Other people live here as well, including the reptilian Oerks.  They are probably not native, but are the descendants of slaves brought to Oerken by the Dhangeti.  When the Dhangeti left, some were either inadvertently left behind, or had escaped, or otherwise went somewhat "feral" and adapted to life in the desert.

Oerk tribesman

Since the departure of the official Dhangeti rulers, a number of other outworlders have either continued to thrive on the planet, or even arrived in greater numbers, and a number of settlements still dot the surface of the planet.  These are cosmopolitan slums and dives, for the most part.  Gang-related turf wars are common, and life is cheap.  Bandits, restless natives—both Oerkenite and Oerks—criminals and more make up these wretched communities of humanoid refuse.  There are also small communities built along ideological grounds.  Usually these are based on some strange utopian fantasy, and although more crop up all the time, few thrive or last more than a few generations before being swallowed by the desert or abandoned by less zealous future generations (or both.)  The probable exception here is the Crusader State of Oerken-Toth, established by Sacristan psionic knights as a warrior-monastery and associated civilian community.  Technically, they claim the entire planet as their birthright (a dubious claim in every possible sense) but in reality, their control is limited to the area immediately surrounding their temple and the surrounding city and a few scattered villages that are connected via ephemeral roads and are usually within only a few days travel from their temple at most.

The reason so many continue to come to Oerken, which otherwise seems a rather uninviting place, is the legend that Simon the Arch-Knight himself was born and raised on this planet and founded the original Order of the Zen Cross here.  In spite of this, nobody has found his original temple, if indeed he had a temple in the traditional sense.  There are also old ruins that are often attributed to the Grays although these ruins are generally quite picked over (the Dhangeti were not archaeologists, but had a keen eye for potentially valuable loot.)  Rumors continue to persist of more interesting archaeological treasures just waiting for the right sandstorm to come along and unearth them.

Oerken continues to be important also because of its placement as a convenient hub for travel through the sector.  Because of this ongoing strategic importance, it is unlikely that it will be left to flounder in anarchy and barbarism for long; eventually one of the Great Powers will pacify the planet and settle it for real. Or, at least, such is the prevailing wisdom.