1131 Pentase

System: Pentase
Hex Location: 1131
Star Type:  G7 V
Number of Worlds: 14
Gas Giants: 2
Planetoid Belt: None

Starport Type: A
World Size: Earth sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth like
Surface Water: 60%
Population: Large ~4 billion
Political Affiliation: Cilindarean Arm
Tags: Civil War, Eugenic Mania, Mining World
Notes: Pentase is one of the more "southerly" worlds of the Cilindarean Arm.  It is a beautiful, very Earth-like planet, with multiple ecosystems and a reasonably large population, made up mostly of ethnic Cilindareans.  It is also one of the few sources of pentase steel, a metal harder and yet less brittle than most, and highly valued by the Cilindareans, especially in the construction of their ships and armor and weapons.  It isn't the only source of this type of metal, but it is such an important source of it that the metal is named after the system.  Large deposits are found on the surface of the main planet, but they seem to be meteorite in origin, and asteroids and centaurs and other irregular bodies throughout the solar system, including some of the smaller rocky/metal worlds and their moons, are also good sources of the metal.  For this reason, the world is very important to the Anaxaster.  That said, it is not connected via Cilindarean controlled space lanes, and is somewhat geographically isolated from the rest of the polity.  This has made the political scenario somewhat tense for the neighbors of Pentase, because they know that the Cilindareans would greatly prefer to have unimpeded space lanes to Pentase, and have no problem conquering other planets and exterminating or banishing the population already there if they do not accept their military occupation, but for now, the Cilindareans have treaties with a number of systems that allow them space lane access, and the peace—if uneasy—still remains.

Pentase is also home to internal conflict rooted in the Cilindarean culture.  Ethnic Cilindareans are very socially stratified.  Only full citizens enjoy all of the perks of society, although they have lots of skin in the game and are expected to render a number of duties to the state in return.  The mothakes (singular mothax) are another level in society that, while free, does not qualify for full citizenship.  There is a great deal of envy among many mothakes for the status bestowed upon full citizens by right of birth, although curiously, there is a growing sense of envy among many citizens of the mothax for his freedom from certain responsibilities as well.  A very prominent, wealthy and popular mothax, Harmost Lysander, has rebelled against the citizen planetary governor in Pentase, sparking a civil war in the system that, while sometimes quiet, still lingers.  The anaxaster and the rest of the central government has resisted getting involved; while in theory, the planetary governor has the right of rule and Lysander is a traitor, it's a well-known fact that the planetary governor is both ineffective, petty and a tyrant.  The anaxaster has decided that whomever wins this conflict will be granted legitimacy, as long as the conflict doesn't spill out of the system, or affect the greater Cilindarean Arm overall.  This is a very Cilindarean attitude, where trial by combat is still considered a legitimate legal remedy for the settlement of disputes.

Part of this dispute is the eugenics mania among the citizens of Pentase.  Both genetic engineering and cybernetic augmentation are extremely popular among them, as is a obsessive-compulsive focus on heritage.  Lysander, and many of the rest of the Cilindareans, for that matter, see this as heretical or even abominatus.  Because of this, Lysander has been receiving covert aid from a number of Cilindarean factions who think he should be promoted to full citizen status, or at least given the planetary governorship even though he's only a mothax based on his obvious merit.  The Bernese colony of the Machesk Frontier, which borders the Pentase system, is also not so subtly in favor of his rise at the expense of the current governor, Alcibiades.  This is one of the few times in which the nearby Revanchist colony of the Calder Settlements sees eye to eye with their Bernese rivals.  However, the nearby Seraeans from Outremer are backing Alcibiades, and with less discretion than the others.  This is threatening to become a full-blown diplomatic incident between the Cilindareans ad the three Great Powers if it continues unabated much longer.

2328 Kribblu VII

System: Kribblu VII
Hex Location: 2328
Star Type:  G3 III
Number of Worlds: 8
Gas Giants: 4
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper and asteroid belt

Starport Type: A
World Size: Mars sized
Atmosphere Type: Thin
Surface Water: 23%
Population: Small settlements; ~800,000
Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel
Tags: Thaumatophobia, Balkanization, Secret Cabal
Notes: Kribblu VII is a manufacturing haven, but it is not manufacturing that benefits most of the people in the region.  On paper, the Dhangetan Yith Vhadrath rules the system, but the various cartel heads see him as aloof and uninvolved in cartel business sufficiently to please them.  The excuse that justifies this behavior is his struggle to control various factions on his planet; while he oversees the space port and ship foundries (as well as much of the raw material harvesting both on world and from other sources within the system) with his personnel resources (a great number of Earth-human and skiffer and cepheid bravos and militia, stiffened by mercenary companies of Cilindareans and Arcturans.)  Most visitors see this as the society on Kribblu VII, but in reality, he's at constant war with two other factions who vie for dominance on the surface of the planet; a leftover death-sage known merely as the Arch-Tyrant and his forces of cyber-undead and Neferran dog-soldiers, and a third faction that is a curious mix of Bernese exiles, and Kusans, one of the most unlikely of races to be part of a spunky rebellion against a Dhangetan status quo.

What few know, although some of the clever Dhangetans on other worlds are starting to suspect, is that Vhadrath himself is merely the junior partner of a silent power behind the "throne"; a small triumvirate of Seraean and Idacharian shadow-knights in this case, who are funneling the lion's share of the production to some other source.  It doesn't seem to be the Empire, or if it is, these shadow knights are extraordinarily discrete; most likely it is an independent power play of some kind by them themselves.  These three have also managed to spend an inordinate amount of time creating propaganda about warlocks and space wizards and psionic knights, so that all such, if they're recognized, are seen with a great deal of distrust and hatred by the populace, unless of course, they are relatively recent arrivals from off-world.  They tend to see the Arch-Tyrant as the inevitable end-state of those who meddle with things that man was not meant to know.

Although Kribblu VII is viewed by those from outside as a bizarre powder keg of a world, with all kinds of tensions, conflict and weirdness going on in the system, for the most part, its neighbors are content to let it stay that way.  The very productive shipyards of Suly look with a little bit of anxiety at the manufacturing potential of Kribblu VII as a significant economic threat (as do the smaller and more "boutique" shipyards of Lyrae VI, Jhantor and Miroon, for that matter), but since its production somehow doesn't seem to make it to the general market, and nobody knows for sure where it goes, it's a worry that they can put on the back burner.  Although in the long run, what's happening here is eve more worrisome than what isn't happening in the short run, and the world is starting to get a lot of attention from its neighbors in the Carrick Grand Marches and from the rest of the Dhangetan Cartel, who are both starting to want answers about what mysteries are happening on this planet.

The Galaide Worlds

The Galaide Worlds were once an ethnic Altairan sovereign state, located to the galactic north, of the area in which the Carrick Grand Marches is located (the most southerly Galaide World, Cadon, is reachable via safe jump from Riesefels, Shahar and New Vesta, and of course, New Rodinia.  The original Galaide Worlds territory includes eight systems, and a ninth has been added (Tawasy) in recent years as a settlement of traditionalist Galaide culture.  Galaide is not a sovereign state today, although it is still primarily an Altairan state, it is a satrap of the Dhangetan Cartel.  Most Galaidians are not overly inconvenienced by peaceful transfer of power wherein their morally bankrupt leaders sold out their worlds to the Dhangetans for enormous piles of money, so while they're not happy to no longer being political independent, in actuality, in many ways they are probably more free than they used to be, as the Dhangetans are largely indifferent to anything going on locally on their worlds.  This also, of course, has meant that the unique Galaide culture has been largely erased by a more cosmopolitan hybrid culture that is Galaidian and Dhangetan both, and large numbers of aliens and alien humans now come and go regularly on the Galaide worlds, and even live here permanently—although the population is still well over 90% Altairan of original Galaidian stock across the region.

In addition to Tawasy, which I have already developed, I'll be creating data sheets for 2123 Kari Jora, 2223 Fthughu and 2224 Cadon of the original Galaide Worlds because of their proximity and traffic into and out of the Carrick Grand Marches and the Carthen Colony, although the other five worlds will be left alone unless it turns out that I need more Galaide World detail for some unforeseen reason in the future.

System: Kari Jora
Hex Location: 2123
Star Type: Close double A6 VI, A6 VII (white dwarf)
Number of Worlds: 9
Gas Giants: 3
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper belt and asteroid belt

Starport Type: C routine star port
World Size: Moon-sized
Atmosphere Type: Thin
Surface Water: 49%
Population: Super-populated, 17 billion
Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel
Tags: Industrial world, Mining world, Warlock academy
Notes: At one point the capital of the Galaide Worlds, Kari Jora is now a blue collar system, with only relatively little prosperity except among the corrupt politicians and the cartel operatives who pass all kinds of illicit property through here.  The Dhangetans operate rather oddly; while they themselves recognize little if any sense of lawlessness in their embrace of "free trade" as a concession to the morality of the people who's world they took over, they do still on paper maintain lists of products that are not allowed to pass through the Galaide worlds.  Of course, this is on paper; in reality, there's a lot of contraband that does pass through the Galaide worlds to New Rodinia, Riesefels, and Shahar.  This requires keeping the officials who are supposed to stop this bribed so that they do not in fact stop it too much, and allowing the occasional cargo to fall victim to law enforcement, to keep up images.  The Dhangetans themselves, it appears, find this game amusing, and a relatively low price to pay for maintaining peace on the Galaide worlds; hiring mercenary police or military to keep them pacified would be much more expensive.

Kari Jora also manufactures household goods and other products in very large numbers, and much of the terrestrial surface is covered in factories.  Some of the ocean is dedicated to farming to keep this population fed, although imports from the neighboring Fthughu system are necessary to keep it up entirely.  Mining is also significant in the system, although it is done not on the main, relatively small world, but among the precious metals that make up a significant portion of the asteroid belts.  Although some small claims still linger in the belt, for the most part, the mineral rights have reverted to the Dhangetans, the situation most likely to eventually rouse the ire of the lightly subjugated population.

There is also a warlock academy high in the mountains in the southern polar regions.  Given that the atmosphere is already thin on this planet (like being above 14,000 feet on Earth) it is practically non-existent at this altitude, and the warlock academy is usually sealed with airlocks; although the thaumaturgy of the warlocks has created Garden areas at the Academy, and many use their dweomercraft to allow them to wander the area freely.  These warlocks often travel to Tawasy, and in fact, many come from there originally, where they are particularly revered.  However, many others spread throughout the Galaide Worlds, or beyond, and many have taken their arts become highly profitable and prominent members of Dhangetan society overall.  There is, in fact, a great deal of philosophical conflict at the Academy between the traditionalists who see the Academy and its arts as the rightful inheritance of the Galaidian people, and those who see it merely as a tool to develop their own power, influence or wealth in the greater interstellar area.

System: Fthughu
Hex Location: 2223
Star Type: Single B3 VI
Number of Worlds: 7
Gas Giants: 2
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper belt and two asteroid belts

Starport Type: B high class
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Dangerous; slow poison (takes days to have effect) requires breath mask
Surface Water: 62%
Population: Medium sized 650 million
Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel
Tags: Tomb world, Xenophilia, Agricultural world
Notes: For many years, the monarchs of the Galaide Worlds would bury their dead on Fthughu, which was not initially colonized except by a few scientific and clerical personnel due to the slow-acting poisonous atmosphere.  All buildings had to have air scrubbers installed and strictly maintained, and anyone walking outside needs at least a filter to keep toxins from entering his body, unless his excursion outside of protected areas is extremely brief.  Later, as the Galaide Worlds expanded, the agricultural potential of the planet was realized, and farmers moved in.  They never grew to an enormous number, however, and much of the population is robotic even still; constructed by the farmers to help them do their work, but gradually grown into a semi-free sentient population block all its own

As time went on, however, the population did grow to a respectable size on its own, although spreading relatively slowly—there are still cast swaths of the landmasses that are completely wild and some that are even unsurveyed.  Because of their relative isolation of free farmers, the Galaidians of Fthughu never developed the attachment to some of the Galaidian religion that flourished prior to the takeover of the state by the Dhangetans, and they think that the Tawasy exiles are, at best, bizarre extremists who embrace a kind of "fake Galaidianism" and champion it.  They are also unlikely to have been very changed by the advent of the Dhangetans, although some of the young people have left the farms and live now in the sin city cosmopolitan centers where the Dhangetans are most likely to have attracted their own type of offworlders and established their own cultural centers.

This conservatism meant that they didn't really respect the last rulers of the Galaide Monarchy enough to care what happens to their graves, which are littered across the landscape.  Many of them indeed have already plundered them for stones, or any grave goods that could be useful, and they have hardly stood in the way of others who have come to the planet to do the same.  In the minds of the Fthughians, the corrupt Galaidian nobility made their own bed and now can lie in it.

In the minds of most, Fthughu is therefore a rather boring farm world, without much going on, but in reality, there are many dangerous predators in the wilderness, and there are more riches to be found in forgotten tombs than most realize.  A handful have started to recognize the potential and are actively searching for tombs to raid, but it is a long way away from being a boom town economic situation still.  And the presence of a high quality port have made it a stopover that has replaced much of the business that used to travel through Cadon; although those who stop here find the place boring, and many barely leave their ships if they can help it.

System: Cadon
Hex Location: 2224
Star Type: Distant double star O8 V, M1 V
Number of Worlds: 5
Gas Giants: 4
Planetoid Belt: N

Starport Type: X No star port
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Thin
Surface Water: 70%
Population: Super-populated 11 billion
Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel
Tags: Death world, Civil war, Flying cities
Notes: Cadon is a world that one must be very careful to visit.  The Dhangetans and their lackeys, including many Galaidians, live in flying cities high above the surface, but below, the world is turned over the anarchy.  Revanchist Galaidians fight against savages who are little more than bandits and even the armies of a death sage that had lingered here for centuries if not millennia (after whom the planet is named, in fact) that decided to make a play after the arrival of the Dhangetans, ending a thousand years of quiescence.  However, this same cyberlich and his allies are often seen in the flying cities, so whatever his game is and how it relates to the Dhangetans is unclear.  Is he an ally of theirs?  Or a rival?  Many indications suggest that latter, but his friendly reception when he visits are difficult to explain.  Either way, the Dhangetans seem to have tired somewhat of the chaos and mercenaries are streaming into the system under various banners to fight against either the undead hordes or the revolutionaries, or both.  War profiteering is also one of the number one industries for outsiders and Galaidians of other worlds alike, although it is a difficult business, given how dangerous the world is and how distrustful every faction is of everyone else.  Smugglers or gun-runners or others who make "the Cadon run" are the most skilled and respected in the profession, and some in fact attempt to make a name for themselves here before moving on.  Many do not return.

While all of this activity has been profitable for many, it has had the opposite effect on others—what was once a thriving trade hub has seen interstellar shipping dry up almost entirely, and much of that lost business has relocated to New Rodinia.  This is especially true after the last of the star port facilities were destroyed by the fighting factions, although true convoys and caravans still pass through here to skim unrefined fuel from the hydrogen gas giants, scrub it in their filters, and jump back out of the system again all in 48 hours.  Because for the most part, the civil war and the other dangers associated with it take place on the surface rather than within the space of the system, this is usually considered a safe option.  However, a few enterprising pirates have realized this and attempted to make a go at preying on this traffic too.

1625 Drini IV and 1724 Tawasy

System: Drini IV
Hex Location: 1625
Star Type:  Distant Double F7 V, A6 Ia
Number of Worlds: 12
Gas Giants: N
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper and asteroid belt 

Starport Type: A high class starport
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: N
Population: Large 2 billion
Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel
Tags: Primitive aliens, Sealed cities, Trade hub
Notes: Although they have spread with the Dhangetans since well back into the Marian Empire years, obviously the skiffers had to have had an original home world at some point in the past, and many believe that Drini IV is that world.  Large numbers of them live here in a primitive state; little more than at a Bronze Age technology still (with the exception of their advanced well-making and water drilling abilities), and in savage, contentious tribes and petty polities that spend most of their time fighting and killing each other.  They don't welcome visitors from space very well, although they are aware of them, probably because the Dhangetans have been kidnapping them for centuries, spiriting them away into space to serve as slaves, soldiers, or elsewise.  The reality, of course, is that the Dhangetans are often indifferent slavers and slave-owners, and it's because of this kidnapping that so many skiffers are out there in interstellar space, orders of magnitude more than are found on their home world, if indeed Drini IV is their home world, and most of them are free people, not slaves, although they are still found correlated with the Dhangetan worlds, and skiffers are relatively rarely seen outside of the Dhangetan worlds unless part of a Dhangetan delegation of some kind.

Because of this hostility towards spacefarers, those who live on Drini IV tend to live in sealed cities to keep the riff-raff away.  Many more live in orbital facilities too; there is in fact a thriving industrial hub just above the atmosphere where ships can be commissioned and are commonly built.  On top of that, Drini IV has somehow turned into one of the sector's foremost used ship markets, and people come from all over to either sell or browse used spaceships.  The Dhangetans don't ask many questions, so sometimes everything from standard used ship salesmen to dodgy pirates selling raided yachts or even military vessels can all be found for sale. Drini IV's used ship market makes no distinction between white, black and gray markets—it's all one on Drini IV.

While many of the other regional powers have complained, on occasion, to the Dhangetans when their official vessels end up for sale, few of them really want to disrupt what's happening on Drini IV too much, and representatives of many nearby governments, including Cilindareans, Carrick Bernese, Carthen Revanchists, and Tan Kajak Saraeans all keep a close eye on what passes through the market, either to scoop up some rival's tech and take it back home for analysis, or to keep their own military secrets from being so plundered.  It didn't take long for a secondary market in all kinds of other secrets to develop on Drini IV, and along with the savage natives and the ship market there is a thriving spy "business" on Drini IV as well.

System: Tawasy
Hex Location: 1724
Star Type:  Single M5 VI
Number of Worlds: 8
Gas Giants: 7
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper and asteroid belt

Starport Type: E frontier star port
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 86%
Population: Medium 17 million
Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel
Tags: Thaumatophilia, Xenophobia, Oceanic cities
Notes: Centuries ago, during the early years of the Marian Empire, some of the constituent races remained more apart from each other than they did later on.  The southern New Alderamin sector was one where many Altairans settled where, although politically part of the Empire, they could yet practice their culture in something somewhat like isolation rather than see it converge into Marian culture overall.  Later, as the Empire waned and finally fell, these polities became independent.  Some of them have now been independent for centuries, like the Altairan Ascendancy further to the sector west, but the Galaide Monarchy was another one, centered just to the galactic north of the Carthen and Carrick areas, including worlds 2123 Kari Jora, 2221 Leneback, 2223 Fthughu, 2224 Cadon, 2321 Xotha, 2421 Peydon, 2422 Onola and 2522 Sycha.  There, they developed their own unique culture, quite different from that of the Altairan Ascendancy, and they venerated in particular their Magi (both psionic knights and warlocks).

For over a hundred years, however, their worlds have been fallen to the Dhangetans.  In part, this was not a conquest so much as it was a gradual ceding of power through diplomacy and corrupt, oligarchic elite who enriched themselves and then left with piles of money.  The unique culture of the Galaide worlds is significantly diluted by the Dhangetans who arrive with their sleazy entourages of skiffers, their Cilindarean and Janissary mercenaries, and all of the other hangers-on of various races and groups that tend to come with them.

However, some hardliner conservatives fled the Galaide worlds to Tawasy, which was at the time an uninhabited world, but pristine and beautiful.  There, they built their cities, usually in the oceans themselves, where they harvest aquatic plant and animal life to support themselves, and continue their Galaide way of life, venerating to a degree that is almost worshipful their Magi and resisting the incursions of alien philosophies, and as much as possible, aliens altogether.  However, they were only allowed to do so in peace by accepting the protection and vassalage of the Cartel, paying tribute to them, and allowing their business, slight though it may be in this system, to go on unhindered.

In reality, this is unlikely to change anytime too soon; the Cartel business rarely actually happens in the oceanic cities, and it mostly consists of caravans, traders, smugglers, or mercenaries passing through on their way to somewhere else.  Although other nearby systems usually mean that stopping through Tawasy isn't necessary, it is often desirable, because of the many gas giants in the system, many of which are not tainted by very many heavy elements, unrefined fuel can be picked up easily and quickly, and scrubbed in half the time that it usually takes, allowing a quick stop and then jump back out on your way to some other more distant destination.  The Dhangetans have, in particular, made agreements with the Revanchists and a very steady traffic between the Carthen and Rhyne colonies passes through Tawasy unmolested.  Some, at least, of the Revanchists know that the Dhangetans do not do this for altruistic reasons (although many Revanchists are true believes in their idiot ideology and believe that of course everyone would support them unless they were the ultimate evil) and wonder what designs the Dhangetans have on these colonies and the region overall by offering this support.

1624 Moise

System: Moise
Hex Location: 1624
Star Type:  Single star G2 IV
Number of Worlds: 13
Gas Giants: 4
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper belt and 2 asteroid belts

Starport Type: B High class starport
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Dangerous; immediate and life-threatening poisonous
Surface Water: 25%
Population: Small settlements, 400,000
Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel
Tags: Radioactive world, Oceanic cities, Forbidden technology
Notes: There are relatively few Dhangetans who dabble in weapons of mass destruction, or other openly militaristic pursuits, but Sumuzuu bucks the trend, and risks attention on his world and on the Cartel overall that many of his compatriots are not happy with.  Officially he doesn't, but when he had a major industrial accident ninety years ago that contaminated his entire planet, he couldn't pretend anymore that he wasn't.

Luckily for Moise, its system is considerably world rich, and Moise itself has a Garden Moon where food is harvested.  And the population is relatively low regardless.  But on the main planet, abandoned cities and research stations sit in the radioactive, blasted lands—the population that used to live here that didn't flee the system altogether had to relocate to underwater cities (in spite of the relatively dry nature of the world) using the water as a shield from the radiation.  Many have wondered by Sumuzuu didn't move his entire operations to another planet, and certainly many of the independent hangers-on that Dhangetan worlds tend to attract did indeed do exactly that, however most who did either eventually moved back, or left the system entirely.  Moise is a rather depopulate system for a Dhangetan system with so many worlds and relatively untapped resources, although the censuses that occasionally someone tries to make of the area no doubt do not count rather large multitudes of transients who are passing through.  Many do not even approach the main radioactive world at all, and Sumuzuu has recently started sponsoring tourism to some of the more beautiful planets in his system, although this is still a very new venture.

Rumors nearby suggest that Sumuzuu was actually working in concert with the Cartel Council, and he stays where he is because they're still working on some kind of forbidden technology on the planet, although these conspiracy theorists are unable to agree on the nature of this technology.  It is true that sometimes Dhangetan slave ships from other systems land here and when the slaves leave a few months later, they have been turned into strange cyborgs with a third eye in their forehead that seems to give them some kind of prescient consciousness or somesuch—but whatever it is that the Dhangetans are actually up to on Moise, they keep it very quiet.

Sector Map for Ad Astra

I've been thinking that my sector map for AD ASTRA, incomplete though it is, already suffers from a number of legacy flaws.  These are mostly related to two things:

• I wanted to do something easy with Microsoft Paint rather that something complicated with a more sophisticated mapping software, although...
• More sophisticated mapping software tends to not be super user friendly, and supports Traveller specifically, making it difficult to do very much tweaking to the format.
• Plus, I wanted to be able to work with this on various computers, some of which don't have (and I won't be able to add) other software anyway.
• I still was using a few Traveller conventions in my mapping, although greatly truncated and reduced, and even those seem kinda silly to me now.  They're just legacy that I did because I hadn't yet thought of something better to do.

So, I'm giving some serious thought to how to improve my stellar hex mapping and redo the map in a prettier and more useful format.  This doesn't mean that I have answers, merely that I have problems that need solving.  In some cases, I think I do have answers, but in others, I do not.  I'm considering solutions, but often finding them... inadequate, so I'm trying to think of something else that works better.  Anyway, let's list my problems and see how well I've figured out a solution.  For reference, here's a pretty standard map key for a Traveller map, done in white on black (well; near black) to make it look more "spacey."

Political Affiliation: The first thing I did when I started mapping, after generating randomly where systems were going to be, of course, was that I needed to mark what political affiliation each system would have.  I came up with 11 different types, which although useful to start with, as I got more into development, I found it somewhat inadequate.  I came up with a color code for each affiliation, and just used the fill bucket tool to fill in the whole hex.  This made it easy to tell at a glance what the affiliation was, but as, for example, the Bernese affiliation divided into multiple colonies, each with their own political structure that differed from their neighbors, I found it somewhat unhelpful after a time.  This became even more complicated when I used the "Bernese allied" color—what exactly is a Bernese ally?  I wasn't sure, but it ranged from client or satellite states to mere cultural ties, to a more traditional treaty of mutual protection/aggression type of thing. And sometimes this alliance was with a colonial Grand Duke rather than, say, with the Emperor, so the nuance of what it meant to be a "Bernese ally" grew too big to be well-served by making it a faded version of the Bernese color code. The whole thing was starting to become unwieldy, and what was a convenient shorthand before I'd done much development was turning into something that lacked sufficient nuance after development was more complete.

How does Traveller do it?  They actually draw borders along the edges of the hexes.  This doesn't work for me, though, because territories aren't necessarily contiguous, and of course, nobody claims the empty space in empty hexes, even if it is smack dab surrounded by a territory in the hex map.  Remember, as always, that the hexmap is a convenient shorthand itself that is barely adequate to approximate the realities of three dimensional real space.  It's more of a meta element; useful for the fiction and the gaming applications, because it presents a challenge in terms of creating space routes and jump trajectories than it is meant to actually represent physical placement of the systems, exactly, which certainly won't be on a flat plane as they're represented on the map.

Thinking on how the old National Geographic gigantic world map that I used to have wallpapered up covering one whole wall of my bedroom when I was a kid—which keep in mind is an old Cold War era map—there are only about half a dozen colors that nations use.  The map makes sure that contiguous nations don't use the same color so that they are easy to spot.  Satellite nations, like eastern European nations that were behind the Iron Curtain but somewhat autonomous, like Poland or Czechoslovakia, were not the same color as the USSR, but non-contiguous territory of the USSR (like the Kaliningrad Oblast) were.  Integrated territories, like the various SSRs which are now independent nations, but which were part of the USSR at the time, were the same color, and it took some more careful reading to notice them; at a high level glance, the USSR was just a big pink blob.  Maybe I could do something similar; Bernese colonies would still be the same color as each other, but I'd otherwise use more colors, and some of the other non-Bernese specifically nations, might have more variation in coloration, not necessarily a fainter shade of the Bernese color.  But this is more problematic with other polities; like the various Outremer colonies of the Saraeans.  Not only are they much more autonomous in most respects, maintaining more of a cultural rather than explicitly political dependence on their Empire, but because they border one another in more than one case, it doesn't work very well to make them the same color. But how to I indicate that they're all Saraean colonies, then? I could do like the various SSRs in the USSR on my old map, but that makes it more difficult to spot the differences between them on this type of map. This is one of the problems that I haven't quite worked out. 

I also don't really like shading the whole cell.  Although it is easy to use at a glance when I've zoomed the map out to where I can see it at high level, it's not really very attractive.

Sectors and Subsectors: These are convenient demarcations because it reduces the galaxy into manageable chunks.  A sector is more than enough material for entire campaigns of role-playing games or entire long running serials of novels or other works of fiction.  Considerably more than enough material, in my opinion.  A subsector is a more digestible section, and while it probably can't contain the entirety of a whole long-running RPG campaign that's dedicated to the concept of traveling between the stars, it certainly gives you enough material for many adventures.

However, these are all meta reasons for sectors and subsectors.  Traveller mapping got way too into the concept of treating sectors and subsectors like they were political units, with capitals, with fancy names, etc.  While the graphic I'm using to map AD ASTRA is based on a Traveller sector map, so it has the size of a sector and the subdivisions into subsectors, these aren't meant to mean anything other than convenient divisions on the map.  In reality, I doubt that I'll ever map more than half of the sector—ever—and the subsector is actually a little bit too small for me to spell out political divisions of the size that I prefer.  My sector does have a name, the New Alderamin sector, but the subsectors will not be named, they'll just be used as geographical conveniences based on the letter, but in reality, I probably will just ignore subsectors altogether.

The Dot in the Center: Traveller maps have a colored dot in the center of each hex that has a system.  Occasionally it's an icon other than a dot, but if there's a regular planet, a dot it usually is (or circle, depending on the mapping iteration.)  Usually, having this merely meant that a planet was present in the system (that's why there were a few other symbols in use too).  In black and white mapping, it could be an empty white circle, or a filled in black circle, which meant no water present and water present respectively.  In some color versions, it was more complicated, and things like "Garden World" were colored green, while "Ocean World" would be blue, and "Ice Worlds" would be a very pale bluish white, etc.  I was putting a dot in the center, but there was no color-coding or other meaning to it other than it was a convenient way for me to indicate that I'd actually generated a planetary data sheet for the place.  What if I used a filled in circle (not a dot, but an actual circle) as a color code to indicate political affiliation?  Sure, sure, I need more than that (probably a label below the name of the system) but it will also be usable at a glance from relatively high level, because I'll make the circle big enough that it can be seen even when the map is zoomed.

Base Symbols and Other Markers: For whatever reason, and I'm not 100% sure that I understand the reference that made Marc Miller think this was a good idea, there's a very varied use of symbols to indicate if a system has some kind of military base.  For my setting assumptions in AD ASTRA, this is superfluous, and I'd never want to do it. Either few places have bases, or maybe they all do, but they're of much less importance than the authors of Traveller seemed to think that they'd be. They also have a deal where the font (all caps, for instance, versus all lower case) can be a quick and dirty population approximator.  I'm not doing either of those.  There are even some extremely complicated maps that I've seen here and there (this screenshot of some kind of phone app, for example) that try to tell you almost everything that the data sheet would tell you right there in the hex itself.  

While the map there to the side is certainly attractive, it's way too busy and if you can't stop and look at the data sheet, you're probably doing something wrong.  Rather than trying to cram too much information into the map itself, I'm thinking—what are the most important things that someone would want to tell at a glance?  (I do, however, really like the grayed out empty hexes.  I really should do that.)

For me, political affiliation is the most prominent one.  I've gradually realized that my entire mapping strategy revolves around creating "nations" in space and then detailing the worlds within them.  And, as I said up above, political affiliation can be more nuanced than merely "a Monarchy world."  Given the political realities, any potential traveler needs to understand this aspect first and foremost before jumping into a system; a Bernese privateer won't jump into a Revanchist world expecting safe haven, although he might jump into a Revanchist world to prey on shipping.  

Secondly, because my map is a work in process and probably will be for a long time to come, it's worth noting that I've assigned which hexes will have systems, and what political affiliation (at a high level) they will have, and in many cases, the names before I've actually done a data sheet for the system.  So from a meta perspective, I need to know if a data sheet is available for the system or not. 

Third, while the data sheet has all of the info, there's still a few things that are worth noting at a glance, specifically what category of starport the system sports and if unrefined fuel is available so that you can plan jump routes using unrefined in a pinch (or if you need to avoid the spaceport specifically for some reason—often because you want to avoid the gaze of the system authority.)

Everything else can be looked at on the data sheet; planetary size, population, atmosphere type, etc.  It is certainly presumed that anyone who dares to travel the stars is expected to have space suits and breath masks for those who want or need to leave the safety of the ship (or, in a pinch, have a robot who can do it for you, at least) so any other consideration can be figured out after you've already decided to jump to the system, or research-favoring crews can read the data sheets of all of the systems on their proposed routes ahead of time.

AD ASTRA Mapping Key:  With all that in mind, here's the map key for my AD ASTRA map.  It's significantly reduced from its Traveller prototype, but it has everything that I need on it.  Let's go through the elements real quick on a dummy data system:

• First off, of course, is the hex number, here 0101 (in reality, 0101 is empty on my sector map.)  Because this is key to locating the system and tying it to the keyed data sheet, it's the largest and most prominent element of the hex.
• Below that is the red circle, which indicates that this is not an empty system, and that it is part of a nation that's color-coded red.   The letter in the middle of the circle is the type of starport that the system has, in this case, a type A starport, which is a high quality starport with every service you could want from a starport, including shipyards where ship construction can be commissioned.
• The dagger symbol to the left of the circle indicates that this particular system does have a data sheet complete for it, which can be referenced.  The dot to the right indicates that naturally occurring unrefined fuel can be found in the system as well.
• Below that in bold text all-caps text is the name of the system.
• Below that in smaller, italic text is the political affiliation.
• Below that is the more nuanced political affiliation; i.e., it's not just a Bernese world, but also a part of the XY colony (not a real colony in AD ASTRA, obviously.)
• The other thing that I'll end up adding to my map are space-lanes.  I've drawn a few in on alternate cut and paste portions of the map, but I'll add them more explicitly on the newer version of the map.  I got a little carried away making permutations of space lanes when I did it; you can leave the space lane and jump to another system, of course, and in places like relatively tightly packed colonies, it's assumed that traffic moves back and forth within the colony frequently without it needing to be marked as part of the space lane per se.  Space lanes will be in a lighter color that can be readily seen against the other lines and grayed space that the map will end up having.  

The Bechtel Marches

System: Brigium
Hex Location: 0326
Star Type:  Single White dwarf A4 VII
Number of Worlds: 11
Gas Giants: N
Planetoid Belt: N

Starport Type: E Frontier Star Port
World Size: Larger than Earth
Atmosphere Type: Dangerous; completely unbreathable and corrosive
Surface Water: 63%
Population: Medium, c. 500 million
Political Affiliation: Bernese Monarchy, Bechtel Marches
Tags: Xenophobia, Forgotten, Oppressed natives
Notes: While I tend to see the Bernese as a "protagonist" nation, the way the system rolled up made this one where the Bernese simply had to be the oppressors.  Sometimes people leave their own nation because they cannot stand the social mores and morality of their own people and want to live according to their own ideas, which are not tolerated.  And rightly so; in the case of Brigium, the Bernese settlers found a world which had been forgotten during the Dark Ages after the fall of the Marian Empire.  The natives, once human, had undergone rather radical genetic surgery to make themselves able to live on the harsh world; high gravity and with an unbreathable, corrosive atmosphere.  The bulky transhumans who are the natives have incredibly thick dermal layers, and even transparent bone structures that cover the sensitive tissues of their eyes, and have developed filtering membranes over their noses.  They now see themselves as the pinnacles of evolution, although they had lost not only the technology to leave their world or to undergo further genetic refinement; luckily the changes carried down to future generations since they are now present in their genetic code.

The Bernese who found this world were little more than pirates with delusions of grandeur, and they set up a state where they were the undisputed rulers of this planet, using their modern military technology and warlock magic to enforce their rule.  Luckily for the natives, the Bernese were more interested in exploiting the natural resources of Brigium rather than the transhuman resources.  The acid vapor that makes the atmosphere so corrosive also covers portions of the surface in lakes and ponds and bubbling springs, and has incredible industrial flexibility.  It is most often used in small, portable yet powerful antimatter batteries, and the Bernese have a thriving industry devoted to antimatter battery acid processing from Brigian acid.

The vast majority of the population are technically Bernese citizens, although few have much knowledge of what's going on off-world or even ever see anyone who's not a native, and the actual Bernese people are a small, elite minority that maintain themselves apart from the natives in gravity-magicked fortified outposts.  They have a strange melancholy, feeling trapped in their fortress-cities, and awaiting the inevitable extinction of their caste; their numbers have declined for generations due to various insurrections, wars, succumbing to depression and the harsh environmental conditions, and simply failure to procreate; they now number less than a million.

System: Vetius
Hex Location: 0425 
Star Type:  Single A7 VI
Number of Worlds: 10
Gas Giants: N
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper and asteroid belt

Starport Type: A High Class
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Thin
Surface Water: 27%
Population: Small 750,000
Political Affiliation: Bernese Monarchy, Bechtel Marches
Tags: Xenophilia, Industrial World, Civil War
Notes: Vetius was settled by Bernese that did not have the same pirate background as the settlers of nearby Brigium, but in spite of that, the two planets were part of a single political alliance going back to before the official formation of the Bechtel Marches colony of the Monarchy.  They have also had a tough go at it in many respects, their mostly industrialized world provides a number of goods, and ships, to the entire region, but political infighting between the various merchant houses has kept the planet from prospering as it should.  Currently the Bertio and Arold houses are in open conflict with each other over who will be appointed Prime Minister, and it has come to warfare; armed troops have ambushed and fought each other, although the war is somewhat more "cold" than "hot" at the moment, as they are trying to keep from attracting unwanted attention from the Margrave assigned by the Monarchy to administer the colony.

Many of the most important members of Vetian society are married to Altairans.  All across the Bechtel Marches there is wide sympathy towards the Altairan Ascendancy and antipathy towards Outremer and the Heathens in general, but the Vetians take this sympathy to the next level and practically fawn over Altairans.  Some few scions of Altairan merchant families have looked to renew flagging fortunes with Vetian husbands by making alliances via marriage with their daughters, but the low population on Vetius has kept this from becoming a major rage, and only the richest Vetians can attract them; the Altairans are hyper aware of maintaining their civilizational integrity in the face of Saraean aggression, so sending daughters off to marry Bernese is a painful blow to some.

And, in spite of the generally industrial nature of Vetius, the elite do manage to live in pristine palaces of exceptional beauty.

System: Nemaia
Hex Location: 0426
Star Type:  Triple G1 V, M2 VI, M3 Ia (the first two are close.)
Number of Worlds: 12, 13
Gas Giants: 7, 4—Hot Jupiter on the supergiant star
Planetoid Belt: 2 Kuiper belts, 4 asteroid belts

Starport Type: C Routine
World Size: Mars-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 4%
Population: Large 4 billion
Political Affiliation: Bernese Monarchy, Bechtel Marches
Tags: Mining World, Regional Dominance, Eugenic Mania
Notes: Nemaia is the capital of the Bechtel Marches, and is a highly diverse system.  The data sheet describes the main planet where over 90% of the population lives, but given that it's a triple system (two stars are close enough to act as a single center of gravity for an entire system, but the supergiant outlier has its own system of planets as well) but the fact that there are so many planets here and so many resources to be extracted means that there are corporate and colonial government interests at stake throughout the entire system.

The population is heavily Bernese, although like most colonial worlds, there is a sprinkling of others.  This population of others has spiked in recent years as refugees from the Altairan worlds conquered by the Civitas Ordenis Umbraci have come to the system.  More of them fled to other Altairan worlds, of course, but enough have made their way here that they are now a significant minority in the streets.  The Bechtelians have always been friendly with their neighbors from the Altairan Ascendancy, but following the disaster of the Saraean conquest, their friendship has been strengthened.  Many interests support a strong stance against the Saraeans, although only the most radical actually propose open warfare.  However, many privateers of Bechtelian origin now have letters of marque from the northern Altairan Ascendancy to prey on Saraean ships in the broader region.

Otherwise, in many respects, Nemaia is the model for what a Bernese colony system should look like.  Heavily Bernese in population and culture, albeit more independent minded like Colonials everywhere who are separated from their host nation, fairly peaceful and prosperous, enough so that the population has grown to nearly Core world size, industrious, and an economic and political benefit to the Monarchy overall.  Miners work the dry, often crystaline surface of the planet and various space-faring "ice truckers" to the icy planetoid belts make a prosperous (if somewhat lonely) living in the system as well.  There is a growing entrepreneurial spirit in the system too, as various people have tried to come up with new methods of farming, ranching, mining, or services.  Nemaia is vibrant and exciting for those who live there.

One such new enterprise that has led to a somewhat strange development is very radical (although only cosmetic) gene splicing that has created some very bizarre looking individuals among those who are wealthy enough to indulge in this weird mania.  Of course, this means that Nemaia has been prosperous for long enough that there is an entire caste of people who are indulgent and indolent second (or more) generation wealthy, and don't otherwise know what to do with their time or money.  This stratification and the cosmetic excess of the wealthiest class on Nemaia certainly is off-putting to the more pragmatic, salt of the earth types who otherwise make up the backbone of the Bernese Colonial worlds, but it is also seen as a strange affectation of only the most indolent of wealthy Nemaians.

New Ad Astra systems coming

I actually promised these some time ago, but only did a few.  I've now identified over 70 new systems to do data sheets for, to finish the Bernese colonies, the Outremer Imperial colonies, and the Revanchist colonies, as well as a few neighbors that you can't really not do because they're located smack dab in the middle of those other colonial powers.

Yikes.  Anyway, here's the complete list of Star system data sheets that are done, and those that are targeted (which show up in the list, but not yet as links since I haven't created the pages for them, obviously.)

I may not cross-post them here as I've done in the past, but we'll see.  I also can't promise that you'll see a huge bender of activity in the next few days, but in the coming weeks and throughout the summer, I'd like to see a significant dent made in that lengthy list.

I also still have a lot of systems named on my map but which I have not yet targeted for data sheets.  That's OK.  I actually think that it's counter-productive to detail too much setting if it isn't needed yet, and let's be clear; I don't really even need these, although I'm enjoying having them and fleshing out the communities a bit more; it's actually making the notion of some Bernese privateers and/or smugglers running around the area more appealing rather than having all the action set more constrained in the Carthen or Carrick areas.

https://sites.google.com/site/adastram20/home/setting

Scaley

System: Scaley
Hex Location: 2327
Star Type:  Single A4 V
Number of Worlds: 9
Gas Giants: 8
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper belt and 3 separate asteroid belts

Starport Type: X
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Thin
Surface Water: 74%
Population: Medium (32 million)
Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel
Tags: Feral World, Outpost World, Pilgrimage World
Notes: (That's a very interesting collection of tags.  Randomization.  What'choo gonna do?) During the Marian years, this was a Cepheid colony.  Although old records indicate that the system was once called Ickes, a pejorative label has stuck and become the official name of the system in more recent years, so it's known simply as Scaley—presumably in reference to the reptilian humanoid aliens that make up most of the population.  As the Dark Ages came over much of the region after the fall of the Marian Empire, Scaley was lost and gradually fell into becoming little more than a feral outpost with no capability of star travel at all until it was rediscovered by wandering agents of the Dhangetans who were exploring the region and establishing their own cartel worlds.  The locals were very hostile to the newcomers, and remain so to this day.  Not that they are xenophobic, exactly—they have evolved a culture of raiding, dueling, and otherwise engaging in such casual violence that the entire world is generally seen as unvisitable except for the handful of Dhangetan outposts.

The world is covered fairly densely by shallow, often epicontintal seas, and has no large landmasses, although archipelagos of smaller cratons (few larger than Madagascar or Borneo) are commonplace.  There are a few outposts established by the Dhangetans, and although it's no longer necessary to stop here (or anywhere else nearby) it is still more of an outpost and stopping point than a world useful for any other reason.  There is mining in the asteroid belts, but the minerals found are not particularly precious or rare.  Rather, the Dhangetans use the world as a hub in the slave trade.  The violent cepheid natives are often rounded up as slaves themselves, but sentient cargo of all kinds pass through Scaley on a regular basis.

Curiously, in the years long ago when the system was called Ickes, it was famous as the source of a sect of psionic-religion that is popular among cepheids all through Known Space, and many such still come to visit the world where their racial cult was started.  The priesthood of this religion is a close adviser of the Dhangetan agent who serves as system governor (a much more intelligent than normal skiffer named Garjer Mousduna) and they maintain a temple and tourist trap of sorts for these pilgrims, and maintain a relatively safe environment for pilgrims to come and make their obeisances without having to deal with the feral locals.

This has not, however, translated into the building of any kind of spacefaring facilities.  There is no fuel available (except for the ample ocean water, which can be cracked in a pinch for use as unrefined fuel—but honestly; skimming one of gas giants elsewhere in the system is a better move).  This is a matter of some tension between Mousduna and the High Priest (who never uses his name)—and appears to be related to as banal an issue as budgets and taxation.  Mousdana wants to charge pilgrims a tarrif to fund the building of a proper starport, and the high priest has resisted, because he believes that that will cut back on pilgrims, and therefore on his own sources of revenue.  There have been rumors for a long time that construction will start soon, but it never actually seems to.

Kyuli

System: Kyuli
Hex Location: 2326
Star Type:  Single F4 V
Number of Worlds: 3
Gas Giants: N
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper belt and 4 separate asteroid belts

Starport Type: C
World Size: Moon-sized
Atmosphere Type: Thin
Surface Water: 54%
Population: Medium (700 million)
Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel
Tags: Secret cabal, Sealed menace, Primitive aliens

Notes: Sometimes colloquially called a zombie plague world, that isn't strictly speaking true, but close enough for most.  The native inhabitants of Kyuli are eyeless vampire-ghoul creatures that are mostly humanoid in form, but which are fairly low intelligence, ad which are pathologically aggressive hunters who engage in feeding frenzies readily.  The colonists on this world, who mostly maintain it as a stopping point on the way towards somewhere else, stay normally in strongly walled cities and settlements; they number in significantly smaller numbers than the population itself (less than a million across the entire system) or on raft-settlements, or on islands, or otherwise in areas where the vampire-ghouls can't reach.  There is some other aquaculture farming and other industry on the planet.  Precious metals are mined in a not terribly insignificant quantity, but not enough to have sparked a boom town or rush scenario.  This is partly because the atmosphere is very thin, the air is cold, and gravity is relatively low, making it all around a rather uncomfortable place to live.  There is a smaller albeit lucrative business in hunting the vampire-ghouls for sport, which the Dhangetans encourage.

There are ruins scattered here and there on the planet of unknown provenance that do not resemble Ancient ruins, and in fact seem to be similar to early Marian ruins of some sort or other.  The vampire-ghouls also have been found to have at least some human DNA in them.  Some have suspected that Kyuli was settled by the Marians many centuries ago and something happened that caused massive and rapid mutation to transform the humans into savage cannibals, the results of which are the current vampire-ghouls.  But if this is indeed the case, nobody knows what could have caused this.

In reality, there is a sealed cause for the mutation buried deep in a desert at the south pole.  Here, the remnants of an old death-sage (or cyber-lich, if you prefer) laboratory still exists, and the small cabal of three of them still rule over the planet, tolerating the modern settlers and colonists for the time being and refusing to reveal themselves to them.  They not only caused the mutation of the original Marian colonists, but they do manage to maintain some kind of psionic control over their actions to a limited degree, and use them not only as shocktroops but as scouts—or they would if they left their world.  For reasons that are unclear to everyone who knows anything about them (which are very few indeed; possibly the Dhangetan planetary governor and his inner circle, at most, and a handful of other well-connected occult and conspiracy type guys who pay attention to that kind of thing) they are making no effort at the moment to capitalize on this army, however.  Some believe that they have gone torpid and "hibernate" while others simply believe that the motives of unliving death-sages are inscrutable and it shouldn't be surprising when they're not understood.

Erai

System: Erai
Hex Location: 1329
Star Type: Single M5 V
Number of Worlds: 9
Gas Giants: 5
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper belt and asteroid belt

Starport Type: B
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 11%
Population: Medium (630 million)
Political Affiliation: Seraean Empire, Outremer, Principality of Tan Kajak
Tags: Pilgramage world, Cold war, Secret cabal
Notes:  Erai, like many of these relatively recently colonized worlds, has a long history before becoming part of the current political order to which it belongs.  Although it's no longer in operation, there are ruins of both the Grays and early Zen Cross temples out in the rocks and mountains of this predominantly dry planet.  The world has a relatively high population of skiffers and other "ne'er-do-wells" of the galaxy as a leftover artifact from the many centuries it spent under Dhangetan control as well, although the Dhangetan was overthrown in a power bid with his rivals.  Nobody else rose to prominence to claim the system officially for many years.

Sacristans live here in large numbers, and come and go on pilgrimages quite frequently.  They've actually discovered, or so they believe, a fair bit of how the ancient Zen Cross order was structured in the ruins and records of the old Zen Cross enclaves scattered across the surface, although these discoveries often come in cryptic and tantalizing hints, and there is a great deal of rancor in the order about how they should be interpreted sometimes.

The political situation on Erai is also quite complicated.  Two siblings vie for the the title of Duke (or Duchess) over the planet, brother Astal Xoensus and his twin sister Thaiah Xoensus.  Because their parents never kept records of who was born first, who should inherit is not clear.  Normally in the Seraean Empire (and through much of Known Space, for that matter) in these types of situations preference is given to the male claimant, under the understanding that psychologically biologically they tend to be more suited to rulership than women.  However, in Outremer, there are many strange customs, and many of those who came to Outremer were specifically looking to build their own types of societies away from the strictures of their home cultures, and in Tan Kajak in particular, there have often been women rulers, starting with Sillla Vatina who ruled the entire Principality when her brother was deemed mentally incompetent.   So on Erai, the brother and sister vie for control, and have convinced many of the power brokers to side with them.  After a hot conflict that lasted for six weeks, they have settled down to a cooler hunkering down approach, and the planet is split between areas that pledge allegiance to one or the other of the two, while their proxies still fight in space and on the airless, uninhabited (but mined for fuel and other resources) worlds in the system.

If this wasn't enough, a powerful and charismatic Sacristan has put in a bid for independence and has small settlements in the desert (see illustration above) that refuse to acknowledge the sovereignty of either sibling.  This is politically probably fairly foolish, as the greater powers of Tan Kajak would hardly tolerate a non-Seraean with political independence on a world that they claim.  However, that's exactly the whole point; the conflict between the siblings as well as with the Sacristan is because all three are unwitting dupes of the Dhangetan who was overthrown.  Who did not die, as is popularly believed, but who still lives in a hidden enclave in the desert, and who not only controls events on the surface, but has a greater plot that will seriously weaken if not destroy the entire Principality, bringing all four of its worlds into his orbit.  The cold war on Hentau III and the ongoing civil war on Tr'Udon suggest that he's managed to destabilize the entire Principality quite a bit more than one would think.  The Princips who rules it has been absentee on Phovos Mal, meanwhile, for the better part of five standard years.

Perchta

System: Perchta
Hex Location: 1328
Star Type: Single M6 VI
Number of Worlds: 14
Gas Giants: 2
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper belt and asteroid belt

Starport Type: E
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 85%
Population: Medium (94 million)
Political Affiliation: Seraean Empire, Outremer, Principality of Tan Kajak
Tags: Death world, Local Specialty, Xenophilia
Notes: The native inhabitants of Perchta are relatively primitive.  Dangerous conditions on the planet meant that they early lost much of the tech that the original settlers arrived with, and they were unable to develop more of it.  Their ethnic origin is unknown, but probably mixed Earth, Altairan and maybe something else.  They have dark eyes, "icy" colored skin and dark blue hair, for the most part; a kind of unusual combination that the Seraeans in particular find oddly and exotically attractive (kind of like Seraeans with a bit of blue, they say.)

Today, they live in relatively protected enclaves and cities, where they have thrived and their population has grown.  This is due to the arrival of the Umbral Crusaders, who built these cities.  Most importantly, these Umbral Crusaders used their high tech fighters and military might to beat back the gigantic, voracious predators that have made life on Perchta so dangerous to the natives that they couldn't expend any of their personal capital for generations (since before the fall of the Marian Empire when the settlers were effectively "lost" from the galaxy) on doing anything except trying to survive.  These gigantic life-forms, which come in a bewildering array of forms and shapes, are not gone, of course, but have learned to avoid the cities of the Seraeans, except when they get really cranky.  This does happen on occasion, at which point the maddened beast tears the town, kills hundreds if not thousands or more of people, until finally chased off or killed by the Seraean war machine.

There are persistent and disquieting rumors that the beasts are evolving to better face the Seraean weapons, and that one day in the near future they will be as intractable to the Seraeans as they were to the native Perchtans before their arrival, but others dismiss this as crazy talk.

Because of the perception that that Seraean conquerors tamed the wild beasts and raised the standard of living for the natives, they see them as deserving almost whatever tribute that they wish, although as they gradually become more and more aware of the greater galactic context, they are becoming more and more likely to simply try and flee the world if they can find a way to do so.  But today, they still provide tribute in the form of slaves that go to Seraean nobility, mostly, as well as highly prized and valuable items made from elements of the corpses of the slain beasts, including items made from their amazingly tough hide, bones, and armored scutes especially.

Shoa-Shanian

System: Shoa-Shanian
Hex Location: 1933
Star Type: Single K5 V
Number of Worlds: 12
Gas Giants: 7
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper belt and two asteroid belts

Starport Type: D
World Size: Artificial
Atmosphere Type: N/A
Surface Water: N/A
Population: Super-populated
Political Affiliation: Independent ally of the Republic
Tags: Warlock Academy, Feral World, Alien Ruins
Notes: I'm not quite sure what to make of this weird result.  I'm already thinking that an artificial world that's super-populated and only has a type D starport (poor quality, only offers minor repairs, no refined fuel available) was weird enough, but then I rolled up Feral World and Alien Ruins as tags?!  This is going to be one of the most unusual systems I've rolled up...

Shoa-Shanian is a low-light and relatively low-heat orange dwarf star, in a system that is littered with debris; a gas and dust nebula thickly colors space around it, like a miniature, solar system-sized Eagle Nebula, complete with dark pillars of gas, and brightly lit and colorful fans of dusty gas.  When the system was very first scouted during the now ancient days of the Old Kingdoms, the actual worlds of the system weren't very inviting for settlement.  There are a large number of gas giants, which provide the raw materials for bulk drive fuel, and there are a number of rocky and metallic or icy airless worlds as well (including satellite moons of the gas giants) as well as lots of asteroids and comets and centaurs.  In fact, the system is positively littered with debris, possibly due to the weak solar winds from the Shoa-Shanian star, which haven't cleared the system nearly as thoroughly as most.

But the colonists stayed anyway, because what they discovered was a massive, nearly moon-sized craft floating in the thickest part of the gaseous nebula.  The architecture of the ship is alien and unknown—many scientists in the past have remarked on possible links to Ancient gray ruins found throughout Known Space, both in terms of trying to draw parallels and others who find them lacking.  This artificial world is partly metallic, but surprisingly mostly made of stone, as if it were itself a gigantic asteroid converted into a craft.  Artificial gravity and Earth-like atmosphere pervade the ship, left presumably by whatever passed for alien thaumaturges or warlocks, and even an ecosystem with water, runaway weed-like, and alien rat-like life forms thrive here.

Colonists have been here for a long time, but following the Wars of the Last Emperors, they lost track of their connections to the rest of Known Space, and slipped into a technological Dark Age.  Today, they present the odd conundrum of a savage and even feral artificial world, with politics that are tribal, and technology that is—mostly—barely better than Medieval.  Second Wave colonials make up less than 2% of the population, and tend to hold themselves mostly apart from the "natives" of the first wave of colonization.

In spite of the loss of the system during the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Marian Empire, rumors and old records of the strange world and its mystery remained in the rump states that succeeded that Marian Empire, and various New Age colonials, as they swept in to rediscover what was lurking in the New Alderamin sector, were keen to find Shoa-Shanian, even though its exact location was lost and forgotten.  Jase Hompson, an earth-descent young warlock, and his crew of adventurous explorers was the one who eventually found the world.  Although he comes from the part of space that belongs to the Republic (only recently Revanchist, at this point) their crew was extremely independent and skeptical of the Revanchist bureaucracy.  Those who followed in his wake, or were descended from him and his original crew, maintain that skepticism—although they dislike the Bernese and see them as ethnic rivals and hate the Heathens, their relationship with the Republic itself is somewhat... complicated.  Hompson and his crew were Earth-descent as well, and were as skeptical of the cultural influence of the Jaffans and Psarians on the Republic as they were of the increasingly parasitical bureaucracy.  So today, Shoa-Shanian remains an independent ally of the Republic, unlikely and unwilling to join officially, and able to fend off less than peaceful integration by nature of the warlocks that Hompson started training.

Today, the Shoa-Shanian warlocks, almost all natives (or colonists) of the world, are among the most feared in the neighborhood—which is saying something, considering their general proximity to the Voormellei Confederation and the Vorgan Than Viceroyalty.

Tr'Udon

System: Tr'Udon
Hex Location: 1529
Star Type: Triple (distant) F5 V, A0 V, M2 V
Number of Worlds: 11, 17, 12
Gas Giants: 8, 5, 0
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper and asteroid belt, Kiuper belt only, Kuiper and asteroid belt

Starport Type: C
World Size: Earth-sized
Atmosphere Type: Thin
Surface Water: 20%
Population: Large (9 billion)
Political Affiliation: Seraean Empire, Outremer, Principality of Tan Kajak
Tags: Mining world, Civil War, Eugenic mania
Notes: Tr'Udon is an unusual system; with three stars, all capable of supporting earth-like planets, and each of which having a large cadre of planets, there is an incredible diversity of settlement.  While the main world stats describe the "main" world of the system, in reality, the system has several settled worlds, several of which are "earth-like" to various degrees—many of them are full of silicates and metallic materials, and vast quantities of raw materials are mined from the system.

The real defining feature of the Tr'Udon system, however, is the ongoing civil war for control of the system between two Seraean noble houses, Djak and Parthsor.  Both are branches of the house of the original Tan Kajak himself (descendants of his more distant cousins, to be exact) and as the Baron Kardon Djak was usually deemed mentally unfit to rule, his cousin, Lord Haltoru Parthsor, called Haltoru the Gaunt was pressed into seeking the baronial seat.  For two decades now, these aging baronial claimants have waged war, and the minor lords and knights that support them have brought to bear their forces to advance the cause of one or the other.  This war has spread throughout the varied system, and sometimes beyond.

A curiosity of Seraean culture is that while they do not encourage this type of disunity, because it threatens their ability to project force across Known Space, they do, however, innately and obsessively enjoy this kind of conflict.  Because of the fact that this one spills out of the Tr'Udon system, a little bit, it gets some bad attention at Phovos Mal and from some of the other Outremer nobles, but they tolerate it because it mostly takes place in system, and because it's entertaining as the all get-out to them.

One of the things that the Seraeans of Tr'Udon have done, which is somewhat unique to them, is a cybernetics mania.  They are obsessed with the creation of the perfect soldier, and have created a template of four-armed soldiers, with a great deal of robotic augmentations, that are unique.  A very few of them are capable of becoming psionic knights genetically too, and the four-armed semi-robotic Tr'Udoni knights are among the most fearsome to encounter.

Hentau III

System: Hentau III
Hex Location: 1628
Star Type: Single M4 V
Number of Worlds: 8
Gas Giants: 4
Planetoid Belt: Kuiper and asteroid belt

Starport Type: D
World Size: Larger than earth
Atmosphere Type: Earth-like
Surface Water: 50%
Population: Medium (100 million)
Political Affiliation: Seraean Empire, Outremer, Principality of Tan Kajak
Tags: Cold war, Xenophobic, Oceanic cities
Notes: Hentau III was initially settled by the Bernese, and was part of the Carrick Grand Marches.  It is one of the few Carrick worlds that wasn't simply colonized; its colonization was contested by forces allied to the Dhangetans, which meant that the settlement was never peaceful, and never settled.  The Bernese were fighters, though—and they fought with the Dhangetan scum, skiffers, and even small numbers of Cilindarean mercenaries for several decades, and hung on to their settlements, for the most part. Neither side were prepared (or capable) of committing enough resources to settle the issue permanent.

Until the Seraean crusaders came in and conquered the system decisively.  Millions of people were enslaved, and most of them were then imported back to the Empire, where they were never heard from again.

But that was now three generations ago.  Today, the situation is a bit different.  While Seraeans clearly make up the biggest plurality (and if you add Idacharians, the Heathens are a clear majority) of the population, there are still relatively large numbers of ethnic Bernese other humans, skiffers, some Cilindareans, and other, less humanoid aliens as well that live here.  For the last two Princips, descendants of Tan Kajak himself, the official policy has been to avoid systemic ethnic oppression.  The original settlers of non-Heathen stock have been allowed to remain in their settlements, albeit much reduced after the great slave-reaping three generations ago.  Others have migrated to the Heathen settlements, and succeed or fail based on their own merits.  In fact, one interesting side effect of this relationship is that Hentau III has become a fertile recruiting ground for spies to serve the Seraean Empire among the Dhangetans, or the Monarch worlds, or even in some cases, on some Revanchist worlds.  They've had less success with ethnic Cilindareans.

But the other curious side effect is that the planet is in a constant state of low-grade, tribal war.  The old Bernese settlements still fight against the settlements that were allied with the old Dhangetans.  Both fight with the Heathens.  Alliances and allegiances shift constantly.  Rather than clamping down on the chaos, the Heathens find the whole thing thrilling entertainment; a worthy place for young warriors to get some practice, and even a fertile ground for big money bets for gamblers.  This is, in fact, one of the main roadblocks to further ethnic integration; the culture of the Heathens, the Bernese and the others is too different for them to ever truly integrate except in the case of rare individuals.  It also means that there is very little trust for those outside of your tribal groups.  If a space traveler were to set his ship down near a Bernese settlement, such as Medon, it's unlikely that you'd get any reception other than radium fire, even if you were yourself an ethnic Bernese from one of the Carrick worlds, for instance.  Mistrust and sharp tribal boundaries is a strong feature on Hentau III.

Arrival of a Heathen noble's personal warships

Another curious fact; the original settlements were mostly located on rivers, and at river mouths, or otherwise access the great coastal floodplains that make up the majority of the landmasses.  Various types, often refugees from the wars, have moved even further inland, although the surface of the planet still remains relatively pristine, and even has many corners essentially unsurveyed and never before seen by intelligent eyes.  The Heathens, on the other hand, mostly live actually at sea, in vast cities either on small islands, or floating as giant rafts, or even submerged beneath the surface.  This is because the water here has a slightly unusual chemical composition.  This has very little effect on humanity, but it does make it the perfect habitat for Seraean spider-fish, both the meat and the eggs of which are a delicacy in Seraean society, and sell for ridiculous amounts of money to Heathen nobility.  In fact, Hentau III has become one of the largest exporters of spider-fish to the Empire, comparable to the oceans of Seraea itself, or famous exporter worlds within Imperial space like Shatina, Lantai, or Vorria.