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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Messages - harrumph

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1
General Discussion / Re: PSA ON NAVAL VS. AIRFORCE
« on: November 30, 2016, 06:37:28 AM »
I would say that the principal functional distinction between aircraft and oceangoing vessels is that they move through different media (air and water, respectively). This means that their speed and maneuverability are radically different and imposes radically different demands on their form and construction (different aerodynamic/hydrodynamic needs, different thrust-to-weight requirements, commensurately reduced/increased ability to mount thicker armor, extra weapons, etc.). Realistically, no such distinction would exist in space-based "naval" combat, and it's hard to imagine why fighters/bombers as we know them would be used. But in a videogame, we can have just fun with the familiar Second World War–based roles and dynamics.

2
Blog Posts / Re: The Ion Pulser & Development Process
« on: January 19, 2016, 11:19:29 AM »
Shouldn't it "synergetic" or "synergistic" rather than "synergy"?

(All the new stuff looks awesome, by the way!)

3
General Discussion / Re: most fun was exploring the abandoned systems
« on: December 22, 2015, 01:43:30 PM »
The Mexican system was good too (almost uninhabited). That reference to the iraq war/iran nuclear deal also amused me, though I spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out what, if any, political point was being made.

Yma? That's not Mexican, it's Quechua. And where's there a reference to the war in Iraq?

4
Suggestions / Re: More Carriers and Destroyers
« on: December 16, 2015, 06:52:01 AM »
How about just adding a Venture (A)? Give it Militarized Hegemony Auxiliary instead of Civilian-grade Hull, burn 8, a couple more small turret points, and a new paint job.

5
Suggestions / Re: When Losing a Comission, Treat like Armistice
« on: December 15, 2015, 07:26:42 PM »
Only taking the commission makes you hostile. If they start a war when you're already commissioned, you have to go commence hostilities on your own.

6
Suggestions / Re: When Losing a Comission, Treat like Armistice
« on: December 15, 2015, 07:10:24 PM »
If you take a commission from a faction that's already at war, you immediately go to hostile with its enemies. That does create one possible circumstance where the current behavior doesn't make sense: if you take a Hegemony commission, are set to hostile with Tri-Tachyon, and then lose your Hegemony commission without ever fighting, it doesn't make sense for TT to remain hostile.

In all other circumstances, though, the current behavior makes perfect sense. If your perfidious actions cause you to get kicked out of your faction and you've been raiding their enemies' shipping, you just went, ex post facto, from being a privateer to being a pirate. Of course everybody's going to hate you!

7
Suggestions / Re: More Carriers and Destroyers
« on: December 15, 2015, 05:39:25 PM »
They are overlooked because the costs are not that significant late in the game.

Depends on your playstyle. I know many people prefer to chain-deploy single ships, and it's true that the Hammerhead is basically useless for such a strategy. If you prefer to actually deploy up to the limit, however, those costs matter. The limit can be as low as 80 points, even in the very late game. Say you're piloting an Onslaught—choosing between three Medusas and five Hammerheads for the rest of your deployment isn't totally obvious (I'd take three Medusas and a Lasher over five Hammerheads, but I'd at least think about it).

8
Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / Re: The stars and worlds of the Sector
« on: December 15, 2015, 05:34:49 PM »
That's some very interesting informations. I hope you'll keep this thread updated with the new planets introduced by the future updates.

I intend to!

9
Suggestions / Re: More Carriers and Destroyers
« on: December 15, 2015, 05:21:57 PM »
You can deploy three Hammerheads for the same cost as two Medusas. I think people overlook that.

I tend to gravitate towards destroyer-heavy fleets (one capital ship, one carrier, maybe a dozen destroyers, plus a few frigates, fighters, and auxiliary ships). Mostly Medusas and Enforcers, but I always keep a few Hammerheads around—to fill in the cracks when deployment points are tight, as second-string combatants when other ships have diminished CR, as backup flagships, etc.

10
General Discussion / Re: Help me, I'm a newb!
« on: December 14, 2015, 07:12:19 AM »
I like two dual flaks, three heavy needlers, and four Harpoons, with ITU, Expanded Missile Racks, and Augmented Engines. Easy for the AI to handle, and capable of easily winning 1v1 against anything smaller than a Dominator.

11
One simple piece of advice if you just want to trade at the start of the game: don't fight, even if you're attacked. The fastest ship the pirates use (generally) is the Wolf (D), with a top speed of 150. If all your ships are at least that fast (Cerberus with Safety Overrides, Hermes with Unstable Injector, unmodified Hound, etc.), they'll never catch you.

12
General Discussion / Re: Help me, I'm a newb!
« on: December 13, 2015, 03:59:12 PM »
It's mostly the weapons and the OP. The Enforcer out-guns some cruisers and has an enormous amount of OP. It scales really well as you level up—you can pack a crazy number of destroyer-priced hullmods into what's basically a light cruiser.

13
Suggestions / Re: More Carriers and Destroyers
« on: December 13, 2015, 02:34:16 PM »
FWIW, high-tech ships aren't exclusively used by Tri-Tachyon; independent fleets and the Sindrian Diktat Lion's Guard use them too (including the Astral and Odyssey). And they do show up in the black market once in a blue moon.

I agree that more carriers and destroyers would be welcome. I think Alex is already planning to add more military destroyers, though.

14
Lore, Fan Media & Fiction / The stars and worlds of the Sector
« on: December 13, 2015, 11:22:50 AM »
Well, this isn't fan fiction—but it might be useful to modders and fiction writers. I recognized some of the names of planets and stars in the Sector and wondered where the others came from, so I looked 'em up! I've also included (lightly edited) in-game text related to these stars, worlds, and stations, plus some other interesting trivia that might be useful to modders/writers.

*

ARCADIA

Orbited by Nomios and Syrinx. Syrinx has one major natural satellite, Agreus. These names are all derived from Greek history and mythology, and all relate in some way to Pan, the god of the wild (also shepherds, flocks, rustic music, etc.).

Origins of the names:

Arcadia is a region in Greece, comprising the mountainous center and some of the eastern shore of the Peloponnese. In ancient times, it was thought to be Pan's domain. During the European Renaissance, it became associated with the prelapsarian "golden age" and was invoked as a pastoral utopia.

Agreus and Nomios were half-brothers in Greek mythology. They were aspects of Pan and simultaneously individuals in their own right; both were sons of Hermes.

Syrinx was a virginal nymph, a follower of Artemis. When Pan "took an interest in her," she begged for help from river nymphs, who turned her into a stand of reeds. Pan cut the reeds and used them to make the first pan flute.

In-game descriptions:

Agreus:
Quote
Centuries of stripped starship hulls rest on the long-cold lava seas and regolith plains of this barren world. Some especially radioactive reactor cores are left in quarantined pits that glow with detectable radiation ticking on long-range scans. Workers employed by the industrial operations live in vast crater-arcologies, underground cities ringed by glittering solar arrays and spurs of transport tubes leading to outlying processing facilities and material yards.

A major center of shipbreaking in this region of the Sector. Hulks are consigned to scrapping here by the Hegemony Navy and many other clients from among the Sector core worlds. The Ko Combine has purchased the rights to planetary administration under their corporate charter and has rebuilt their fortune on employing novel recycling techniques, ship-reconstruction, and (some say) scraping intelligence from dead pseudo-AI cores.

Citadel Arcadia (in orbit around Agreus):
Quote
A Hegemony logistics center built to supply fleets capable of projecting power throughout the strategically vital Arcadia system. The utilitarian grace and sweeping rings of its core construction date the original station and its volatiles-siphoning facilities to before the Collapse. Later, crude weapons pods and armored nodules assembled from hulks destined for Agreus were added in response to the risk of surprise raids against this valuable concentration of materiel.

Nomios:
Quote
An offshoot of the Agreus shipbreaking operation, the famed shipyards of Nomios refurbish or rebuild ships from salvaged components. Massive prefabricated modules are lofted up the elevator-track spines of skeletal construction gantries; below, rows of robotic fabrication sheds built on insulated foundations stretch to a horizon broken by bulbous refineries and chemical processing stacks. Dirty ammonia snow falls from the thin atmosphere in fitful storms, but the atmosphere is very thin and most melts in the waste heat released by the industrial centers.

Syrinx:
Quote
A giant planet composed of a large proportion of heavier volatiles than the more massive classical hydrogen-dominated gas giants. High winds sweep ammonia clouds over great storms and upwellings of hydrocarbons from the gradual transition to water-ammonia seas that lie atop exotic ices formed by the extreme pressure and high gravity.

Useful trivia:

Agreus is controlled (or at least operated) by the Ko Combine, the guys who brought us the Shepherd and Monitor. Though nominally independent in the game, they seem to be pretty tight with the Hegemony lore-wise.

ASKONIA

Orbited by Sindria, Salus, and Umbra. Salus has two major natural satellites, Cruor and Volturn. It had a third, Opis, which was destroyed during the Askonia Crisis and exists now only as a ring of debris. Salus also has a trojan minor planet, Nortia, that orbits at its L4 point. The names of the celestial objects in the Askonia system seem to come from Roman/Italian mythology and the Latin language, although they've been some of the hardest to puzzle out.

Origins of the names:

Askonia might be derived from "Askania," the Ancient Greek name for Lake Iznik in what is now Turkey. In the ancient era, it was part of Phrygia and may have played a minor role in the Trojan War. This is a bit of a stretch (and not Roman!).

Sindria is a mystery. I did learn that "síndria" means “watermelon” in Catalan, Sardinian, and some other minor Romance languages of the Western Mediterranean, but I doubt that's the kind of vibe Admiral Andrada is into.

Volturn almost certainly comes from Volturnus, a Roman/Samnite god of waters, who gave his name to an Italian river today called the Volturno.

Cruor is Latin for "blood."

Nortia was an Etruscan goddess of time, fate, destiny, and chance.

Umbra is Latin for "shadow" or "ghost." In English, it refers to the innermost and darkest part of a shadow.

Salus was a Roman goddess of safety and well-being.

Opis was a nereid in Virgil's Aeneid, called on by Diana to avenge the death of Camilla (who was herself a total badass, if you've never read the poem). It could also perhaps be an alternate spelling of Ops, a Sabine/Roman fertility goddess. Hopefully the badass nereid, though.

In-game descriptions:

Sindria:
Quote
This world’s battered crust of cyclopean debris criss-crossed by kilometers-deep pits and chasms is bombarded with intense radiation on the day side, so habitats and industrial facilities must be built deep beneath the surface. The population of Sindria is concentrated in a handful of hive-cities where living conditions for most are poor and civil law harsh. A desperate underclass lives beneath those who are lucky enough to have found positions in the state bureaucracy and intelligence services. Infrastructure has never kept up with the population crisis of massive refugee immigration during the Askonia Crisis as resources have been concentrated on industry and military power.

Capital of the Sindrian Diktat and home to millions of citizens living in underground hive-cities. Centuries of mining operations have wormed through the crust of Sindria while recent autarky programs have fostered a crude base of heavy industry. Vast energies captured by a series of solar arrays launched from subsurface mass drivers are used to power one of the Sector’s few AM fuel production facilities, where anti-matter is created via hellish physics then trapped in fullerene shells carefully mixed with heavy hydrogens and actinides into the relatively stable fuel pellets on which interstellar civilization relies.

Volturn:
Quote
Volturn was envisioned as a planet of agriculture and leisure to service the now annihilated capital city-moon, Opis. Refugees from the Askonia Crisis have swelled the population of Volturn many-fold, surpassing even the numbers of Sindria and filling the floating arcologies, resort-cruisers, and terraforming barges with makeshift housing. An economy of light industry and aquaculture prevail with many products derived from the processing of sea-life genetically modified to flourish in the Volturnian world-ocean. A Diktat garrison maintains uneasy rule over this world of stinking algae farms and sprawling, floating slums that are a hotbed of resistance movements, esoteric cults, and criminal syndicates.

The result of secondary and ongoing terraforming efforts, Volturn possesses a primitive atmosphere over a world-sea which has been seeded with re-engineered Terra-type life forms. These have largely displaced the relatively primitive native organisms which once formed vast drifting colonial mats. Beneath the hundreds of kilometers of ocean a core of water-ice over a rocky-metallic core is formed by the immense pressure. Volturn's population lives in floating habitats and the economy is built on farming of complex organics.

Cruor:
Quote
The world's crust is squeezed and cracked by the powerful tidal forces of Salus, causing regular quakes and apocalyptic eruptions. Abundant geysers of volatile gases maintain a thin, toxic atmosphere and combine with iron compounds to give Cruor its sanguine color. Tracked rigs roam the more stable surface provinces, ripping out rare or merely convenient ores for export while corroding ruins of machines can occasionally be seen amid the scars of strip-mining. Dark rumors circulate about the conditions of mobile labor camps operated by Diktat Intelligence.

Cruor will always be a backwater due to its protean surface, broken and re-broken by the tidal forces of Salus. Under Diktat rule, Cruor is a world of temporary mining and prison operations, never fit for permanent settlement. The free population is made of contractors and technicians from Volturn    seeking their fortune off-world. Desperately bored workers burn their wages by partaking of the myriad vices provided by a lively black market quietly tolerated by the Diktat governor.

Nortia:
Quote
A large but anonymous metallic/silicate planetoid caught in the L4 point of Salus, Nortia was once dedicated to seasonal robotic mining operations and substance abuse before it was inundated with refugees during the Askonia Crisis and now forms the strongest independent base of Charterist rebels in the system.

Since the Crisis, Nortia's mining and refining centers have grown sprawling, tumorous rockfoam suburbs; here following mining tunnels beneath the surface, there bubbling up comm-arrays, solar collectors, and pressure domes. Civil governance is carried out in the form of an uneasy agreement between the underground Charterist resistance forces (organized in a dual military hierarchy/cell structure) backing an above-ground cartel of independent smugglers pretending to be a legitimate sub-planetary government. They even boast a Hegemony consulate.

Umbra:
Quote
The furthest major body from Askonia, Umbra is a frozen world of methane and ammonia where water-ice is like rock and may be found in mountainous outcroppings and boulders. A thin atmosphere of volatiles is formed on the starward side of the planet only to freeze again on the dark side. Most craters are filled in over time as this "snow" is deposited. There is some mining of heavier materials from the poor, rocky mantle buried many kilometers beneath the glacial crust. Habitats are burrowed deeply; life on Umbra is harsh and few would willingly choose to live here permanently. A trickle of idealistic out-of-system volunteers still brings much-needed supplies and hope.

Seat of the Askonian Revolutionary Council, a local faction of the Antis movement. Conditions are unforgiving as harsh emergency regulations have been decreed by the Council. Economic activity consists of mining volatiles and reprocessing tailings from the abandoned core-boring project. The ARC has also allowed what might be termed "pirates" to operate from Umbra, for independent traders have been scared away by the “emergency expropriations" imposed by the ARC. Small numbers of the Askonia Crisis refugees came to Umbra, straining local infrastructure, to join the revolution or expecting to find their way elsewhere.

Salus:
Quote
A gas giant world of immense mass, the crushingly-deep atmosphere is colored by abundant ammonia and sulphide compounds. Vast electrical storms can sometimes be seen on the night-side of this world. Salus is somewhat smaller and has relatively sedate radiation fields compared to those    of Jupiter of Old Earth's system.

Useful trivia:

The descriptions of Nortia and Umbra make reference to two minor factions who are otherwise not yet present in the game, but may have some reach beyond the Askonia system—the Antis movement and the Charterists (the Charterists might just be local, looking to overthrow the Diktat and charter a Domain-style civilian government, but they could also be related to the government of New Maxios in Magec).

Volturn and Sindria are two of the four most populous markets in the Sector thus far (the others are Tartessus and Chicomoztoc, the latter being the single most populous). Volturn is apparently more populous than Sindria.

AZTLAN

Orbited by Xolotl, Chicomoztoc, Tlalocan, Toci, and an asteroid belt called The Ciltetl. Tlalocan has two major natural satellites, Coatl and Zorrah. All of the names relate to Aztec mythology or are otherwise derived from the Nahuatl language.

Origins of the names:

Aztlán was the quasi-legendary land from which the Nahua people migrated to what is now central Mexico, where they founded the cities (Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Texcoco, Tlacopan, etc.) that would become the Aztec Empire.

Chicomoztoc was apparently the still-earlier ancestral home of the Nahua tribes, a place with seven caves they left when they moved to Aztlán.

Zorrah means "fox" in Nahuatl.

Coatl is Nahuatl for “serpent” or “twin."

Toci was the mother of the gods in Aztec mythology.

Xolotl was another Aztec god, associated with lightning and death.

Ciltetl definitely seems to be a Nahuatl word, but I don't know what it means.

In-game descriptions:

Chicomoztoc:
Quote
One of the first planets targeted for colonization in the Sector, Chicomoztoc was selected to become a center of industry, host to a nexus of huge nanoforges. It was only a marginal terraforming candidate upon discovery; rapid early industry and later war have left the atmosphere choked with complex sulphur compounds, organics refining byproducts, and a concerning but manageable dusting of actinides.

The enormous population of Chicomoztoc lives in underground arcologies ruled in turn by powerful demagogues - promising reform and jobs for the masses of unemployed - or members of the numerous competing technocrat/criminal patronage networks serving their home hive-coalition or, as often, whoever has bought them off. Hives are occasionally locked down by riots, protest, and insurrection, but so long as the Forges are kept safe and churning out mountains of goods, machines, tools, and starship hulls, the Hegemony overlords meddle little in domestic affairs.

Zorrah:
Quote
This entire moon of rocky-ice bears scars visible from orbit due to exploitation. It has traditionally been chartered to one megacorporation or another to feed the industrial maw of Chicomoztoc, which always hungers yet is never satisfied.

Coatl:
Quote
This barren moon of Tlalocan is wormed through with tunnels, bunkers, hangars, silos, and batteries; it forms a key Hegemony military base which controls the Aztlan system without being so close to Chicomoztoc as to get caught up in the local politics.

Coatl Station:
Quote
Built around the core of a seedship from the first great migration wave to the Sector, Coatl Station has changed roles and names more times than any outsider cares to review. At present it hosts the Hegemony military C3 center and training facilities for the Aztlan system.

Useful trivia:

Chicomoztoc is probably home to an absolute majority of the humans living in the Sector (at least the twelve systems we have so far). It's definitely home to the vast majority of citizens in the five current Hegemony systems—between 78 and 99 percent of them. Most of the autofactories in the current Sector are on this one planet; all of them are controlled by the Hegemony.

Zorrah is another nominally independent planet run by a megacorporation—though obviously not Tri-Tachyon, and presumably not Ko Combine.

CORVUS

Orbited by Asharu, Jangala, Barad, Somnus, and Mors. Barad has two major natural satellites, simply called Barad A and Barad B. Compared to the other systems, these names are a bit of a mish-mash—which could be because they predate David's taking over as lore czar (or maybe I just haven't figured them all out properly).

Origins of the names:

Corvus is Latin for “raven” or “crow.” It is also a constellation, originally identified (and imagined as a crow) by the Babylonians. There are a bunch of real stars named Alpha Corvi, Beta Corvi, etc.

Asharu is an obscure alternative name for Kingu/Qingu, consort of Tiamat in Babylonian myth.

Jangala is Sanksrit for “jungle”—it's actually the origin of the English word.

Barad means "tower" in Sindarin, the elvish language invented by J. R. R. Tolkien, which he largely based on Welsh (although "barad" bears no resemblance to the Welsh word for tower). It's also an obsolete unit of pressure measurement derived from Ancient Greek (with an etymology related to "barometer" and the like). I imagine I've missed the mark on this one.

Somnus is the Roman name for Hypnos, the personification of sleep. It also literally just means "sleep" in Latin.

Mors is the Roman name for Thanatos, the personification of death. As with Somnus, it also simply means "death" in Latin.

In-game descriptions:

Asharu:
Quote
A desert planet, product of an abortive terraforming project from before the Collapse. Populated by a few fiercely independent settlers, criminals, and oddballs. The Hegemony claims domain over Asharu but maintains no permanent administration, sending patrols only to chase down pirates or impose heavy but infrequent tariffs on what little commercial activities remain.

In better times Asharu was a model terraforming prospect: A solar shade lowered the surface temperature while ice launched from the moons of Barad left shining vapor trails to fall as rain from the skies. Alas the chaos of the Collapse halted the ice and suspected Luddic sabotage destroyed the shade. Investment dried up and now only a few hardy lifeforms (including a handful of human settlers) cling to existence in the sheltering mountains between the vast dunes that are slowly retaking the foundations of cities never built.

Abandoned Terraforming Platform (in orbit around Asharu):
Quote
An abandoned orbital staging area for the Asharu terraforming project. Castoff bulk-carrier segments welded between a honeycomb of emptied fuel tanks once formed concourses teeming with engineers and colonists. The hangars stand empty but for a few slumped, stripped hulks. Passive energy collectors and tertiary life-support modules keep the station functioning and in orbit, barely. No one would expect to find anything of value here.

Jangala:
Quote
Jewel of the Corvus system, Jangala possesses a lush native biosphere. The world's farms and seas, often hidden by churning cyclones of megastorms, are a major source of organic feedstock, food products, and exotic xenobiological materials. Considered holy by most Luddic sects.

Initially a center of xenobiological study and tourism, exploitation followed discovery and millions of square kilometers were razed then covered by plantations tended by massive robotic harvesters. But it is no paradise for humans, requiring biofilter masks and a decontamination process for surface visits. The riotous native jungle must be held back to this day by periodic orbital burns from Jangala Station.

Jangala Station:
Quote
Orbiting megacity, naval yard, and port; the unquestioned cosmopolitan center of civilization and culture in the Corvus system as well as the seat of the Hegemony military district encompassing the local systems. Heavy commercial and naval traffic swarm the station at all times.

Formed of a vast tiered structure, the first ancient fueling and repair gantries are hidden among corroded industrial hangars that lie in the shadow of a huge ring of laboratories and associated support systems. Higher still, commercial concourses, metroplex districts, and many-winged shipyards are all watched over by a command & control spire bristling with communications arrays and weapon pods.

Barad A:
Quote
The thick, frozen crust of this world is fed by cryovolcanoes that dot the surface. These frozen wastes are scored by mass-driver gantries from a time    when the volatile elements of this world were extracted on a massive scale to feed the ATC's terraforming efforts elsewhere in-system. Some of the old equipment has been appropriated by scattered bands of independent miners who scratch out a meager living between the glaciers of ammonia-ice.

Hidden Pirate Base (in orbit around Barad A):
Quote
Originally built by the Asharu Terraforming Corporation to coordinate volatiles extraction for massive terraforming projects, the station has been taken over by "adventurers," freebooters, mercenaries seeking to avoid the watchful eye and heavy hand of the Hegemony. Here there are no laws, but an unwritten code of bravado and posturing maintains a tense peace so deals can be made, information traded, and spoils sold. Independent miners who work the moons of Barad gather here to sell their hauls, trade tall tales, and otherwise unwind.

Useful trivia:

Jangala is the only planet in the Sector so far that is not controlled by the Church of Galactic Redemption but has a majority-Luddic population. It is a Luddic holy site and one of the very few worlds so far (perhaps the only one) with extant native life. It's also one of only seven markets in the Sector so far with a population larger than one million.

DUZAHK

Orbited by Aka Mainyu, Druj, and an asteroid belt called The Daevas. These are all Avestan words referring to theological concepts in Zoroastrianism.

Origins of the names:

Duzahk seems to be an obscure old name for the Zoroastrianism equivalent of hell. Not a nice place.

Druj means "lie" in Avestan. As a Zoroastrianism theological concept, it is the opposite of "asha" (truth, virtue, righteousness, order).

Aka Mainyu means "evil spirit" in Avestan. It could be a literal demon, but it could also mean an evil spirit within someone—evil thoughts.

Daeva means "wrong god" or "false god" in Avestan.

In-game descriptions:

Aka Mainyu:
Quote
Tidally locked to its primary, the hot gas giant Aka Mainyu's day side is an eternal hellish maelstrom with winds of vaporized metals reaching speeds of thousands of kilometers per hour. A half million tons of ionized gas is blasted from the atmosphere each second creating a complex whorled magnetotail with detectable effects across the entire inner volume of the Duzahk system.

Druj:
Quote
A dead and barren world, albeit with an appreciable magnetic field suggesting a differentiated metallic core. The ion-storms unleashed by Aka Mainyu rain Druj with spectacular high energy particles, blasting away volatiles and leaving dark arcs of nanophase iron in the regolith.

EOS EXODUS

Orbited by Phaosphoros, Tartessus, and Hesperus. Phaosphoros has one major natural satellite, Lucifer. Tartessus also has one, Baetis. Hesperus has two: Ceyx and Daedaleon. These names are all derived from Latin and Greek and mostly relate to the sun—specifically the sun's passage through the sky at different times of day.

Origins of the names:

Eos, in Greek mythology, was the Titanic goddess of the dawn ("Aurora" was her Roman name). "Exodus" means "going out" in Greek, and is the name of the second book of both the Torah and the Bible. Perhaps the system was simply "Eos" at one point, before the Luddites made their pilgrimage there.

Phaosphoros literally means "light-bringer" in Greek; it was a name for Venus (the planet—no other relation to the goddess Venus/Aphrodite) when it appeared as the "morning star."

Lucifer is simply the Latin translation of Phaosphoros. Also, as almost everyone probably already figured out, a name for the devil in Christianity!

Tartessus is the Roman name for a semi-mythical Iberian city, west of Gibraltar, that the Greeks called "Tartessos."

Baetis was the Roman name for the river at whose mouth Tartessus supposedly stood. It's a real river, now called the Guadalquivir, and was also known as "the river of Tartessus."

Hesperus is a romanization of Hesperos, another Greek name for Venus, this time in the form of the "evening star." Hesperos was the son of Eos and half-brother of Phaosphoros.

Ceyx was the son of Phaosphoros, and thus the grandson of Eos and nephew of Hesperos.

Daedaleon is one I'm not 100 percent sure of, but I imagine it must be related to Daedalus, the mythical inventor/craftsman/architect who designed the Labyrinth for King Minos of Knossos. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, he and his son Icarus escape Crete on wings held together with wax. Icarus flew too close to the sun, melting the wax, and became an enduring metaphor for hubris, scientific overreach, etc. and so forth—like the kind of stuff Tri-Tachyon must have been up to when they melted a hole through the moon.

In-game descriptions:

Tartessus:
Quote
An old, dry world that has a much smaller percentage of water in its atmosphere than terran standard. No active plate tectonics; highly eroded mountains and silted shallow seas. The atmosphere and magnetic field protect the surface from stellar radiation. The most accessible mineral resources were mined in a flurry of rapacious industrialism shortly after discovery.

Seat of the local branch of the Luddic Church and economic center of the system. The quiet cosmopolitan centers of Tartessus housing the Eos Exodus Curia are clustered around calm, warm seas. The world's population is dominated by Luddic practitioners of various sects and, while large, is mostly rural and agrarian, eking out a generally devout existence through subsistence farming and export of handcrafts.

Baetis:
Quote
A captured dwarf-planet from the outer system. A stream of volatiles evaporates from the battered surface to form a ring of light particles around Tartessus. The radiation-stained infrastructure left from the initial settlement of the system has been re-settled by a lively population of out-of-system nonbelievers and dissidents exiled from Tartessus. The spaceport operates under a military administration provided by the Knights of Ludd who collect tithes from all commercial activity.

Hesperus:
Quote
An ice-world with a thin, cold atmosphere. Industrial terraforming of the planet was halted around the time of the Luddic takeover of the Eos Exodus system. Virtue may be found in hardship, and the Knights embrace this hardship in the martial monastic communities scattered on the surface of Hesperus. Some mining of ores and volatiles is permitted with contracts awarded exclusively to the Faithful.

Monasteries cling to particularly sublime rifts and promontories of volcanic shields and the occasional pluton that's forced its way through the world-wrapping crust of ice. These forbid outside visitors - particularly the unfaithful - without dispensation from the Knights. However, by authority of the Stellarch, a number of special economic zones built on the shifting ice floes transmit civilian landing beacons to call outside traders to port.

Ceyx:
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A captured dwarf planet which holds the largest concentration of military facilities in the Eos Exodus system. The Knights have appropriated and extended vast subsurface ship facilities, armories, barracks, and all the training, administration, and housing facilities one would expect of the home of the Luddic Armada.

Daedaleon:
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A small, barren moon, site of a research base once operated by the Tri-Tachyon Corporation. A massive containment failure released a highly energetic and seemingly self-sustaining process or object which melted into the crust leaving a plume of strange radiation which spews exotic particles to this day. The moon is abandoned of all human activity but for a network of orbiting hazard beacons maintained by the Knights of Ludd.

HYBRASIL

Orbited by Culann, Elada, Crom Cruach, Balar, and Donn. Elada has two major natural satellties, Eochu Bres and Ogma. Balar has four: Ena, Cethlenn, Birog, and Cian. All of these names come from pre-Christian Irish mythology.

Origins of the names:

Hybrasil was a mythical island supposed to lie west of Ireland.

Culann was a mythical Irish smith.

Eochu Bres was a king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, one of the Irish pantheons. His mother was Ériu (i.e. Éire, matron goddess of Ireland), but his father was Prince Elada of the Fomorians (bad guys, kind of—a sort of anti-pantheon usually opposed to the Tuatha Dé Danann). Bres was apparently not a great king, although man, it turns out Irish mythology is really complicated.

Ogma was an Irish god, associated with skill and eloquence. Also a son of Elada.

Crom Cruach was an Irish deity, possibly a fertility god, whose worship apparently involved human sacrifice and who came to be associated, in the Christian era, with the Biblical figure Moloch.

Balar is presumably an alternate spelling of Balor, husband of Cethlenn and king of the Fomorians. He is associated with drought and blight.

Ena is an alternate spelling of Ethniu, daughter of Balor. Though a Fomorian, she married Cian of the Tuatha Dé Danann; their son Lugh became High King and killed Eochu Bres. I think. It's complicated.

Cethlenn was the wife of Balor. Not sure if she was Ena/Ethniu's mother, though.

Birog was a druidess who was somehow involved in the whole Eochu Bres/Ethniu/Cian/Lugh thing.

Cian was Ena/Ethniu's consort and Lugh's father.

Donn was a lord of the dead in Irish myth. The chief of the Sons of Mil, he invaded Ireland, ousting the Tuatha Dé Danann, and became the father of the (human) Irish race. In the Sector, the planet Donn is an invader too, having come from outside the Hybrasil system. Neat!

In-game descriptions:

Culann Starforge (in orbit around Culann):
Quote
Culann Starforge was founded as a major center of zero-G refining and metallurgy several hundred years ago by an enterprise whose strength lay in a portfolio of ingenious energy conversion and storage technologies that enabled efficient harnessing of Hybrasil's nearby primary. This firm, its property, and Culann itself were rapidly acquired by the Tri-Tachyon Corporation, which has traditionally dominated the energy conversion, generation, and projection industries.

Eochu Bres:
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Terraformed late in the colonization of the Sector, Eochu Bres is a world of peaks and fjords freshly torn by violent, rapidly changing weather. It is still colder than Terran-optimal in spite of an orbital mirror array completed shortly before the Collapse.

Shining Tri-Tachyon company arcologies tower over riotous sprawls of shantytown conurbation. Tri-Tachyon salariat are born, live, and die protected by security drones in the high city Xanadu while a desperate class of contract laborers lives in the low sprawl where anything at all can be bought or sold, including the law over which Company money nonetheless reigns supreme.

Ogma:
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The oldest of the famous mines of Ogma were converted (suspiciously) shortly after the Collapse into a major Tri-Tachyon military base which projects power throughout the inner Hybrasil system and into neighbouring systems. The deepest arsenals are said to contain fabulous weapons based on arcane technology revealed by incomprehensible AI-epithany, though after two wars a Hegemony inspector has yet to set foot inside to confirm these rumors.

Hybrasil Astropolis (in orbit around Ogma):
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Originally established by Eridani-Utopia as a center of operations during the late colonization of the Hybrasil system, Hybrasil Astropolis now hosts Tri-Tachyon military and mercenary operations among its staggered rings of hydroponics capsules.

Crom Cruach:
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This barren world, unremarkable but for the prevalence of otherwise unusual sulphur compounds of little economic value, was only occupied shortly after the Collapse to exert control over the best jump point to the Hybrasil Inner System. Mining interests have used the infrastructure thus established to extract ore for the hungry furnaces of Culann.

Balar:
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Balar is an ice giant composed mostly of water, ammonia and methane. The icy cloud-cover whorls almost placidly but for a single great dark storm over the southern pole. Little effort has been put toward investigating this anomaly.

Ena:
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Oddly dense and rocky among its sibling moons, Ena's surface is crisscrossed by trails of frozen gases which erupt from numerous geysers heated by tidal stress. A thin but visible atmosphere feeds the torus of charged particles caught in Balar's powerful magnetosphere.

Cethlenn:
Quote
A frozen world of ammonia rivers, plateaus of water ice, and methane glaciars. Charged particles caught in Balar's magnetic field create fantastic aurora in the thin atmosphere of Cethlenn. Seasonally occupied organics extraction rigs are served by the sole permanent settlement of Cethlenn, a city built upon a unique arc of erratic rocky promontories.

Donn:
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A lonely, ancient world which early robot probes of the Sector quickly determined was not formed in the Hybrasil system, but rather captured by Hybrasil's primary some hundreds of millions of years ago. Donn was flagged as low-to-moderate interest due to easily accessible concentrations of heavy metals.

Useful trivia:

Eochu Bres is another of that short list of seven markets with a population over a million. It's the only such market under Tri-Tachyon control, and one of the very few planets in the Sector with a breathable atmosphere.

MAGEC

A binary system; Magec is the primary. It is orbited by two planets, Chaxiraxi and Maxios; its secondary star, Achaman; a massive ring system called Guayota's Disk; and three space stations (at least one of which is actually supposed to be a hollowed-out asteroid, I think): New Maxios, Port Tse Franchise Station #3, and Kanta's Den. The planet Tibicena orbits Achaman. Most of these names come from the mythology of the Guanche people, the first inhabitants of the Canary Islands.

Origins of the names:

Magec was the goddess (or possibly god, or maybe neuter) of the sun in Guanche myth.

Achamán was the supreme god of the Guanches—creator, sky god, etc.

Chaxiraxi was the Guanche "sun mother"—not sure whether she was Magec's actual mother, but she was certainly one of the principal deities of the pantheon.

Maxios were minor gods in Guanche myth (not any one single entity).

Guayota was the arch-fiend, the nemesis of Achamán. He lived inside a volcano (a real volcano—Teide, the highest mountain in Spain), where he absconded with Magec, plunging the world into darkness. In the stories, Achamán defeated Guayota and rescued Magec. In the game, I can't help but notice that Magec is still trapped inside Guayota's Disk.

Tibicenas were evil spirits in Guanche myth—demons or genies with the bodies of giant dogs—who lived in caves and attacked livestock. They were originally spawned by Guayota.

Kanta is a given or family name in many cultures all over the world—Hungarian, Japanese, Indonesian, Nigerian, Indian, etc. This doesn't have anything to do with Guanche myth, but that makes perfect sense; Kanta showed up on the scene centuries (or even longer) after the system and its constituent bodies were named.

In-game descriptions:

Chaxiraxi:
Quote
A hot gas giant world in close orbit of Magec, composed mostly of hydrogen and helium gases. The temperature and pressure at the core are extreme. Due to proximity to its primary, the outer layers of Chaxiraxi are continually heated and stripped away in long plumes of shimmering ionized particles. Gas-skimmers occasionally deploy the airy wings of magfield collectors to harvest these light volatiles.

Maxios:
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A small terrestrial planet, Maxios was once the cosmopolitan hub of the system. Now spotted with ruins and impacts both ancient and fresh; the crumbling orbital defense system provides only intermittent coverage. Civilization has collapsed and the current population is unknown. There is no stable ruling polity. Looters and survivors clash occasionally, the weapons-blink and electromagnetic noise of low-level combat sputtering like a gas giant’s electrical storms.

New Maxios:
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Once a major hub of harvesting operations in the Disk, the station was swarmed by refugees from the Maxios collapse and this hub of processing facilities was turned into a civilian habitat. Through desperate tenacity and hard-earned know-how, the refugees built not only a new civil society but a light industrial economy fed by scattered space farms and independent harvesters. New Maxios is protected by a militia-navy and considers itself the successor polity of the Maxios Charter, but is too small to force major factions to recognize its claim.

Port Tse Franchise Station #3:
Quote
A center of mercenary recruitment and a commercial interface with unsavory elements. A Tri-Tachyon taskforce took over some decades ago with a (possibly) valid deed and a mercenary fleet. Those who refused to pay the new rents were evicted, then a trading post and port were established. Populated by retired pirates, radicals, and refugees. It is rumored that cargo containers have their IDs wiped and re-tagged here. The cocktail bar "Level 25" enjoys a reputation for having the best drinks in the quadrant.

Kanta's Den:
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This asteroid habitat was taken by force during the Maxios Charter collapse by a wildly ambitious logistics security officer, Kanta, who cut herself a deal with local pirate groups to act as their secure base of operations. The station is protected by a cloud of stealth-mines and crude firebases. Kanta herself, now nearly two hundred years old, heads a minor dynasty, still holding tight personal control over "the family business."

Achaman Enterprise Station (in orbit around Tibicena):
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The value of Achaman Station is as a relatively safe port of call for the various inhabitants of Guayota's Disk to interact with traders from the Sector at-large, who otherwise rarely risk the pirates and difficult navigation of the Disk. The Tri-Tachyon Corporation, as "caretaker" of the station, is well-situated to exploit its value handily - and does. It is often said that everything is for sale at Achaman Station.

Useful trivia:

New Maxios is the only non-planetary market with a population over 100,000. If you think about it, that's an extraordinary number of people to be crammed into a space station. Unlike some independent worlds, it represents a single, stable polity with a government, military, etc.

PENELOPE'S STAR

Orbited by Thrinakia, Ithaca, Ogygia, Aeolus, Telepylus, and Ismara. Ogygia has one major natural satellite, Calypso; Aeolus has two, Dorus and Xuthus. There's an asteroid belt called The Cyclopeans. All of these names come from Homer's Odyssey.

Origins of the names:

Penelope was the wife of Odysseus/Ulysses.

Thrinakia was the island where Helios (the sun) kept his cattle; when Odysseus's crew killed and ate the cows, Helios got Zeus to smite them all with a thunderbolt.

Ithaca was Odysseus's home and the goal of the Odyssey.

Ogygia was the island home of Calypso, a nymph who detained Odysseus for seven years on his journey home (after Zeus smote his crew).

Aeolus was the keeper of the winds in Greek myth. He gave Odysseus a bag full of gentle winds that would carry him home to Ithaca, but his crew thought it had treasure in it, ripped it open, and caused a hurricane. Odysseus's crew were a bunch of jerks.

Dorus and Xuthus were the brothers of Aeolus. Together, the three of them (the sons of Hellen) were understood to have been the progenitors of the Greek people (the Hellenes). Aeolus was the father of the Aeolians, Dorus of the Dorians, and Xuthus of the Achaeans and Ionians (via his own sons, Achaeus and Ion).

Telepylus was the city of the cannibal Laestrygonians. They ate most of Odysseus's dumb crew.

Cyclopes were one-eyed giants in Greek myth; Odysseus blinded the cyclops Polyphemus to escape from him.

Ismara, or Ismaros, was an island city, one of the first stops on the Odyssey. Unsurprisingly, Odysseus's men did not behave themselves very well there.

In-game descriptions:

Ithaca:
Quote
A surface scan reveals a smattering of temporary emplacements, presumably planetology labs, geological survey sites, and a few strip mines. Tiny robotic weather stations occasionally emit a feeble, useless radio blip; the instruments have been degraded to uselessness by dust storms.

An old, dry world with little magnetic field to speak of, Ithaca was nonetheless judged a good candidate by the Eridani-Utopia Terraforming Corporation. Quiet for billions of years, Penelope's Star became a hive of activity to fuel the transformation of Ithaca and its sibling world Ogygia, only to be thrown into complete chaos by the Collapse.

Ogygia:
Quote
A major impact event has left much of an entire hemisphere of Ogygia a cold lava-sea sunken some tens of kilometers below the mean elevation. Little remains of human visitation except stripped foundations and, oddly, half of a rad-hot Onslaught-class battleship hull at the bottom of a fracture-canyon.

A smallish, barren world whose surface bears the mark of a truly catastrophic and relatively recent impact event, Ogygia was nonetheless considered a worthwhile secondary terraforming candidate due to the system-wide infrastructure being assembled for its sibling-world of Ithaca. The Collapse put an end to these plans.

Telepylus Station:
Quote
A vast orbital station built around the core of an old Expansion-era Sporeship buried under a forest of modular hangars, industrial pods, and hab rings. This station was once the staging area for asteroid-tenders and mobile refineries trawling the outer system. It is now completely dead.

The primary reactors and all valuable industrial components have been stripped - and hastily, judging by the extensive secondary damage. Passive back-up systems were crippled by the process, and the station is too far from the primary to receive enough energy to maintain life support. A minor warning blip on your nav computer informs you that the orbit of the station is decaying and that it will burn up in the atmosphere of Telepylus within five hundred cycles. Docking with the station is not advisable.

Ismara:
Quote
From orbit, the scars of linear mass-driver tracks are easily visible, though a closer scan reveals that all that remains are marching lines of warped support columns sprouting from regocrete; the superconducting coils and other valuable hardware have long been looted. Likewise, the domes of fusion plants and factories have been broken open to the thin atmosphere and the sprawl of dead habitat grids grow obscured each passing cycle by methane drifts.

A cold ice-ball of a world, Ismara was the perfect location to install mines and mass-driver facilities to launch massive slabs of graphene-encased water and nitrogen packages toward the inner system to nurture the terrestrial worlds of Penelope's Star.

SAMARRA

Orbited by a space station (or asteroid habitat), Tigra City, and the planets Eventide and Typhon. Eventide has one major natural satellite, Lumen. Typhon has four: Chimera, Ladon, Orthrus, and Sphinx. Unlike most of the other systems, Samarra doesn't seem to have a unifying theme; the names come from Mesopotamian geography, Greek myth, and the English language.

Origins of the names:

Samarra is a city in Iraq. For a time in the 9th century, it was the capital of the Abbasid caliphate.

Tigra is likely a reference to the Tigris river, which flows through Samarra and, together with the Euphrates to the west, defines the Fertile Crescent, one of the cradles of civilization. Or maybe somebody was really into obscure Avengers characters.

Eventide is an archaic English word for "evening."

Lumen has a number of definitions, but the most relevant seems to be as a unit of luminosity.

Typhon was a terrible monster in Greek mythology and, more importantly, the father of most of the famous monsters in the myths (including Cerberus, the Hydra, and all of the monsters Typhon's moons are named for in the game). He was eventually defeated by Zeus himself, who threw him down into hell. The Greeks imagined him buried under one volcano or another, particularly Mount Etna in Sicily (like the Guanche with Guayota and Teide).

The Chimera was a monster composed of parts of various animals, including three heads: a lion, a goat, and a serpent. It was slain by Bellerophon, the hero who tamed Pegasus.

Ladon was the dragon who guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides. He was slain by Herakles (Hercules).

Orthrus was a two-headed dog monster, sort of a bargain-rate Cerberus. Also slain by Herakles.

The Sphinx, although the image is Egyptian (and the Greeks imagined that she came from Ethiopia), is a Greek name. In Greek myth, she was a solitary monster associated with destruction and bad luck. She posed riddles to passersby and ate everybody who couldn't answer. When Oedipus finally solved one of her riddles, she killed herself.

In-game descriptions:

Tigra City:
Quote
It was only shortly after humans arrived in the Sector that mining operations were established in the Tigra Ring. Successive waves of extraction have seen miner strikes and rebellion through a rotation of megacorps given the Tigra license. The descendants of those first miners have turned to spinning low-G space farms in the depleted ore-bodies and old prospecting rigs of the Ring - and they still retain the recalcitrant rebelliousness of their ancestors.

Eventide:
Quote
Eventide is a nearly tidally-locked world that was found to otherwise be an ideal candidate for terraforming. Just one day passes on Eventide per year, or near enough, leading to extreme winter-night and summer-day with mild twilight periods between. Judicious employment of stellar mirrors and shades allows ideal conditions to prevail in large pockets of carefully maintained territory where the majority of the population is settled in leased urban cantons surrounded by vast aristocratic estate-plantations.

Leading families of Eventide pool their influence into great combines that sponsor the solar mirrors and shades which maintain islands of habitability. The disgraced and poorest, meanwhile, live in the twilight peripheries where the harsh climactic shifts of the slow summer-day/winter-night cycle must be endured in full force. Culturally conservative, planetary media concerns itself largely with the social rituals and machinations of leading family alliances. The prevailing ethos of Eventide (or the local inheritence laws, depending on whom you ask) lends itself to providing a disproportionate number of officers to the Hegemony military.

VALHALLA

Another binary system; Valhalla is the primary. It is orbited by three planets, Glasnir, Yggdrasil, and Niflheim; an asteroid belt called The Valkyries; and its secondary, Ragnar. Yggdrasil has three major natural satellites: Nidhogg, Ratatosk, and Raesvelg. Niflheim has one, Skathi, and is also orbited by a space station, Mimir Siphon Platform. Ragnar is orbited by a second space station, Ragnar Complex. There's also an asteroid field called The Vipers. As good nerds, you all already know that these names are almost all derived from Norse mythology. I think "The Vipers" is a sneaky little BSG reference, though.

Origins of the names:

Valhalla was the hall in Asgard where those who died in battle spent eternity.

Ragnar was a common Germanic name. Ragnar Lothbrok was a particularly important (if perhaps quasi-mythical) Viking king. He was supposedly captured while raiding Northumbria and executed; his sons Halfdan Ragnarsson, Ivar the Boneless, and Ubba are said to have responded by raising the Great Heathen Army and invading England. We've all played CK2, right?

Glasnir was the site of one of Odin’s sanctuary groves.

Yggdrasil was the world-tree, an immense ash that connected all of the realms of Norse cosmology (Asgard, Midgard, Alfheim, Hel, etc.).

Nidhogg was the dragon who gnawed at the roots of Yggdrasil.

Ratatosk was a squirrel who ran up and down the trunk of Yggdrasil.

Raesvelg is the modern spelling of Hraesvelgr, the giant eagle who sat at the end of the world (not the one who sat at the top of Yggdrasil).

Skathi was a Norse goddess of winter, mountains, and skiing.

Mimir was a Norse figure associated with memory, knowledge, secrets, and good counsel.

Valkyries were female spirits who chose warriors to live and die in battle and brought the worthy to Valhalla.

Vipers have nothing to do with Norse myth, but, together with Valkyries, do form the backbone of the Colonial Fleet.

In-game descriptions:

Nidhogg:
Quote
A geologically unstable moon due to proximity to the gas giant Yggdrasil. Tidal forces endlessly heat and churn the innards of Nidhogg. Fissures and volcanoes dot the surface and the lava they spew flows for many kilometers across the charred crust.

Ratatosk:
Quote
A lifeless and barren rocky-silicate moon with a wisp of atmosphere that incandesces faintly when struck by Yggdrasil’s radiation belts. Most of the sprinkling of domed cities remain abandoned since the Collapse, though recent Hegemony strategic policy has encouraged re-industrialization and settlement, especially by the numerous Hegemony military veterens. Crew and workers on leave from the nearby Ragnarok Complex and Tri-Tach projects supports a rowdy nightlife and black market.

Raesvelg:
Quote
Water and ammonia ice form the immense rifts and chaotically furrowed plains of this world. Below the surface, small pockets of lifeless liquid ocean are trapped between the ice and a crust made of rocky silicates. Volatiles mining is encouraged by Hegemony development grants.

Skathi:
Quote
Drifts of nitrogen and methane ice form most of the crust over a rocky silicate/ice mantle which pierces the cowl of this frozen moon here and there. The Hegemony has granted Tri-Tachyon a license for exclusive development, consisting primarily of a sprawling processing plant for volatiles siphoned from Niflheim and the requisite support infrastructure. Rumors abound that it's all the cover story for a secret research facility performing science deemed illegal under Domain legal precedent, but inspectors have never reported anything untoward.

Mimir Siphon Platform
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The product of a Tri-Tachyon initiative to modify the common gas-giant "mine" that siphons gases using the Ouyang Process, which, although energy-hungry, becomes self-sustaining once a steady pull of heavy isotopes is attained. From Niflheim a particularly heavy mix of volatiles can be drawn, and these are processed on the moon of Skathi into countless useful forms.

Ragnar Complex:
Quote
The boneyard of the Hegemony; in addition to the garrison stationed here to support system patrols and a fleet-in-being to discourage League incursions, the Ragnar complex stores ship hulks awaiting refurbishing or the haul to Arcadia for ship-breaking, a task generally contracted to friendly megacorps. The station is traditionally commanded by an aging senior officer sent to quietly live out his or her mediocrity.

Nicknamed "The Tomb." Broken arcs of hangars and gantries clutch row upon row of mothballed hulks awaiting inspection. Most are dark, lit only by inspection crews and the welding torches of armorers removing materiel. Hidden near the center of the shadow armada lies a stack of hab-rings populated by civilian contractors, navy crew, marines, and Hegemony administration.

YMA

Another binary system; Yma A is orbited by the planets Huascar, Hanan Pacha, and Chupi Orco and its secondary, Yma B. Hanan Pacha has one major natural satellite, Killa; Chupi Orco also has one, Viscacha, plus an artificial satellite, the Abandoned Siphon Station. Yma B is orbited by a single planet, Qaras. All of these names come from the Quechua language.

Origins of the names:

Yma was the stage name of a famous Peruvian singer—Yma Sumac, derived from the Quechua phrase "ima shumaq," meaning "how beautiful." "Yma" or "ima" is simply a pronoun; it literally means "something" or "what."

Huáscar is the hispanicized version of Wascar; Huáscar Inca (Wascar Inka in Quechua) was the second-to-last Sapa Inca, ruler of the Inca Empire.

Hanan Pacha means "the heavens" in Quechua—the whole show, the sky, sun, moon, stars, planets, and constellations.

Killa is simply Quechua for "moon."

Chupi Orco is the hispanicized name of Chawpi Urqu, a Peruvian mountain. Its Aymara name, Wisk'achani, means "the one with viscachas."

Viscachas are little rodents—two rabbit-like chinchilla genera native to the Andes, including Peru.

Qaras is the Quechua name for another Peruvian mountain (called Caraz in Spanish).

In-game descriptions:

Hanan Pacha:
Quote
A crematory world laid to waste by forbidden planet-cracker weapons. The ashes of the millions of dead are still suspended in the atmosphere by planet-wide storms fed by anthropogenic volcanism.

Hanan Pacha was razed by forbidden planet-cracker weapons during the course of the Second AI War (which did not, of course, itself involve AI as the First AI War did, but rather concerned the right to perform inspections into alleged development of AI.) The issue of investigation into the details of said forbidden weapon deployment was dropped due to certain other concessions made during the peace arrangement.

Killa:
Quote
This moon still bears the scars of war. The domes of its major metropolitan center are ripped open, the ejecta of debris still scattered in radiating patterns laid bare to hard vacuum.

Vague IR readings from otherwise unremarkable terrain hint at camoflagued habitation beneath the regolith. There are definitely survivors hiding inside Killa, though no organized polity maintains open relations with the outside world, and if the slagged hulls of tramp freighters are any indication, the locals aren't very welcoming.

Viscacha:
Quote
A captured body from the outer system with a thick, toxic atmosphere, this moon is named for both its quick orbit and an amusingly shaped basin in the southern hemisphere.

Abandoned Siphon Station (in orbit around Chupi Orco):
Quote
Once a giant industrial machine that manipulated the magnetosphere of Chupi Orco to pull volatiles into space from the highest reaches of an artificial storm-system, the coils, generators, and tanks are now gutted, the habitats run through by high-energy lances. A few hangars and access tunnels still show minimal life-support function, pitifully lingering until inevitable gas leakage and solar-cell fouling leaves the station as cold and dead as a tomb.

Qaras:
Quote
A habitable if cold world terraformed post-Collapse by stranded elements of the Eridani-Utopia Corporation using in-place infrastructure and stockpiles. The appeal of Qaras never quite matched the radiance of Hanan Pacha until the latter was shockingly razed during the Second AI War.

During the early colonial era of the Sector, Qaras and its orbital bases were a major volatiles/organics collection and processing center operated by Eridani-Utopia. After the Second AI War, the entire Yma binary system was declared a demilitarized zone. Qaras, which managed to avoid devastation, was promptly seized by a shaky alliance of rogue mercenaries and brigands. It’s not quite been worth the logistical and legal conflicts for the Hegemony to mount a repossession effort. Yet.

Useful trivia:

Qaras is the only habitable planet controlled by the pirate faction.

*

Whew, what a lot of typing. Hope somebody finds it useful! It was fun to read up on all that, and I gained a new appreciation for David's world-building (I particularly like the way the Guanche myths are reflected by the physical characteristics of the Magec system).

If anybody has some better ideas for the roots of Askonia, Sindria, Barad, or any of the others, let's hear them (also if you know what "ciltetl" means)!

15
General Discussion / Re: Reputation loss in 0.7.1a
« on: December 11, 2015, 06:44:34 AM »
5 a day? Really?

Could've sworn I ducked out on an entire war lasting months BT the tritach and luddic church and still had favourable reply... More like 5 a week or month, I think

Yeah, it's definitely slow enough that, if your faction is at war with two other factions, and you're only fighting one of them, your rep gains from fighting the one enemy will easily outpace your rep losses from not fighting the other.

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