planet:traveller

Traveller

Traveller is a gas giant located in the Aleph Cluster. Traveller itself is an inhabitable place, but the many moons which orbit the planet have been terraformed into colonies. Managing and maintaining these colonies is the responsibility of the Unity Protocol, and the citizens living on them. At least half of the moons are colonised.

The band of space Traveller orbits is subject to an increased rate of the Entropy Bias phenomenon, where interdimensional phenomena are more likely to occur in the vicinity of the planet and its moons. This phenomenon is exploited by the Unity Protocol to stay culturally vibrant, up to date with many different technologies, and keep it challenged by new arrivals friendly or otherwise.

The following moons of Traveller are colonised for living, and named after their primary cities. They are more than 80% terraformed by Units over a period of decades to support life in 1G of gravity1), and with access to oxygen, a flash-grown ecosystem, and drinking water. Colonies are suitable for a majority of life forms which call Unity Protocol home.

Each moon-colony is large enough to support its own city with a population of up to 2 to 3 million people each, and sport an area of wilderness suitable for wildlife to remain relatively free. The colonies are encouraged to trade their surplus resources to keep the whole supplied.

Considered the capital world and the Unit's home, Unity Prime is a primarily utilitarian colony with the express purpose of hosting the infrastructure that allows the Unity Protocol to run effectively. Most of the planet appears to be artificial from first glance, with metal and lights visible from space. The interior workings of the Units, and their express goal or the aims of their grand experiment is still up for debate.

A sub-tropical, industrial colony situated on a forested archipelago, Sargasso is home to Sourcia and other aquatic species, in addition to a bustling city on the coast and spread out through two islands. Sargasso is frequently subject to monsoon weather, urban adventures, and weird localised phenomena. The locals usually blame Sargasso's magnetism for interesting things on the way things are, get on with their lives, and roll with it as long as it benefits them.

A coastal colony with a more temperate climate, El Hermosa has a densely populated city around an artificial and ever-changing bay, and sprawling suburbs into the interior of its island, with large open spaces for a solar industry. Considered Noir's better cousin and Sargasso's sister city, many corporations like setting their offices up in this sun soaked city. The locals modify the shape of the bay and remodel their buildings frequently, so its possible to see a different skyline every time you visit El Hermosa.

A primarily agricultural colony, Shade is responsible for providing food and vegetable matter many of the other colonies that cannot adequately supply themselves with the food and land necessary. Some portions of the planet are untouched and turned into plant and animal reserves for medical research. Most of the planet's population consists of Units, and the landscape is dotted with hydroponic gardens, greenhouses, and fields of plants, with thousands of alien soils and an arcanely complex operation system.

This colony-moon is host to green forests, rolling meadows and farms, with villages dotted around every ten or so kilometres. Intended to be a planet-wide retirement and relaxation community for the elderly and retired, Nonna also enjoys being named one of the most relaxing places in the Aleph Cluster, and holidaymakers regularly have picnics in Nonna's many parks and fields. The natural scenery in the mountainous regions is home to a skiing resorts during winter, and picturesque hikes in the summer.

This heavily urbanized colony justifies its ongoing existence as an 'ongoing social experiment in deregulation'. What the Units found was that those with more power, wealth, and influence exploited everybody beneath them, and they have created a densely packed city with terrible air, cagey and impoverished people, and an export of criminals and people whose poor decisions follow them throughout the Aleph Cluster. That said, its the best place to get anything bulk fabricated for cheap, no questions asked, and with a smile. Units frequently find their hardest work in keeping the divided community together on Noir, and it takes nerves of steel to get by day to day.

Bias gets its name from an elliptical orbit, and 'weighted' path of travel around Traveller, and is host to a sandy, dry climate. The presence of thick, heavy dust storms makes keeping complex machinery a hassle, and many residents have found that keeping pack animals is far easier than repairing machinery, and prefer a rougher, hardier appearance. To this end, Bias is frequently host to offroad endurance vehicle racing, and horse races across the shrublands and through canyons. On clearer days, air racing is popular too.

A colony devoted primarily to building amusement parks and heavily invested in by private companies and media organisations as a place to film movies and produce other entertainment media, Recreator is a glitzy, glammy, sun-soaked urban area. Content and joy creators of all stripes are given incentives by the local government to keep producing. Residents say that some of the content is examined by the Units, but they keep direct intervention in how it should be produced, or the content's subject matter to a minimum.

These moons are yet to be adequately colonised, or may be used primarily for resource gathering and aren't open to the general population, save for planetside microcolonies. Adventurous individuals or groups aren't stopped from landing on the moons, but the Protocol is not responsible for any misadventure that may take place.

For civilisation to live on otherwise uninhabitable moons, Wind Wall technology is employed. The large walls push a curtain of atmospheric gasses into the air, creating a localised area of temperate habitable land roughly one hundred and twenty eight square kilometres in size, able to grow and sustain a small city and and town. These 'Walled Towns' are reliant on trade and exporting to colonies, and lack resource growth to sustain ongoing population growth, as the wall cannot be expanded without thinning the breathable atmosphere to unsafe levels.

This irregular moon in Traveller's orbit is kept together with a rushed terraforming job to prevent the moon's two halves from drifting apart. The initial fissure was created by a reaction in the moon's core, splitting the moon and its savannah colony in half and spreading its natives to the other colonies. Currently, the husk of the planet is barely habitable without specialised equipment: Cities lay bare and rusted, and the environment unpredictable and hazardous. This doesn't stop some people, whether they want to reclaim something from the broken planet - or hide in it.

Named after one of the simplest of its exports, Knife is a rocky moon host to mining operations by the Unity Protocol and other private organisations. Occasionally, stories surface of the discovery of old ruins to forgotten things and strange artefacts, drawing would-be treasure hunters to infiltrate the planet. Mining Units and private drones scurry throughout the planet's surface and its crust to gather minerals meanwhile.

An icy ball of rock which stays in the shadow of Traveller, and routinely experiences freezing cold temperatures year round, while pools of liquid nitrogen dribble from the mountains. Underneath the icy exterior and at the feet of craggy mountains is a faintly glowing ocean, with lifesigns spotted but no firm identifications as to what it is, or if it is intelligent.

The following space stations and other structures are found. Here, the Unity Protocol has no direct jurisdiction, but if any wrongdoing is traced back to a private station, such as organised crime or piracy, they will return with the UDD and a warrant.

A gaudy, attention-getting space station with chequered flags, hot pink, and neon, the One-Stop Servo is a spaceship refuelling and service station with the addition of a restaurant, a hotel, and a recreational area together under the One-Stop banner. The station is capable of serving tens of thousands of customers a day. The regulars have a taste for rockabilly music, and wear Greaseheart aesthetics and sensibilities. All the while, the Servo hosts dance parties every weekend with a live band.

OOC

more to come!


1)
or as close to as possible
  • planet/traveller.txt
  • Last modified: 2017/08/18 03:33
  • by 51.255.65.81