Elite Wiki - User contributions [en]

Isence (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:39:45Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Icenseview.jpg|right|thumb|''Icense'']]

'''Isence'''

*Economic status: '''Rich industrial'''
*Technology level: '''9'''
*Population: '''3.5 Billion (Red Fat Humanoids)'''
*Political status: '''Multi-Govenment'''
*Radius: '''6196km'''
*G: '''0.86 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Aesbion (Rough Guide)|Aesbion]], [[Aronar (Rough Guide)|Aronar]], [[Beusrior (Rough Guide)|Beusrior]], [[Reinen (Rough Guide)|Reinen]], Eninre, [[Zarece (Rough Guide)|Zarece]], [[Tibionis (Rough Guide)|Tibionis]]

''" Everyone knows the saying: Red like the hells of Isence. Everything is Red on Isence. Isence was in Quarantine for many years. The deadly Isencian V bacteria turned the humanoids red and fat. It is now clear that the desease only activates if you live for more than 5 years on the planet. Nowadays an expensive medicine exists to keep the desease under control. This allowed the now famous Chexsin Cherzin to take part in the Four-Way Pellery championship on Isinor."''

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Tibionis (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:36:10Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Tibionisview.jpg|right|thumb|''Tibionis'']]

'''Tibionis'''

*Economic status: '''Mainly Agricultural (with heavy emphasis on tourism)'''
*Technology level: '''8'''
*Population: '''3.9 Billion (Furry Rodents)'''
*Political status: '''Democracy'''
*Radius: '''4673km'''
*G: '''1.15 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Isence (Rough Guide)|Isence]], Terea, Oresri, Uscela, Maregeis, [[Laenin (Rough Guide)|Laenin]], [[Reinen (Rough Guide)|Reinen]], Esbeus, [[Zarece (Rough Guide)|Zarece]], [[Xexedi (Rough Guide)|Xexedi]]

''" Tibionis is most noted for the Tibionisian deadly goat and its vast rain forests. Sadly the deadly goats where introduced by traders from Aronar. Tourists are advised not to travel deep into the splendid jungles. In addition Tibionis features beautiful tropical beaches. Tibionis is the center for Navy sector command 4."''

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Xexedi (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:31:33Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Xexediview.jpg|right|thumb|''Xexedi'']]

'''Xexedi'''

*Economic status: '''Rich industrial (Specialist in high-end tech and beauty products)'''
*Technology level: '''14'''
*Population: ''5.8 Billion (Large Green Frogs)'''
*Political status: '''Confederacy'''
*Radius: '''3399km'''
*G: '''0.99 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''Terea, Oresri, Usle, Uscela, Maregeis, [[Laenin (Rough Guide)|Laenin]], [[Reinen (Rough Guide)|Reinen]], Esbeus, Lerelace, [[Tibionis (Rough Guide)|Tibionis]], Xeoner'''

''" Center of the Xexedi Cluster and the Western part of Galaxy 1. This planet houses a city that covers the whole planet. Xexedi's high tech level reflects in the futurisic towers, domes, houses an mordern transport on the planet. The famous beauty company L' Ooreaal, Zorgon Petterson Group and Oocruise have their HQ on the planet. Xexedi is known for the Xexedi skyneedle a 2 mile high skyscraper."''

[[Image:Skyneedle.jpg|right|thumb|''Skyneedle'']]

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Laenin (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:27:31Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Laeninview.jpg|right|thumb|''Laenin'']]

'''Laenin'''

*Economic status: '''Poor Agricultural'''
*Technology level: '''4'''
*Population: ''2.4 Billion (Human Colonials)'''
*Political status: '''Communist'''
*Radius: '''4165km'''
*G: '''1.05 standard'''
*Neighbors: '''Terea, Oresri, Usle, Uscela, Maregeis, [[Reinen (Rough Guide|Reinen]], Esbeus, Lerelace, [[Tibionis (Rough Guide)|Tibionis]], Xeoner, [[Xexedi (Rough Guide)|Xexedi]]'''

''"The planet Laenin is famous as being remotely named after an old hero of Coomunism. Laenin was a leader who named himself after reading a fictional book on a fictional planet called Earth. In that book a red revolution was described. This revolution made him invent coomunism. He made a sit-com. People loved it. That was long ago and the red revolution has spread all over the 8 galaxies. Today Laenin is called: the workers paradise."''

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Reinen (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:21:36Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Reinenview.jpg|right|thumb|''Reinen'']]

'''Reinen'''

*Economic status: '''Average Agricultural'''
*Technology level: '''8'''
*Population: '''4.0 Bilion (Human colonials)'''
*Political status: '''Confederacy'''
*Radius: '''6455 km'''
*G: '''1.00 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Isence (Rough Guide)|Isence]], Terea, Oresri, Uscela, [[Laenin (Rough Guide)|Laenin]], Eninre, [[Zarece (Rough Guide)|Zarece]], [[Tibionis (Rough Guide)|Tibionis]], Riredi, Riiser, [[Xexedi (Rough Guide)|Xexedi]]'''

''" Reinen: a farmers planet in true tradition. The visitor even can see the crops from outer space. Natural resources are now exhausted and therefore Reinen nowadays specializes in biotechnology. They sell all sorts of farming equipment and therefore the planet now rates as an average agricultural. The capital city New Boorlin hosts the yearly Galaxy 1 Beerfesten which attracts drinkes from all over the universe."''

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Beusrior (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:17:58Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Beusriorview.jpg|right|thumb|''Beusrior'']]

'''Beusrior'''

*Economic status: '''Poor industrial'''
*Technology level: '''11'''
*Population: ''4.8 Billion (Human Colonials)''
*Political status: '''Confederacy'''
*Radius: '''3650 km'''
*G: '''1.02 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Isence (Rough Guide)|Isence]], Uscela, Maregeis, [[Aronar (Rough Guide)|Aronar]], Rilace'''

''"A dull world says the register. In 2513 a large freighter broke down in orbit around this planet. The people had to leave the ship. The colonials built an underground base called New London as the whole surface of the planet is covered with snow and Ice. Day temperature varies between -22C to -40C but in the night the temperature drops sometimes below -55C."''

[[Image:Beusriormap.jpg]]

X23-BO 'Goliath' was a generation ship or freighter. It's how you call it. A navigational error caused the large ship (which did not have atmospheric capabilities) to enter too low an orbit. In 2513 the 'Goliath' plunged down with 3500 people on board. They were not lucky as they fell into the New-London Canyon. This canyon is about 9000 km long and ends in the so called New London crater.

The impact was hard. Thankfully due to the sturdy construction of the ship a few people survived. They found themselves in a harsh Arctic climate. After surviving the first 'Winter' the temperatures raised enough to organize an expedition. The second expedition exploded the New London Crater. They found a large cave network. The next year found the crew moving all the equipment to the cave. The crew were lucky that the lab and the engineering sections of the Goliath were only lightly damaged. After 2 years the cave network featured living quarters, workshops, a greenhouse (largely stripped out of the 'garden' section of the 'Goliath'. After 3 years the crew engineered an efficient climate system inside the caves. The underground city kept expanding and expanding. Nowadays the underground network spans the whole planet. The main entry and space-port remains in the New London Crater. An automated landing system leads shuttles, transports and traders to the docking platforms.

[[Image:NewLondoncanyon.jpg|Left|thumb|''New London Canyon'']]

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Zarece (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:17:46Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Zareceview.jpg|right|thumb|''Zarece'']]

'''Zarece'''

*Economic status: '''Poor Agricultural'''
*Technology level: '''5'''
*Population: ''2.9 Bilion Fierce Black Felines''
*Political status: '''Confederacy'''
*Radius: '''3889 km'''
*G: '''0.56 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Isence (Rough Guide)|Isence]], [[Aesbion (Rough Guide)|Aesbion]], [[Reinen (Rough Guide)|Reinen]], Eninre, [[Tibionis (Rough Guide)|Tibionis]]'''

''"Zarece was the first conolized gas planet ever. Colonized by felines of Reorte who became fed up with the constant Earthquakes on their home planet. With a combination of Zero-G technology and modern baloons large orbital cities where created that float in the higher layers of the atmosphere. Zarece exists of superdense gasses not yet fully understood."''

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Zarece (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:16:29Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Zareceview.jpg|right|thumb|''Zarece'']]

'''Zarece'''

*Economic status: '''Poor Agricultural'''
*Technology level: '''5'''
*Population: ''2.9 Bilion Fierce Black Felines''
*Political status: '''Confederacy'''
*Radius: '''3889 km'''
*G: '''0.56 standard'''
*Neighbors: '''[[Isence (Rough Guide)|Isence]], [[Aesbion (Rough Guide)|Aesbion]], [[Reinen (Rough Guide)|Reinen]], Eninre, [[Tibionis (Rough Guide)|Tibionis]]'''

''"Zarece was the first conolized gas planet ever. Colonized by felines of Reorte who became fed up with the constant Earthquakes on their home planet. With a combination of Zero-G technology and modern baloons large orbital cities where created that float in the higher layers of the atmosphere. Zarece exists of superdense gasses not yet fully understood."''

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Beusrior (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:12:51Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Beusriorview.jpg|right|thumb|''Beusrior'']]

'''Beusrior'''

*Economic status: '''Poor industrial'''
*Technology level: '''11'''
*Population: ''4.8 Billion (Human Colonials)''
*Political status: '''Confederacy'''
*Radius: '''3650 km'''
*G: '''1.02 standard'''
*Neighbors: '''[[Isence (Rough Guide)|Isence]], Uscela, Maregeis, [[Aronar (Rough Guide)|Aronar]], Rilace'''

''"A dull world says the register. In 2513 a large freighter broke down in orbit around this planet. The people had to leave the ship. The colonials built an underground base called New London as the whole surface of the planet is covered with snow and Ice. Day temperature varies between -22C to -40C but in the night the temperature drops sometimes below -55C."''

[[Image:Beusriormap.jpg]]

X23-BO 'Goliath' was a generation ship or freighter. It's how you call it. A navigational error caused the large ship (which did not have atmospheric capabilities) to enter too low an orbit. In 2513 the 'Goliath' plunged down with 3500 people on board. They were not lucky as they fell into the New-London Canyon. This canyon is about 9000 km long and ends in the so called New London crater.

The impact was hard. Thankfully due to the sturdy construction of the ship a few people survived. They found themselves in a harsh Arctic climate. After surviving the first 'Winter' the temperatures raised enough to organize an expedition. The second expedition exploded the New London Crater. They found a large cave network. The next year found the crew moving all the equipment to the cave. The crew were lucky that the lab and the engineering sections of the Goliath were only lightly damaged. After 2 years the cave network featured living quarters, workshops, a greenhouse (largely stripped out of the 'garden' section of the 'Goliath'. After 3 years the crew engineered an efficient climate system inside the caves. The underground city kept expanding and expanding. Nowadays the underground network spans the whole planet. The main entry and space-port remains in the New London Crater. An automated landing system leads shuttles, transports and traders to the docking platforms.

[[Image:NewLondoncanyon.jpg|Left|thumb|''New London Canyon'']]

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Aesbion (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:07:39Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Aesbionview.jpg|right|thumb|''Aesbion'']]

'''Aesbion'''

*Economic status: '''Mainly industrial'''
*Technology level: '''10'''
*Population: ''4.7. Bilion (Green Frogs)''
*Political status: '''Corporate State'''
*Radius: '''6701 km'''
*G: '''1.02 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Isence (Rough Guide)|Isence]], [[Aronar (Rough Guide)|Aronar]], Eninre, [[Zarece (Rough Guide)|Zarece]]'''

''"The planet Aesbion is cursed by dreadful civil war."''

Regardless of how he feels about [[GalCop]] when he's being chased by a blue-light-flashing [[Viper (Oolite)|Viper]] while carrying a full cargo hold of Benulobiweed, deep down in his heart the average spacer has at least a grudging respect for the system because it /works/. The Galactic Cooperative of Worlds polices the spaceways and provides neutral markets where spacers can trade without being hassled by planet-bound authorities (for which we all should be thankful; heaven /knows/ that GalCop regulations are hassle enough...), in exchange for which they let the local administrations--or lack thereof--run the planets however they see fit. While this setup isn't perfect, it does make traveling among the stars considerably safer. Only very rarely has GalCop ever needed to directly intervene in the affairs of its member planets, but when it does, it brings its full strength to bear, as the example of Aesbion clearly demonstrates.

In 2921, Aesbion sent a trade delegation the neighboring world of [[Aronar (Rough Guide)|Aronar]]. During the negotiations, the High Lords of Aronar were rather gruff about what they saw as an attempt at exploitation, taking a very confrontational stance to many points in the agreement and occasionally threatening to suspend talks outright. Unfortunately, the delegation saw these as grave insults and returned home to report to their superiors. The Aesbionians, enraged by the treatment of their fellows, immediately raised a small fleet and raided the system, causing considerable damage to Aronar's capital to avenge the insult. When word of the incident reached the local Sector Command, GalCop justice was swift and severe; the Galactic Navy dispatched a task force to the system, easily obliterated Aesbion's makeshift navy, and arrested, tried, and executed for treason the entire Board of Directors as well as a number of lower-level administrators and any survivors of the battle they could lay their hands on.

In addition to serving as a powerful object lesson to anyone considering defying GalCop's charter to preserve peace between the planets, the Aesbion Incident also brought about the common stereotype of Aesbionians as short-tempered neurotic psychopaths. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth; the incident arose because the Aesbionians believed that the High Lords of Aronar had breached their code of honor, a grave insult in Aesbionian culture, and that repaying them in kind was the only way to prevent themselves and Aesbion itself from falling into disgrace. The Aesbionians place a high value on honor, believing that all relationships bring about "debts" of honor in some way or another. Should you decide to visit Aesbion, keep in mind these simple rules of hospitality: Always be courteous to your host, don't be overly belligerent, and be careful what you joke about. Don't worry yourself too much, of course--your host will probably expect and tolerate a little bit of coarseness from an off-planet visitor--but exercise discretion.

As far as sightseeing goes, most of the main attractions are centered around the capital and primary city of Shisoli. Those with a passion for history might wish to visit the Exalted City, a relic of the planet's Imperial era. The entire complex was both home and workplace for the God-Emperor and his staff, many of whom lived and died without ever setting foot outside its walls. A must-see for any visitor, a few miles outside the city proper, lies the Cathedral of Winds. Situated atop a cliff by the coast to take full advantage of the local wind patterns, the Cathedral is built with a number of funnels to catch the winds outside and run them through an enormous organ inside, producing a neverending, always-changing, haunting melody; it is especially popular during the region's storm season. Those lucky enough to arrive during the local new year will be able to take part in the annual Carnival of Fools, a celebration where the strict rules of personal honor are flung aside with reckless abandon and the population throws itself into a whole week of concerts, performances, drinking binges, and general hedonistic revelling.

However, a word of warning: Be careful to watch out for signs of "honor duels" taking place. These can range in scale anywhere from one-on-one tests of personal skill to full-scale warfare between two corporate branches (the latter giving rise to the typically-overstated Register entry). While most conflicts generally have a third-party overseer present who makes sure the proper rules of conduct are carried out and that deaths of innocents are kept to a minimum, this is one of those situations where their relaxation of the rules for outsiders will work against you, not for you. As you're not likely to have any friends or family come to claim a hefty compensation for your death or injury, approach areas beset by conflict at your own risk.

[[Image:Aesbionmap.jpg]]

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Aronar (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:04:24Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Aronarview.jpg|right|thumb|''Aronar'']]

'''Aronar'''

*Economic status: '''Poor industrial'''
*Technology level: '''8'''
*Population: '''3.2 million human colonials'''
*Political status: '''Feudal'''
*Radius: '''5429 km'''
*G: '''1.02 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Isence (Rough Guide)|Isence]], [[Aesbion (Rough Guide)|Aesbion]], [[Beusrior (Rough Guide)|Beusrior]], Ontiat, [[Isinor (Rough Guide)|Isinor]], [[Qutiri (Rough Guide)|Qutiri]]

''The Jungle world of Aronar. The most dangerous passage on the Spaceway L1 to Lerelace. The landscape is dominated by a jungle covered supercontinent. Deep in the woods the Aronar Deadly Goat has its habitat. They are deadly because of their size. 2 times as large as normal goats. Every village on Aronar houses a local Hoopy Casino. Gambling is a religion on Aronar. Every citizen of Aronar gambles before dinner''

[[Image:Aronarmap.jpg]]

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Aronar (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T23:03:33Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Aronarview.jpg|right|thumb|''Aronar'']]

'''Aronar'''

*Economic status: '''Poor industrial'''
*Technology level: '''8'''
*Population: '''3.2 million human colonials'''
*Political status: '''Feudal'''
*Radius: '''5429 km'''
*G: '''1.02 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Isence (Rough Guide)|Isence]], [[Aesbion (Rough Guide)|Aesbion]], [[Beusrior (Rough Guide)|Beusrior]]], Ontiat, [[Isinor (Rough Guide)|Isinor]], [[Qutiri (Rough Guide)|Qutiri]]

''The Jungle world of Aronar. The most dangerous passage on the Spaceway L1 to Lerelace. The landscape is dominated by a jungle covered supercontinent. Deep in the woods the Aronar Deadly Goat has its habitat. They are deadly because of their size. 2 times as large as normal goats. Every village on Aronar houses a local Hoopy Casino. Gambling is a religion on Aronar. Every citizen of Aronar gambles before dinner''

[[Image:Aronarmap.jpg]]

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Qutiri (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:59:52Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Qutiriview.jpg|right|thumb|''Quitiri'']]

'''Qutiri'''

*Economic status: '''Rich Industrial'''
*Technology level: '''9'''
*Population: '''3.5 Billion Yellow Fat Felines'''
*Political status: '''Multi Government'''
*Radius: '''5420 km'''
*G: '''0.90 standard'''
*Neighbors: '''[[Aronar (Rough Guide)|Aronar]], Ontiat, [[Tionisla (Rough Guide)|Tionisla]], [[Zaonce (Rough Guide)|Zaonce]], [[Isinor (Rough Guide)|Isinor]], Bemaera'''

''“Qutiri offers space travelers a sight to behold. Magnificent mountain ranges and enormous glaciers cover the planet. Climate is cold but drinking Lethal brandy in the Bleu Ice caves of the Capital Qitroomax or climbing Mount Tironos under a bright cold night sky are things that you will never forget. The yellow felines of Qutiri have adapted their skin to the cold climate ”''

[[Image:Qutirimap.jpg|'' Map of Quitiri'']]

This planet is featured in the Famous planets Expansion pack 1. 
See: [[Famous_Planets_Expansion_Pack_1]] for more information

{{RoughGuide}}

Tianve (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:56:46Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:tianve2.jpg|right|thumb|''Tianve'']]

'''Tianve'''

*Economic status: '''Rich Industrial'''
*Technology level: '''14'''
*Population: '''5.9 Billion Blue Bony Felines'''
*Political status: '''Democracy'''
*Radius: '''4835 km'''
*G: '''0.89 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''Zaatxe, Teanrebi, Malama, Alaza, Beraanxe, Celabile, Inines, Edreor, Anle'''

''“Tianve is most noted for its famous pulsar, the top tourist attraction in the North East quadrant. Visiting by an official liner is recommended, but rental vessels are available as a cheaper option. Zero-Gee Cricket is banned on Tianve at the request of the native feline population. Tianve is also home to the Elite Combateer 'Rebecca Weston', and details on Tianve's most famous resident can be found in the Tionisla Chronicle publications - '[[Status Quo]]' and '[[Mutabilis]]').”''

The pulsar of [[Tianve]] is known throughout the 8 Galaxies. It is said that the radiation of the pulsar colored the skin of the feline population of the planet. The inhabitants are therefore also known under the name: pulsar cats. The strong radiation from both the normal Tianve star and the pulsar forces the inhabitants to be cautious when going outside although the pulsar cats have developed special skin DNA that can resist radiation for a much longer time.

Tourists that make the trip down to the surface are handed special suits and anti-radiation capsules. However after they've taken the necessary precautions they often are stunned by the beauty. The atmosphere colors the landscape in an eerie but beautiful blue.

Tianvilus is the main city that is mostly under a shielded glass dome for protection. Under this glass ceiling the visitor is delighted to find some ancient temples devoted to the Pulsargod Tiaxus.
It is believed that Tiaxes must be brought sacrifices to extend the time before he repeats his infamous 'Sunrage'. Non-religious people simply call the 'Sunrage' a Sun or pulsar storm. This time of high radiation activity happens once every 50 years or so but cannot be accurately predicted. In the eye of the non-religious inhabitant the worship of Tiaxus is basically a waste of time.

[[Image:Tianvemap.jpg]]

The Xootian Desert is a growing desert. This desert starts directly at the East side of Tanvilus. One of the other reasons for Tianvilus to be under a glass dome are the Xootian sandstorms that would otherwise blow directly into the city causing all sorts of inconveniences. The Xootian desert is a harsh environment but has beautiful dunes. In the North East part of the planet the famous Acid Lake can be found. This Lake has a diameter of 1500 km and is the largest acid lake on the planet. The acid boils up from beneath the surface and is caused by volcanic activity in combination with radiation that is reacting with substances in the lava from Tianve. This results in a almost blinding yellow inland sea.

The Blue mountains are a 18000 km long mountain range with peaks up to 10 km. Some of the most challenging peaks of galaxy 1 can be found here including the famous Mt. Alioth.

The Cloud Ocean covers most of the planets surface. The deep blue water is believed to be home to some massive sea creatures. The Tianve Snakefish for example can reach a length of 250 meter. As long as a large spacecruiser.

{{RoughGuide}}

Tianve (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:56:24Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:tianve2.jpg|right|thumb|''Tianve'']]

'''Tianve'''

*Economic status: '''Rich Industrial'''
*Technology level: '''14'''
*Population: '''5.9 Billion (Blue Bony Felines'''
*Political status: '''Democracy'''
*Radius: '''4835 km'''
*G: '''0.89 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''Zaatxe, Teanrebi, Malama, Alaza, Beraanxe, Celabile, Inines, Edreor, Anle'''

''“Tianve is most noted for its famous pulsar, the top tourist attraction in the North East quadrant. Visiting by an official liner is recommended, but rental vessels are available as a cheaper option. Zero-Gee Cricket is banned on Tianve at the request of the native feline population. Tianve is also home to the Elite Combateer 'Rebecca Weston', and details on Tianve's most famous resident can be found in the Tionisla Chronicle publications - '[[Status Quo]]' and '[[Mutabilis]]').”''

The pulsar of [[Tianve]] is known throughout the 8 Galaxies. It is said that the radiation of the pulsar colored the skin of the feline population of the planet. The inhabitants are therefore also known under the name: pulsar cats. The strong radiation from both the normal Tianve star and the pulsar forces the inhabitants to be cautious when going outside although the pulsar cats have developed special skin DNA that can resist radiation for a much longer time.

Tourists that make the trip down to the surface are handed special suits and anti-radiation capsules. However after they've taken the necessary precautions they often are stunned by the beauty. The atmosphere colors the landscape in an eerie but beautiful blue.

Tianvilus is the main city that is mostly under a shielded glass dome for protection. Under this glass ceiling the visitor is delighted to find some ancient temples devoted to the Pulsargod Tiaxus.
It is believed that Tiaxes must be brought sacrifices to extend the time before he repeats his infamous 'Sunrage'. Non-religious people simply call the 'Sunrage' a Sun or pulsar storm. This time of high radiation activity happens once every 50 years or so but cannot be accurately predicted. In the eye of the non-religious inhabitant the worship of Tiaxus is basically a waste of time.

[[Image:Tianvemap.jpg]]

The Xootian Desert is a growing desert. This desert starts directly at the East side of Tanvilus. One of the other reasons for Tianvilus to be under a glass dome are the Xootian sandstorms that would otherwise blow directly into the city causing all sorts of inconveniences. The Xootian desert is a harsh environment but has beautiful dunes. In the North East part of the planet the famous Acid Lake can be found. This Lake has a diameter of 1500 km and is the largest acid lake on the planet. The acid boils up from beneath the surface and is caused by volcanic activity in combination with radiation that is reacting with substances in the lava from Tianve. This results in a almost blinding yellow inland sea.

The Blue mountains are a 18000 km long mountain range with peaks up to 10 km. Some of the most challenging peaks of galaxy 1 can be found here including the famous Mt. Alioth.

The Cloud Ocean covers most of the planets surface. The deep blue water is believed to be home to some massive sea creatures. The Tianve Snakefish for example can reach a length of 250 meter. As long as a large spacecruiser.

{{RoughGuide}}

Isinor (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:52:05Z

Specialist290:

== Isinor ==
[[Image:RGisinorwiki.jpg|right|thumb|''Isinor'']]
*Economic status: '''Poor Agricultural'''
*Technology level: '''7'''
*Population: '''3.7 billion Harmless Slimy Frogs'''
*Political status: '''Confederacy'''
*Radius: '''6191 km'''
*G: '''0.95 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''Xeesle, [[Aronar (Rough Guide)|Aronar]], Ensoreus, Ontiat, [[Tionisla (Rough Guide)|Tionisla]], [[Zaonce (Rough Guide)|Zaonce]], Bemaera, Zaalela, [[Qutiri (Rough Guide)|Qutiri]]'''

''“This world is very fabled for its unusual oceans.”''

If you’re planning a trip to Isinor, take an umbrella. And a cagoule. And sufficient waders for all your motile limbs. And another cagoule. Isinor is wet.
Despite the overwhelming dampness, Isinor’s so-called “oceans” would probably only rate as large lakes and small seas on many worlds. It’s just that there are so many of them. Tens of thousands of them, in fact, separated by marshy swathes of low-lying land studded with ponds and criss-crossed by a plashy webwork of streams, brooks, burns, becks, rivulets, rills and ditches. There’s very little on Isinor that’s not under water, on water, or right next to water. St Standing, Isinor’s principal continental landmass, is so small that one could gallop a gyrospider across it in just a few hours. Even so, it serves as the diplomatic and trading centre for the entire planet as well as the main shuttle drop. It’s either that or come down in a [[Moray_Star_Boat_%28Oolite%29|Moray]].

St Standing is a pleasant little island, ringed with numerous black-sand wormuckeries, whose warm spicy smells linger in the mizzly air and provide an added welcome to the visitor. If the boats are in you can buy a box of wormucks straight from the scoop for just a few Sels, and eat them wriggling fresh, sitting on a gently rotting bollard in the evening mist as the greasy water slops and slaps beneath the jetty. It’s a good way to ease yourself into the planet’s atmosphere. Even with all the hectic activity in the system, where scores of [[Galactic Navy|Navy]] ships hustle through the lanes and buzz around the orbiting [[Navy_SecCom_Station|Sector Command station]], Isinor itself remains a relaxed old world.

If you’ve got a specific destination in mind, then you’ll likely need to charter a skiff or flitter. Consult the Locator’s Office to find out where your destination happens to be at the time and plan your trip accordingly. If you’re footloose though just take a stroll along to Bandy Bay and see what towns are currently tied up there.

There are few geographically permanent settlements on Isinor: most of the inhabitants live in small floating townships, built on great soggy undulating mats of reeds and oxwood. These drift around the placid seas beneath a higgelty thatch of masts and sails, towing their puggy traps and nests of bidi rice, propelled by gentle winds and stately gyres and currents. If all else fails, the townspeople can always get out and push.

[[Image:RGbandybaywiki.jpg|left|thumb|''Sunset over Bandy Bay.'']]
Isinorians spend a lot of time in the water – as you might expect, being amphibians – and this has a direct link to those famous “unusual oceans”. It’s because of the body slime. These skin secretions contain a stable blend of tailored ribosomes, neuropeptides and mnemonic emulsifiers which continually seep off into the surrounding environment. Isinorians, quite literally, sweat memory. It’s a unique evolutionary adaptation to their extremely short sentient lifespans. The average Isinorian takes around two years to develop from an egg to a full adult; after reaching maturity, they can expect to live for perhaps another fifteen or sixteen standard years at most. But because they are constantly bathed in a wash of biochemical remembrances and impressions, their awareness is not of a short, swift, singular existence but rather one of a punctuated series of recollections which can stretch back for centuries, as memories are absorbed, processed and oozed back out again into the world. Even the presapient tadpoles, immersed in the experiences of their ancestors, can look at you with ancient eyes, ripe with the knowledge of the ages.

They swim in a huge collective past, the people of Isinor. Perhaps this is why the future obsesses them: “the great un-done”, they call it, “the veil of unknowing”. No village is complete without a seer or soothsayer, and usually more than one. The fact that these prophets seldom agree with each other, and even more rarely with actual events, does not bother the Isinorians. They expect the ''actual'' future to be indeterminate; it’s the sheer quantity of ''potential'' futures which they find so fascinating.

A passion for the future has made gambling an everyday pastime on Isinor. They gamble with ''everything''. This is reflected even in their cuisine; no meal is complete without a serving of up-and-down cakes, often called “Isinorian Fortune Cookies” by offworlders. These delicate little shells of fried bidi flour can contain practically anything: spiced drubmeat, freeberry chutney, three-day-old wormucks, mud, grass, gravel, offcuts of phoxpher hide – anything. It’s considered impolite to refuse your share from the communal bowl. It’s also considered impolite to shake your cake, or to hold it up to the light, before biting into it. In my experience though it’s very unusual for an up-and-down cake to contain anything dangerously noxious, and spittoons are always provided.

Some years ago Isinorians were enthusiastic players in the sector’s Futures market. At the height of the bubble almost three-quarters of their planetary GDP was tied up in offworld speculations. But the escalation of the [[Thargoid_Warship_%28Oolite%29|Thargoid]] war brought about a slump in large-scale trade; the resulting bank crashes hit Isinor hard, and the Sel, once a rival to the Legeesh Lotch, dropped through the floor. You can’t eat up-and-down cakes every day without learning to shrug at misfortune, though. At least the economic collapse, and the consequent rock-bottom orbital fees – combined ''of course'' with Isinor’s strategic location – made the system the obvious choice to host a Navy Sector Command station.

The memory of that financial disaster has not lessened the Isinorians’ mania for games of chance one whit. They’ll bet on anything: the weight of a puggy, the duration of a breeze, the amount of rainfall in the next five minutes. They play conventional games, too – Fox in a Box, Triple Whip, Texeonis Fold ’Em, and just about anything else – but the great game, wholly native to Isinor, is of course Four-Way Pellery. Four-Way Pellery is regarded by many gambling aficionados as the ultimate test of luck and skill, and the annual planetary championships can draw gamblers from across the sector and beyond. To date only one offworlder – Chexsin Cherzin, doyenne of the notorious hells of Isence – has ever come close to winning the title, reaching the final eight in 3139. She comes back, though, every year, cheerfully losing time after time, just for the pleasure of matching wits with the Isinorian masters.

It’s said that if you swim in the seas of Isinor, you’ll never forget your stay – and that Isinor will never forget you. It’s just an old frog’s tale, really; the mnemonic slime is peculiar to Isinorian physiology, and no other species has the necessary dermal uptake mechanisms to tap into that rich soup of memories. But the waters are warm, and pleasant, and largely devoid of dangerous predators. And you never know: sometimes, waking, I have the oddest feeling that I remember something, something from long ago, that happened to someone else, far away... and then the yelping alarm drags me into consciousness, the cabin lights come up, and – gone. But I’ve never forgotten Isinor, and I doubt I ever will.

{{RoughGuide}}

Tionisla (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:48:08Z

Specialist290:

== Tionisla ==
[[Image:RGtionislawiki.jpg|right|thumb|''Tionisla'']]
*Economic status: '''Average Industrial'''
*Technology level: '''12'''
*Population: '''5.2 billion Lizards'''
*Political status: '''Democracy'''
*Radius: '''4646 km'''
*G: '''0.42 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''Xeesle, [[Zaonce (Rough Guide)|Zaonce]], [[Isinor (Rough Guide)|Isinor]], Bemaera, Zaalela, [[Qutiri (Rough Guide)|Qutiri]]'''

''“This world is very notable for its inhabitants’ ingrained shyness.”''

Tionisla – the dead centre of the galaxy, ho ho. Death might be the Great Leveller, but this is one system where wealthy corpses still hold themselves above the common herd.

You’ll have seen it, if you’ve ever done the run: the [[Tionisla Orbital Graveyard]], “Togy” to its friends, hanging there in solemn splendour between sun and planet. A galaxy of tombs and caskets, sepulchres and mausolea, monuments to past glories and dead heroes. Dead villains, too, truth be told, because it’s nothing more nor less than hard currency that gets you a spot in this cemetery halo now, and vice pays so much better than virtue in our bad old universe.

[[Image:RGtogywiki.jpg|left|thumb|''The Tionisla Orbital Graveyard.'']]
So what’s so special about this patch of vacuum, anyway? Ancient history, that’s what. Tionisla is where the [[GalCop|Co-operative]] was born in bloodshed, where the TruHu fanatics were smashed at last, where the galaxy was saved for civilisation, long ago. The ancient battle-wrecks sanctified the site, and made it the chosen place of last repose for all the honoured dead. Then those who aspired to honour, in death if not in life, began to join them. Then came the bureaucracy, the funeral fees, and the profit motive, and now in our less valourous age the only qualification is cold cash. So it goes. It’s still a wonderful place, though. The hot yellow light from Tionisla’s star washes every grave and coffin-ship, and makes each one gleam like gold – until you see those special few which are gold: solid, pure, melting-butter gold, and you can’t ever have even the tiniest little slice of it. Because if you even look like you’re thinking about ripping off one of these rich stiffs, the graveyard guardians will fall on you like raptors on a rodent. Golden sunlight and pathological, do-not-fuck-with security: what more could a body ask for? But we’ll leave the dead to their gilded pleasures, and pass on down planetside.

The main shuttle drop is at Aa, on the eastern continent. On arrival you’ll be issued with your Alien Permit and a mask of your choice. All Tionislans wear masks in public, their heads completely encased in these baroque constructions. Each one is unique, crafted to the owner’s particular specifications, and each is capable of a staggering variety of mechanical transformations, controlled by movements of the jaw, neck and tongue, to express those emotions the wearer wishes to make public. The reptilian citizens of Tionisla are an intensely private people, and guard their true feelings closely. Someone’s mask might be swivelling its eyeballs in jovial good humour, while secretly its wearer’s wattles could be turning blue with rage – although, because of the conscious effort required to puppeteer a mask, Tionislans tend toward introspection and are not generally prone to emotional extremes. At least, not as far as I know.

Your own mask will come with instructions for a limited repertoire of conventional manoeuvres: polite enquiry; polite acceptance; polite refusal. It’s best not to experiment with the controls, really, unless you don’t mind walking around unconsciously announcing philosophical mirth, or furious appreciation for the warmth of your accommodation, or reproductive readiness tinged with melancholy for the demise of a distant but respected relative. Mask-management is a skill you could spend a lifetime trying to master.

It is, in fact, one of the only forms of public entertainment to be found on Tionisla. The audience stand quietly in front of a small curtained stage, and the two performers – never more, never less – poke their heads through slits in the taut crimson curtain. The audience ring their handbells, while the performers cause their masks to gurn and grimace at each other, flicking through a bizarre gamut of expressions with bewildering speed. When an individual audience member has seen enough, he or she tucks their handbell away and leaves the room. When the last observer has departed, the performance – presumably – ends. Frankly, as artforms go, it’s an acquired taste.

For an outworlder, Tionisla can be a lonely place. Few tourists ever come here, and although the inhabitants are formally happy to see you, they’re just as happy to see you go, too. If you like good company, noise, fun, excitement – go elsewhere. If you do find yourself starved of conversation, though, you can always take a trip to Morial and chat with the dead.

For a little over two hundred years now, the Orbital Graveyard Authority has offered this extra service to any of its patrons who wish to leave something more behind than just a well-dressed corpse in a shielded crypt, dangling forever in circumstellar space. For an extra charge, the deceased can have a sub-sentient recording of their mindstate stored in Morial’s vaults. Here their accumulated experiences, wisdom and (it has to be said) vanity is made available to their business partners, descendants and loved ones, and to the occasional morbidly curious tourist. The Authority doesn’t mind – apparently conversation helps keep the quantum processes fresh – and the dead ''can’t'' mind, being as they are mere recursive shadows of extinct personalities. The ones I spoke to tended to be a rather boastful bunch, puffed up with simulated pride, but fascinating, too, as historical source material if nothing else. Of course, tall tales abound of hidden treasures, secrets waiting to be revealed when the right question is asked, or the correct code-phrase is uttered; but if they’re true, I never hit the jackpot. Not for want of trying.

It’s a difficult planet to love, Tionisla. But the people are calm, the cities are clean and placid, and much of the architecture is soaringly beautiful if you don’t mind endless staircases. Finally, though, it is utterly unlike anywhere else across the eight sectors – and for the true enthusiast of other worlds, that’s all that matters.

{{RoughGuide}}

Zaonce (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:43:30Z

Specialist290:

== Zaonce ==
[[Image:RGzaoncewiki.jpg|right|thumb|''Zaonce'']]
*Economic status: '''Average Industrial'''
*Technology level: '''12'''
*Population: '''5.3 billion Human colonials'''
*Political status: '''Corporate State'''
*Radius: '''3873 km'''
*G: '''0.35 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Lave (Rough Guide)|Lave]], [[Tionisla (Rough Guide)|Tionisla]], [[Isinor (Rough Guide)|Isinor]], Bemaera, [[Qutiri (Rough Guide)|Qutiri]]'''

''“This planet is a tedious place.”''

Man oh man, who would have believed that just six words could shift a whole planetary economy? One word, really. It’s been over a century since the Co-operative published the definitive Register of Worlds, but that little “tedious” has been haunting Zaonce ever since it came out.

It took ninety years standard to compile the Register. Ninety years of official visits, editorial committees, reviews, complaints, boards of enquiry, threats, diplomatic incidents and at least one full-blown military exchange; megalitres of sweat, ichor, blood, tears, and pretty much any other biological fluid you care to mention were poured out in its compilation, and billions of credits spent. So why is it such a paltry collection of bald statistics, fuzzy orbital clips and some of the least informative one-line descriptions you could possibly imagine?

The Register was originally intended to be a comprehensive catalogue of every planet in the Eight Sectors, filled with metadata, hyperlinked to here and back again, constantly updated and built on a semiotic platform so fundamental that it would be immediately comprehensible to any sentient being. And then the compromises began. It was unfair to include olfactory information-cells, because only a subset of the insecta used them; illustrative material got boiled down to conform to the most basic visual spectra; and entire concepts were banned because they lay outside the ideological ranges of certain species. Professional, ethical and political disputes ensued, followed by swingeing budget cuts and drastic downward revisions to the programme. The whole procedure almost fractured the [[GalCop|Co-operative]]. Eventually, after the grand Fourth Editorial had pared everything down to the utter minimum, the Register as we know it today was published and everyone has been bitching about it ever since – but no-one is willing to suggest revising or even updating it.

From the start the [[Powers_and_Organisations#Corporate_Worlds|Corporation]] of Zaonce had viewed the whole project as a vast marketing exercise, but every attempt to insert information about their industrial products, or their trade facilities, or their service sector was stymied by the editors. Nothing they did met the editors’ exacting standards of universality. All they achieved, for all their arguing, threatening, lobbying and outright bribery, was to get their entry upgraded from “dull” to “tedious”.

The political fallout on Zaonce was huge. Four bitter Reorganisations and one cataclysmic Restructuring saw thousands of executives purged, their shares sequestered and their entire clans reduced to proledom. Out of the chaos a new Board emerged, led by the charismatic Maria “Challenge” Ventry, and they rallied around her new Mission Statement: FUN.

So: is it fun? Well... The first thing you see as you vector in towards the planet is the monstrous Hurricane Kev, dominating a huge swathe of the northern hemisphere – one vast, perpetual artificial weather system set aside for “the thrill of a lifetime”, where battalions of screamingly exhilarated tourists get to ride storms of firework lightning in total safety inside specially reinforced [[Moray_Star_Boat_%28Oolite%29|Morays]]. It’s a blast for the rubes, right enough, but weirdly flat and pointless for anyone who’s ever run through Raale with a hold full of hot wares and a tank full of fumes.

Get your feet on the floor, though, and things start to look up. The Zonkers are passionately serious about fun. If you like, you can surrender all free will to one of the many professional funsultants who swarm around the drop, and have them craft a total experience built around your psychological profile, your metabolism and your credit rating. It’s an expensive service but if money’s no object I say go for it: there really is so much to see and do on Zaonce that it can be a real boon to let someone else show you what you’d like. But if you have ethical or privacy issues, or you’re on a tight budget – or you’re just a cheapskate – then here are a few of the highlights:

[[Image:RGzaonceaurodromewiki.jpg|left|thumb|''Inside the Zaonce Aurodrome.'']]
The Zaonce Aurodrome: a massive, million-seater globe arena where all the titans of popular music perform a neverending schedule of gobsmacking sets. No matter what your taste, you will find something there you like: the subsonic drooper-woofers built into every chair will see to that.
Zanadoo Zoo: live a lifetime in one day as an Usleian Tree Ant, or join in with the songs of the Mariar forest chorus, or bound with the Tiinlebiian mountain slugs, all from the comfort of a neural entanglement chair. If there’s a subsapient lifeform that’s cute, or exciting, or otherwise notable, Zanadoo Zoo can drop you inside a perfect simulacrum of its sensorium. Fun and educational, too.

Chateau d’If: some people find this a bit unnerving, and currently it’s only available to those with mammalian brains due to compatibility issues, but essentially you get to be a god for an hour. Actually, all – all! – that happens is a cross-wiring of your mind, where your experiential centres and your perceptual matrices are bridged over, with the result that everything that happens around you appears to be nothing more nor less than the total expression of your will: all existence conforms to your desire, all the time, as you sit there doing nothing in perfect, perfect dribbly satisfaction. The comedown can be a bitch, let me tell you: I wept like a baby. But there are trained counsellors on hand, and the haunting afterglow of my ersatz divinity is something I’ll never forget. Don’t try it more than once, though, is my advice.

The Perpetual Party: pretty much what it says on the tin. Once the entrance fee is paid it’s an all you can eat, drink, snort, inhale, shoot up or otherwise metabolise binge, where everything is keyed just right so there’s a constant gloss of glee and nobody ever gets bored or antsy. A franchise operation, there are Perpetual Parties running in every hotel on the planet; you can fritter away your whole stay in one of these and never make it past the lobby.

So, again: is it fun? Oh, absolutely. It’s fun. Fun fun fun. I had a great time. I really enjoyed myself. Blew through a stack of scratch as tall as a treeoid and didn’t regret a single credit. But truth to tell I wasn’t sorry to see Ventry Entry dwindle behind me on the shuttle back to the starside. Zaonce tries so hard, it really does – and you can see them try all around you, all the time. There’s a constant background buzz of eager solicitous care and concern wherever you go, and after a while it gets a bit creepy. Still and all, I don’t think the Zonkers are too concerned about that. Had fun? Yup. Great! Next! Ka-ching!

[[Image:Zaoncemap.jpg]]

{{RoughGuide}}

Zaonce (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:43:11Z

Specialist290:

== Zaonce ==
[[Image:RGzaoncewiki.jpg|right|thumb|''Zaonce'']]
*Economic status: '''Average Industrial'''
*Technology level: '''12'''
*Population: '''5.3 billion Human colonials'''
*Political status: '''Corporate State'''
*Radius: '''3873 km'''
*G: '''0.35 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): [[Lave (Rough Guide)|Lave]], [[Tionisla (Rough Guide)|Tionisla]], [[Isinor (Rough Guide)|Isinor]], Bemaera, [[Qutiri (Rough Guide)|Qutiri]]'''

''“This planet is a tedious place.”''

Man oh man, who would have believed that just six words could shift a whole planetary economy? One word, really. It’s been over a century since the Co-operative published the definitive Register of Worlds, but that little “tedious” has been haunting Zaonce ever since it came out.

It took ninety years standard to compile the Register. Ninety years of official visits, editorial committees, reviews, complaints, boards of enquiry, threats, diplomatic incidents and at least one full-blown military exchange; megalitres of sweat, ichor, blood, tears, and pretty much any other biological fluid you care to mention were poured out in its compilation, and billions of credits spent. So why is it such a paltry collection of bald statistics, fuzzy orbital clips and some of the least informative one-line descriptions you could possibly imagine?

The Register was originally intended to be a comprehensive catalogue of every planet in the Eight Sectors, filled with metadata, hyperlinked to here and back again, constantly updated and built on a semiotic platform so fundamental that it would be immediately comprehensible to any sentient being. And then the compromises began. It was unfair to include olfactory information-cells, because only a subset of the insecta used them; illustrative material got boiled down to conform to the most basic visual spectra; and entire concepts were banned because they lay outside the ideological ranges of certain species. Professional, ethical and political disputes ensued, followed by swingeing budget cuts and drastic downward revisions to the programme. The whole procedure almost fractured the [[GalCop|Co-operative]]. Eventually, after the grand Fourth Editorial had pared everything down to the utter minimum, the Register as we know it today was published and everyone has been bitching about it ever since – but no-one is willing to suggest revising or even updating it.

From the start the [[Powers_and_Organisations#Corporate_Worlds|Corporation]] of Zaonce had viewed the whole project as a vast marketing exercise, but every attempt to insert information about their industrial products, or their trade facilities, or their service sector was stymied by the editors. Nothing they did met the editors’ exacting standards of universality. All they achieved, for all their arguing, threatening, lobbying and outright bribery, was to get their entry upgraded from “dull” to “tedious”.

The political fallout on Zaonce was huge. Four bitter Reorganisations and one cataclysmic Restructuring saw thousands of executives purged, their shares sequestered and their entire clans reduced to proledom. Out of the chaos a new Board emerged, led by the charismatic Maria “Challenge” Ventry, and they rallied around her new Mission Statement: FUN.

So: is it fun? Well... The first thing you see as you vector in towards the planet is the monstrous Hurricane Kev, dominating a huge swathe of the northern hemisphere – one vast, perpetual artificial weather system set aside for “the thrill of a lifetime”, where battalions of screamingly exhilarated tourists get to ride storms of firework lightning in total safety inside specially reinforced [[Moray_Star_Boat_%28Oolite%29|Morays]]. It’s a blast for the rubes, right enough, but weirdly flat and pointless for anyone who’s ever run through Raale with a hold full of hot wares and a tank full of fumes.

Get your feet on the floor, though, and things start to look up. The Zonkers are passionately serious about fun. If you like, you can surrender all free will to one of the many professional funsultants who swarm around the drop, and have them craft a total experience built around your psychological profile, your metabolism and your credit rating. It’s an expensive service but if money’s no object I say go for it: there really is so much to see and do on Zaonce that it can be a real boon to let someone else show you what you’d like. But if you have ethical or privacy issues, or you’re on a tight budget – or you’re just a cheapskate – then here are a few of the highlights:

[[Image:RGzaonceaurodromewiki.jpg|left|thumb|''Inside the Zaonce Aurodrome.'']]
The Zaonce Aurodrome: a massive, million-seater globe arena where all the titans of popular music perform a neverending schedule of gobsmacking sets. No matter what your taste, you will find something there you like: the subsonic drooper-woofers built into every chair will see to that.
Zanadoo Zoo: live a lifetime in one day as an Usleian Tree Ant, or join in with the songs of the Mariar forest chorus, or bound with the Tiinlebiian mountain slugs, all from the comfort of a neural entanglement chair. If there’s a subsapient lifeform that’s cute, or exciting, or otherwise notable, Zanadoo Zoo can drop you inside a perfect simulacrum of its sensorium. Fun and educational, too.

Chateau d’If: some people find this a bit unnerving, and currently it’s only available to those with mammalian brains due to compatibility issues, but essentially you get to be a god for an hour. Actually, all – all! – that happens is a cross-wiring of your mind, where your experiential centres and your perceptual matrices are bridged over, with the result that everything that happens around you appears to be nothing more nor less than the total expression of your will: all existence conforms to your desire, all the time, as you sit there doing nothing in perfect, perfect dribbly satisfaction. The comedown can be a bitch, let me tell you: I wept like a baby. But there are trained counsellors on hand, and the haunting afterglow of my ersatz divinity is something I’ll never forget. Don’t try it more than once, though, is my advice.

The Perpetual Party: pretty much what it says on the tin. Once the entrance fee is paid it’s an all you can eat, drink, snort, inhale, shoot up or otherwise metabolise binge, where everything is keyed just right so there’s a constant gloss of glee and nobody ever gets bored or antsy. A franchise operation, there are Perpetual Parties running in every hotel on the planet; you can fritter away your whole stay in one of these and never make it past the lobby.

So, again: is it fun? Oh, absolutely. It’s fun. Fun fun fun. I had a great time. I really enjoyed myself. Blew through a stack of scratch as tall as a treeoid and didn’t regret a single credit. But truth to tell I wasn’t sorry to see Ventry Entry dwindle behind me on the shuttle back to the starside. Zaonce tries so hard, it really does – and you can see them try all around you, all the time. There’s a constant background buzz of eager solicitous care and concern wherever you go, and after a while it gets a bit creepy. Still and all, I don’t think the Zonkers are too concerned about that. Had fun? Yup. Great! Next! Ka-ching!

[[Image:Zaoncemap.jpg]]

{{RoughGuide}}

Reorte (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:37:29Z

Specialist290:

== Reorte ==
[[Image:RGreortewiki.jpg|right|thumb|''Reorte'']]
*Economic status: '''Poor Agricultural'''
*Technology level: '''6'''
*Population: '''3.1 billion Black Fat Felines'''
*Political status: '''Dictatorship'''
*Radius: '''6419 km'''
*G: '''1.03 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Lave (Rough Guide)|Lave]], Quator, Ra, Diso, Uszaa, Relaes, Begeabi, Orrere'''

''“This planet is mildly fabled for its inhabitants’ eccentric love for tourists but plagued by deadly earthquakes.”''

“Reorte”, in the old, high Narrow Speech, means “Lair of Gods”. The planet certainly seems to be infested with them, and hundreds of new ones are discovered every week.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that the inhabitants of one of the most seismically active worlds in the whole eight galaxies should be so fervently religious. They are forever at the mercy of titanic hidden forces, utterly beyond their control, and the tremulous ground is a constant reminder of vast, immanent presences beneath their feet.

For reasons of safety, then, Fennervich, the main shuttleport on Reorte, is situated on the most reliably solid territory available – at the south pole, in the middle of the ice-sheet. Reorte has virtually no axial tilt, and hence no seasons, so although the temperature at Fennervich seldom gets much above 250° absolute it’s climatically very stable. The air is clear and calm, but there’s not a lot to see on the drop down – just endless empty ice.

Fennervich shuttleport is welcoming, though, and friendly, once you’ve scurried across the icy landing pad through the strange perpetual dawnlight to get inside out of the biting cold. Outworlders, “sky-born”, of any sort, are viewed with a deep and reverential respect. One thing you can say about the Reortese, they’re a very hospitable species. Partly it’s cultural: a superabundance of natural disasters has made their society strong on the support of strangers. But mainly it’s down to the one constant in their complex, ever-shifting theology: their strong and abiding dislike of their own gods.

According to the Register, Reorte is a [[Powers_and_Organisations#Dictatorship_Worlds|Dictatorship]]. Technically speaking it’s actually a Theocracy, controlled by a fluctuating priesthood. Entrance to the priesthood is relatively easy: first, you discover a god; then you formulate its cult; finally you erect a statue of your new god on any available space on the bottom step of your local ziggurat, and Hey Priesto, you’re a member of the Theocracy! Every community is centred on a low, broad, three-tiered and six-sided ziggurat, adorned with monumental clay models of the local gods: eighteen on the bottom tier, twelve on the second, and six on the summit. The higher up a statue sits, the more authority its cult possesses.

Reortese gods are dwellers in the underworld, locked in a never-ending, world-shaking battle for dominion – a battle which is, to say the least, inconvenient to the surface inhabitants. Reortese worship is based around the hope that eventually, perhaps, one god might achieve a final victory, to reign alone in the World Beneath and leave them all in peace. Until then, the gods’ chthonic brawling must be endured: the ultimate neighbours from Hell.

As old gods are consumed in this constant warfare, new ones arise to take their place. The ziggurats are not viewed as representations of the conflict; rather, they are real-time indicators of the supernatural power-struggles taking place below. The ziggurats are stable enough to withstand all but the most shattering of seismological events: the clay statues, however, are not, and there’s a regular attrition as gods are shaken off their steps, smashed by falling debris from a higher deity, or just shuddered to pieces where they sit. No statue, no god, no cult; the Theocracy opens to new members, and the surviving gods move up to fill the empty places above them. There’s always a steady stream of new divinities waiting in the wings: at least, until that happy day arrives – may it come soon! – when only one god sits atop one ziggurat, and no new sculptures can be found anywhere to challenge its supremacy.

Theogony is a fine art on Reorte. The inhabitants are prone to fits of ''eche'', dreamlike states where they glimpse the sacred outlines of a new god, and grasp the essentials of its cult. From this vision they produce a clay sculpture, and set it off on its progress up the tiers. Some offworld xenologists have claimed that ''eche'' is actually just a neurophysiological event triggered by the electromagnetic fields resulting from the grinding, shifting tectonic plates. The Reortese dismiss this as mere superstition; gods rise and fall again, and the ground continues to shake. There is admittedly a tendency for the more long-lasting and powerful cults to be based around broad, squat gods, with low centres of gravity and few projecting appendages, but to the Reortese these attributes are simply indications of divine strength and potency. Thin and spindly gods do exist, but they do not stand up well to the rigours of subsurface combat; hence their statues seldom climb very far up the ziggurat steps.

They are a tough and fatalistic people, the Reortese, inured to suffering, content with very little by way of material goods. Their towns and villages are collections of low huts and lean-tos, constructed entirely from the ubiquitous rubbery Fervid Vetch trees which they carefully train and pull together to form springy hammock-dwellings, suspended in pockets of greenery close above the shaking ground. These may bounce and sway, but they easily survive the daily tremors. And if a major shock should come, and tumble the town, the fast-growing trees soon reappear and the survivors resume their lives with no more than a shrug and a shake of the head.

[[Image:RGheserachwiki.jpg|left|thumb|''The Great God Heserach, in happier times.'']]
Outworlders are always welcome, although Reorte’s tourist industry could not be called well-developed. The frequent Changing of the Gods ceremonies are colourful and picturesque, but apart from the ziggurats there are few places on the planet permanent enough to be called “attractions”. The real chance of getting caught in a major earthquake can also be offputting to the casual visitor.

Surprisingly, very few Reortese seem to want to emigrate from their unstable homeland. They might admire visitors from other worlds with quiescent deities, and envy those who have renounced planetary life altogether to dwell in artificial structures suspended in the pure and empty vacuum of space; but in general they are unwilling to abandon their fellows to suffer their gods’ disturbances unaided. Reorte, it is true, produces many volunteers for the [[Galactic Navy]], and the Space Marines’ famous G Division contains a high proportion of Reortese recruits. Even here, though, most veteran survivors choose to return at last to the planet of their birth, to pick up again the burden of their people and wait for the day when their world will be free of the tumult from beneath.

Are they noble? Are they foolish? During my stay, the fat and conical god Heserach, whose stamina and endurance had kept him atop the Kittering ziggurat for more than three generations, tumbled and fell. Many Reortese had hoped that here, at last, might be a god who could triumph over all the rest: now he lay in pieces on the broken earth. A silence filled the dusty air; no-one moved. Then Heserach’s High Priest coughed, and grunted, and spat upon the ground, and with a well-worn broom began to sweep the rubble of his god away. The other townspeople sighed, brushing dust from their fur, and made a quick headcount of their friends and kinfolk before turning to rebuild their homes anew. Are they noble? Are they foolish? Are they both? Or something else entirely?

{{RoughGuide}}

Riedquat (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:33:57Z

Specialist290:

== Riedquat ==
*Economic status: '''Poor Agricultural'''
*Technology level: '''4'''
*Population: '''2 billion Harmless Rodents'''
*Political status: '''Anarchy'''
*Radius: '''6403 km'''
*G: '''1.04 standard'''
* Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Lave (Rough Guide)|Lave]], Leesti, Diso, Uszaa, Orerve'''

''“This planet is most notable for its fabulous cuisine but beset by occasional civil war.”''

Riedquat is probably one of the least-visited worlds in all the eight sectors – and yet, for the adventurous, it’s quite possibly the place for the holiday of a lifetime. From the moment the plasma clears from the nose of your shuttle, you are confronted with a truly epic vista: mountain ranges stretch across the landscape, swathed in dense forest, and it’s well worth tipping the shuttle pilot an extra ten credits to take the scenic route down to Hard Harbour, the principal landing stage on the northern continent. The peaks of Trifros, when the early morning sun paints the glaciers rosy pink, are a sight to behold, and the final blast down the Axbow canyon gives the visitor the first of many thrills to come.

Debarkation formalities at Hard Harbour are minimal. Present your landing licence for inspection, and answer all questions truthfully without prevarication: ''all'' questions, no matter how specific, intimate or downright odd they may appear to be. Do not be offended, and don’t be concerned for your privacy; Riedquat’s Customs officials are bound by a solemn oath of secrecy. If they don’t like what they hear, they’ll simply refuse you entry, and you’ll have missed the chance of a wonderful experience: but they are judges of character, not of law or morality. Be bold, forthright and honest in your dealings with them, and all should be well. ''On no account attempt bribery''. This is a mortal insult to the official’s ''damaan''. It will certainly debar you from the planet and may even result in summary execution.

Most social interactions on Riedquat involve ''damaan'', and a brief explanation is in order. Essentially it is the conceptual force projected by an individual into the cosmos, which both forms and informs the universe. Each person’s ''damaan'' interacts with every other and, in the Riedquat philosophy, creates an intermeshing multiplicity of actualities. Bribery, therefore, is grossly offensive, since the money offered exists as much within the reality of the bribee as the briber: in effect, you are asking someone to surrender their entire totality in return for something which, in a sense, they already possess.

To say that this can complicate commercial transactions is an understatement, and the concept of ''damaan'' is perhaps one reason why Riedquat is a poor agricultural world. Any purchase involves a series of considered negotiation, back and forth, before the bargain is struck. To anyone used to the economic bustle of the wider [[GalCop|Co-operative]] this can be frustrating, at first, but once you relax into the placid pace of life on Riedquat you’ll find yourself relishing these simple, careful and polite exchanges. There is no currency, as such. Beyond barter, the medium of exchange is anything decorative which is small enough to be carried in a pouch (the quasi-marsupial natives, of course, have their own: you will in all likelihood need to equip yourself with a suitable substitute at the Hard Harbour landing). Almost anything can be used, from an unusual pebble to an intricate Maregeis snuffbox; actual values will fluctuate according to each individual’s aesthetic sensibilities. The traveller will find that a variety of offworld coinages can be useful in this regard, but you will have much more success with the colourful – though practically worthless, even on Geinona – Geinonar Chinx than with the financially sound, but leadenly dull, Riinus State Thalers. Familiarity breeds contempt, though, so be sure to mix and match!

[[Image:RGriedquatcookingwiki.jpg|left|thumb|''Riedquat cooking makes everybody smile.'']]
If there’s one thing absolutely worth negotiating for, and indeed paying well for, on Riedquat, it’s the food. Trust me: pay the extra on the station to have your gut flora switched, and endure the minor discomfort. You do not want to miss the chance to eat Riedquat cuisine “in the flesh”, so to speak, without the deadening kiss of the sterilising irradiator. From simple soups and stews to elaborate banquets, these people are culinary masters, second to none. Your lower bowel might complain for a day or so beforehand but your mouth will love you forever after. And every meal is, of course, washed down with plenty of rich red Riedquat ale!

Beyond the food, and the simple joys of standing on alien soil, under an exotic sky, Riedquat mostly offers outdoor pursuits, such as mountaineering, white-water rafting and especially big game hunting. Native guides can be hired – or more precisely, invited to accompany you, if they care to pick up a mutually acceptable offering from one reality to another – and are generally competent and friendly, if treated with respect. Equipment, especially weaponry, is of course limited to tech 4: in any case there is little sport, and absolutely no projection of ''damaan'', in bringing down a terathaw with a plasma rifle!

One important piece of advice: if you meet a Riedquater group wearing black feathers, give them a wide berth: they are on ''cerce'', the projection of their collective ''damaan'' by physical force. Usually they will ignore anyone not similarly bedecked in black feathers: stay calm and passive and all will be well. Contests between groups on ''cerce'' can be bloody and protracted and may range over a wide area, though generally these will not intersect with camps or settlements. If you yourself are bedecked in black feathers, you may want to invest in some plumage dye before visiting.

All in all, Riedquat is a wonderful, unspoiled planet where you can get away from the teeming cares of the Co-operative and relax into a gentler way of life. The only significant problem, and the major risk, is getting there. Riedquat’s local volume seethes with pirates, from lone-wolf freebooters to bandit gangs. Still, for the bold at heart, the journey is at least possible – and if you make it through you can lie on the warm sands of Shander Bay, listen to the hushing surf, gaze up at the night sky to see the pinprick flashes of witchdrives erupting, and consider yourself one of the fortunate few!

{{RoughGuide}}

Lave (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:25:09Z

Specialist290: Adding Neighbors

== Lave ==
[[Image:Laveview.jpg|right|thumb|''Lave'']]
*Economic status: '''Rich Agricultural'''
*Technology level: '''5'''
*Population: '''2.5 billion Human colonials'''
*Political status: '''Dictatorship'''
*Radius: '''4116 km'''
*G: '''0.38 standard'''
*Neighbors (7.0 LY or less): '''[[Reorte (Rough Guide)|Reorte]], [[Riedquat (Rough Guide)|Riedquat]], Leesti, [[Zaonce (Rough Guide)|Zaonce]], Diso, Uszaa'''

''“Lave is most famous for its vast rain forests and the Laveian tree grub.”''

What can we say about Lave? Everyone knows Lave. We all trained there. The outlines of her continents are burned into our brains, from endless hours above them doing our jumps-and-bumps. Close your eyes and you’ll see them still: the arc of Crater Bay; the juts and jags of the Fenric coast; the curling comma Suther makes, creeping over the horizon into the short Laveian night. Many of us dropped down the well to Port Arcadia, and spent too much money, and might still have the faded Et In Arcadia Ego t-shirts to show for it. Been, seen, done: now we’re up and out and we’re never going back.

Which is a shame, because Lave is an interesting world, socially, politically, and historically. Port Arcadia can be ghastly, it’s true: heaving with trainees blundering around on ups and downs from howffs and whorehouses, sinks and stews, singing, shouting, fighting and fornicating as inclination and anatomy take them. We were never like that, oh no; we were merry, true; high-spirited, and perhaps even a little rowdy from time to time, but...

Leave them to it, is my advice, and put PA behind you. There’s a lot more to Lave than flight training and juvenile debauchery.

For a start, it’s one of the oldest human settlements in the eight sectors, colonised way back in the twenty-third century. Ashoria, the planetary capital, positively reeks of history. Visitors with a penchant for the quaint can seek out the old Spacer Lodgings in Abbey district; those who value modernity over charm will find the best hotels in Central, or downtown in Karbeck, near Holdstock plaza. The seat of government, the Hermione, sits within the actual bays of the original colony ship, in the old Riverside area of the city. Although the hull’s graceful lines are crusted over now with offices and extensions, chambers and bureaucratoria, the Tyrant still rules from the Bridge and the formal entrance gardens still lead you to the main gangway. For any student of the history
of human spaceflight, a tour around the Hermione is a fascinating voyage back in time. Trips should be booked well in advance, although it is sometimes possible to pick up a standby ticket if you get there early enough. The Museum of the First, just across the river on the southern bank, provides an enjoyable, though less immediate, introduction to the early colonial days. It’s free, too.

Inevitably, these official histories have been sanitised, and have little to say about the darker episodes of Lave’s past. The worst incident, when Idrian Ageddor of the Ten obliterated the Revanchist bastion with an asteroid bombardment, is of course mentioned – although Laveians today refer to it as “the Calamity”, and make the subtle hint that Ageddor’s crime was accidental. The truth lies buried in the regolith, and no-one is keen to disturb it.

To keep both eyes on the past, though, is to walk blindly into the future, and it is to the Laveians’ credit that Ageddor’s atrocity brought defeat both for the
Revanchists and for the Ten. Appalled by the destruction, the armies and citizens of the warring factions rebelled, executed their leaders and instituted the governmental system which, with minor modifications, Lave enjoys today. The Empress looks down from her palace on Basta, the swift-running moon, ruling all, and interfering with no-one. Her loyal Tyrant presides over the self-electing Assembly, an easygoing, casual government which is content to devolve most decisions to the individual town Clatches scattered across the planet. Officially, Lave is a [[Powers_and_Organisations#Dictatorship_Worlds|Dictatorship]]; officially, the Empress is all-powerful; officially, in her absence, the Tyrant wields her authority without check. But the Revanchist war taught everyone a lesson: “officially” is a thing of paper only – and paper burns so easily.

Other, later tragedies are those all-too-common sins of humanity: ecological and environmental destruction. Most of Lave’s dense jungle has been cruelly decimated, with vast stretches given over to monocultures of cash crops. In recent years however some attempts have been made to protect the remainder, and plans for reforestation are the constant talk of Clatch and Assembly alike. Promising results are reported from the Daphne Project, a conservation and breeding programme for the Laveian tree-grub.

[[Image:RGtreegrubwiki.jpg|left|thumb|''A flitter's-eye view of an adult male tree-grub.'']]
This mighty and iconic beast, pushed to the brink of extinction, is being re-introduced into the wild, in a joint effort between the human majority and the felinoid (strictly, leonid) settlement on the island continent of Suther. A protected grove of thirty sessile adult females produces up to three tons of juvenile grubs each year through artificial insemination: most are sold off-world to grace the tables of exclusive restaurants across the galaxy, which helps fund the project, but a small percentage are hand-reared to the third instar and released into specially controlled zones of Suther’s forests. There they hunt, and grow to massive adulthood. The females smash down clearings for themselves and take root, their barrel trunks eventually topping out the jungle canopy. The males, black and dun and mottled green, armoured in great bark-like scales, stake out their territories centred on these wife-trees. The rotting remnants of their many kills – aushers, engelots and sometimes even paraderms – enrich the soil, and bring the wife-trees to fruitfulness. Then roaring copulations shake the forest to its foundations, and soon a new generation writhes out of the mother branches to begin the cycle anew. Small tourist parties now have the chance to see, from the safety of a flitter, these fearsome predators in their natural state.

The Daphne Project gives some hope for Lave’s ecological future, and its success points out another aspect of the planet’s culture: the easy relationship which persists there between a multiplicity of races, creeds and cultures. “Wouldn’t rate a second look on Lave” is an expression we all know! Port Arcadia, of course, is perhaps the most cosmopolitan city to be found across the eight, but go anywhere on Lave and you’ll see a staggering variety of anatomies, physiognomies, pelts and pigmentations. Even the smallest towns provide a bewildering range of facilities and necessities, and if they can’t immediately cater to your needs most Laveians will make it a point of pride to accommodate you eventually. Lave may not be the richest, or the most advanced, or the most efficiently governed planet in the galaxy, but in this respect alone it justifies its status as the headquarters of the [[GalCop|Co-operative]], and this is why, officially – that word again – the [[Galactic_Navy|Co-op Fleet]] owes allegiance to Lave’s moon-bound Empress. It may be foolish, it may be sentimental, but this is one veteran proud to have served in Her Imperial Majesty’s Space Navy.

{{RoughGuide}}

Aesbion (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:13:46Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Aesbionview.jpg|right|thumb|''Aesbion'']]

'''Aesbion'''

*Economic status: '''Mainly industrial'''
*Technology level: '''10'''
*Population: ''4.7. Bilion (Green Frogs)''
*Political status: '''Corporate State'''
*Radius: '''6701 km'''
*G: '''1.02 standard'''

''"The planet Aesbion is cursed by dreadful civil war."''

Regardless of how he feels about [[GalCop]] when he's being chased by a blue-light-flashing [[Viper (Oolite)|Viper]] while carrying a full cargo hold of Benulobiweed, deep down in his heart the average spacer has at least a grudging respect for the system because it /works/. The Galactic Cooperative of Worlds polices the spaceways and provides neutral markets where spacers can trade without being hassled by planet-bound authorities (for which we all should be thankful; heaven /knows/ that GalCop regulations are hassle enough...), in exchange for which they let the local administrations--or lack thereof--run the planets however they see fit. While this setup isn't perfect, it does make traveling among the stars considerably safer. Only very rarely has GalCop ever needed to directly intervene in the affairs of its member planets, but when it does, it brings its full strength to bear, as the example of Aesbion clearly demonstrates.

In 2921, Aesbion sent a trade delegation the neighboring world of [[Aronar (Rough Guide)|Aronar]]. During the negotiations, the High Lords of Aronar were rather gruff about what they saw as an attempt at exploitation, taking a very confrontational stance to many points in the agreement and occasionally threatening to suspend talks outright. Unfortunately, the delegation saw these as grave insults and returned home to report to their superiors. The Aesbionians, enraged by the treatment of their fellows, immediately raised a small fleet and raided the system, causing considerable damage to Aronar's capital to avenge the insult. When word of the incident reached the local Sector Command, GalCop justice was swift and severe; the Galactic Navy dispatched a task force to the system, easily obliterated Aesbion's makeshift navy, and arrested, tried, and executed for treason the entire Board of Directors as well as a number of lower-level administrators and any survivors of the battle they could lay their hands on.

In addition to serving as a powerful object lesson to anyone considering defying GalCop's charter to preserve peace between the planets, the Aesbion Incident also brought about the common stereotype of Aesbionians as short-tempered neurotic psychopaths. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth; the incident arose because the Aesbionians believed that the High Lords of Aronar had breached their code of honor, a grave insult in Aesbionian culture, and that repaying them in kind was the only way to prevent themselves and Aesbion itself from falling into disgrace. The Aesbionians place a high value on honor, believing that all relationships bring about "debts" of honor in some way or another. Should you decide to visit Aesbion, keep in mind these simple rules of hospitality: Always be courteous to your host, don't be overly belligerent, and be careful what you joke about. Don't worry yourself too much, of course--your host will probably expect and tolerate a little bit of coarseness from an off-planet visitor--but exercise discretion.

As far as sightseeing goes, most of the main attractions are centered around the capital and primary city of Shisoli. Those with a passion for history might wish to visit the Exalted City, a relic of the planet's Imperial era. The entire complex was both home and workplace for the God-Emperor and his staff, many of whom lived and died without ever setting foot outside its walls. A must-see for any visitor, a few miles outside the city proper, lies the Cathedral of Winds. Situated atop a cliff by the coast to take full advantage of the local wind patterns, the Cathedral is built with a number of funnels to catch the winds outside and run them through an enormous organ inside, producing a neverending, always-changing, haunting melody; it is especially popular during the region's storm season. Those lucky enough to arrive during the local new year will be able to take part in the annual Carnival of Fools, a celebration where the strict rules of personal honor are flung aside with reckless abandon and the population throws itself into a whole week of concerts, performances, drinking binges, and general hedonistic revelling.

However, a word of warning: Be careful to watch out for signs of "honor duels" taking place. These can range in scale anywhere from one-on-one tests of personal skill to full-scale warfare between two corporate branches (the latter giving rise to the typically-overstated Register entry). While most conflicts generally have a third-party overseer present who makes sure the proper rules of conduct are carried out and that deaths of innocents are kept to a minimum, this is one of those situations where their relaxation of the rules for outsiders will work against you, not for you. As you're not likely to have any friends or family come to claim a hefty compensation for your death or injury, approach areas beset by conflict at your own risk.

[[Image:Aesbionmap.jpg]]

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Aesbion (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:13:09Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Aesbionview.jpg|right|thumb|''Aesbion'']]

'''Aesbion'''

*Economic status: '''Mainly industrial'''
*Technology level: '''10'''
*Population: ''4.7. Bilion (Green Frogs)''
*Political status: '''Corporate State'''
*Radius: '''6701 km'''
*G: '''1.02 standard'''

''"The planet Aesbion is cursed by dreadful civil war."''

Regardless of how he feels about [[GalCop]] when he's being chased by a blue-light-flashing [[Viper]] while carrying a full cargo hold of Benulobiweed, deep down in his heart the average spacer has at least a grudging respect for the system because it /works/. The Galactic Cooperative of Worlds polices the spaceways and provides neutral markets where spacers can trade without being hassled by planet-bound authorities (for which we all should be thankful; heaven /knows/ that GalCop regulations are hassle enough...), in exchange for which they let the local administrations--or lack thereof--run the planets however they see fit. While this setup isn't perfect, it does make traveling among the stars considerably safer. Only very rarely has GalCop ever needed to directly intervene in the affairs of its member planets, but when it does, it brings its full strength to bear, as the example of Aesbion clearly demonstrates.

In 2921, Aesbion sent a trade delegation the neighboring world of [[Aronar (Rough Guide|Aronar]]. During the negotiations, the High Lords of Aronar were rather gruff about what they saw as an attempt at exploitation, taking a very confrontational stance to many points in the agreement and occasionally threatening to suspend talks outright. Unfortunately, the delegation saw these as grave insults and returned home to report to their superiors. The Aesbionians, enraged by the treatment of their fellows, immediately raised a small fleet and raided the system, causing considerable damage to Aronar's capital to avenge the insult. When word of the incident reached the local Sector Command, GalCop justice was swift and severe; the Galactic Navy dispatched a task force to the system, easily obliterated Aesbion's makeshift navy, and arrested, tried, and executed for treason the entire Board of Directors as well as a number of lower-level administrators and any survivors of the battle they could lay their hands on.

In addition to serving as a powerful object lesson to anyone considering defying GalCop's charter to preserve peace between the planets, the Aesbion Incident also brought about the common stereotype of Aesbionians as short-tempered neurotic psychopaths. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth; the incident arose because the Aesbionians believed that the High Lords of Aronar had breached their code of honor, a grave insult in Aesbionian culture, and that repaying them in kind was the only way to prevent themselves and Aesbion itself from falling into disgrace. The Aesbionians place a high value on honor, believing that all relationships bring about "debts" of honor in some way or another. Should you decide to visit Aesbion, keep in mind these simple rules of hospitality: Always be courteous to your host, don't be overly belligerent, and be careful what you joke about. Don't worry yourself too much, of course--your host will probably expect and tolerate a little bit of coarseness from an off-planet visitor--but exercise discretion.

As far as sightseeing goes, most of the main attractions are centered around the capital and primary city of Shisoli. Those with a passion for history might wish to visit the Exalted City, a relic of the planet's Imperial era. The entire complex was both home and workplace for the God-Emperor and his staff, many of whom lived and died without ever setting foot outside its walls. A must-see for any visitor, a few miles outside the city proper, lies the Cathedral of Winds. Situated atop a cliff by the coast to take full advantage of the local wind patterns, the Cathedral is built with a number of funnels to catch the winds outside and run them through an enormous organ inside, producing a neverending, always-changing, haunting melody; it is especially popular during the region's storm season. Those lucky enough to arrive during the local new year will be able to take part in the annual Carnival of Fools, a celebration where the strict rules of personal honor are flung aside with reckless abandon and the population throws itself into a whole week of concerts, performances, drinking binges, and general hedonistic revelling.

However, a word of warning: Be careful to watch out for signs of "honor duels" taking place. These can range in scale anywhere from one-on-one tests of personal skill to full-scale warfare between two corporate branches (the latter giving rise to the typically-overstated Register entry). While most conflicts generally have a third-party overseer present who makes sure the proper rules of conduct are carried out and that deaths of innocents are kept to a minimum, this is one of those situations where their relaxation of the rules for outsiders will work against you, not for you. As you're not likely to have any friends or family come to claim a hefty compensation for your death or injury, approach areas beset by conflict at your own risk.

[[Image:Aesbionmap.jpg]]

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Aesbion (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:11:27Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Aesbionview.jpg|right|thumb|''Aesbion'']]

'''Aesbion'''

*Economic status: '''Mainly industrial'''
*Technology level: '''10'''
*Population: ''4.7. Bilion (Green Frogs)''
*Political status: '''Corporate State'''
*Radius: '''6701 km'''
*G: '''1.02 standard'''

''"The planet Aesbion is cursed by dreadful civil war."''

Regardless of how he feels about GalCop when he's being chased by a blue-light-flashing Viper while carrying a full cargo hold of Benulobiweed, deep down in his heart the average spacer has at least a grudging respect for the system because it /works/. The Galactic Cooperative of Worlds polices the spaceways and provides neutral markets where spacers can trade without being hassled by planet-bound authorities (for which we all should be thankful; heaven /knows/ that GalCop regulations are hassle enough...), in exchange for which they let the local administrations--or lack thereof--run the planets however they see fit. While this setup isn't perfect, it does make traveling among the stars considerably safer. Only very rarely has GalCop ever needed to directly intervene in the affairs of its member planets, but when it does, it brings its full strength to bear, as the example of Aesbion clearly demonstrates.

In 2921, Aesbion sent a trade delegation the neighboring world of Aronar. During the negotiations, the High Lords of Aronar were rather gruff about what they saw as an attempt at exploitation, taking a very confrontational stance to many points in the agreement and occasionally threatening to suspend talks outright. Unfortunately, the delegation saw these as grave insults and returned home to report to their superiors. The Aesbionians, enraged by the treatment of their fellows, immediately raised a small fleet and raided the system, causing considerable damage to Aronar's capital to avenge the insult. When word of the incident reached the local Sector Command, GalCop justice was swift and severe; the Galactic Navy dispatched a task force to the system, easily obliterated Aesbion's makeshift navy, and arrested, tried, and executed for treason the entire Board of Directors as well as a number of lower-level administrators and any survivors of the battle they could lay their hands on.

In addition to serving as a powerful object lesson to anyone considering defying GalCop's charter to preserve peace between the planets, the Aesbion Incident also brought about the common stereotype of Aesbionians as short-tempered neurotic psychopaths. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth; the incident arose because the Aesbionians believed that the High Lords of Aronar had breached their code of honor, a grave insult in Aesbionian culture, and that repaying them in kind was the only way to prevent themselves and Aesbion itself from falling into disgrace. The Aesbionians place a high value on honor, believing that all relationships bring about "debts" of honor in some way or another. Should you decide to visit Aesbion, keep in mind these simple rules of hospitality: Always be courteous to your host, don't be overly belligerent, and be careful what you joke about. Don't worry yourself too much, of course--your host will probably expect and tolerate a little bit of coarseness from an off-planet visitor--but exercise discretion.

As far as sightseeing goes, most of the main attractions are centered around the capital and primary city of Shisoli. Those with a passion for history might wish to visit the Exalted City, a relic of the planet's Imperial era. The entire complex was both home and workplace for the God-Emperor and his staff, many of whom lived and died without ever setting foot outside its walls. A must-see for any visitor, a few miles outside the city proper, lies the Cathedral of Winds. Situated atop a cliff by the coast to take full advantage of the local wind patterns, the Cathedral is built with a number of funnels to catch the winds outside and run them through an enormous organ inside, producing a neverending, always-changing, haunting melody; it is especially popular during the region's storm season. Those lucky enough to arrive during the local new year will be able to take part in the annual Carnival of Fools, a celebration where the strict rules of personal honor are flung aside with reckless abandon and the population throws itself into a whole week of concerts, performances, drinking binges, and general hedonistic revelling.

However, a word of warning: Be careful to watch out for signs of "honor duels" taking place. These can range in scale anywhere from one-on-one tests of personal skill to full-scale warfare between two corporate branches (the latter giving rise to the typically-overstated Register entry). While most conflicts generally have a third-party overseer present who makes sure the proper rules of conduct are carried out and that deaths of innocents are kept to a minimum, this is one of those situations where their relaxation of the rules for outsiders will work against you, not for you. As you're not likely to have any friends or family come to claim a hefty compensation for your death or injury, approach areas beset by conflict at your own risk.

[[Image:Aesbionmap.jpg]]

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}

Aesbion (Rough Guide)

2009-06-20T22:11:07Z

Specialist290:

[[Image:Aesbionview.jpg|right|thumb|''Aesbion'']]

'''Aesbion'''

*Economic status: '''Mainly industrial'''
*Technology level: '''10'''
*Population: ''4.7. Bilion (Green Frogs)''
*Political status: '''Corporate State'''
*Radius: '''6701 km'''
*G: '''1.02 standard'''

"The planet Aesbion is cursed by dreadful civil war."

Regardless of how he feels about GalCop when he's being chased by a blue-light-flashing Viper while carrying a full cargo hold of Benulobiweed, deep down in his heart the average spacer has at least a grudging respect for the system because it /works/. The Galactic Cooperative of Worlds polices the spaceways and provides neutral markets where spacers can trade without being hassled by planet-bound authorities (for which we all should be thankful; heaven /knows/ that GalCop regulations are hassle enough...), in exchange for which they let the local administrations--or lack thereof--run the planets however they see fit. While this setup isn't perfect, it does make traveling among the stars considerably safer. Only very rarely has GalCop ever needed to directly intervene in the affairs of its member planets, but when it does, it brings its full strength to bear, as the example of Aesbion clearly demonstrates.

In 2921, Aesbion sent a trade delegation the neighboring world of Aronar. During the negotiations, the High Lords of Aronar were rather gruff about what they saw as an attempt at exploitation, taking a very confrontational stance to many points in the agreement and occasionally threatening to suspend talks outright. Unfortunately, the delegation saw these as grave insults and returned home to report to their superiors. The Aesbionians, enraged by the treatment of their fellows, immediately raised a small fleet and raided the system, causing considerable damage to Aronar's capital to avenge the insult. When word of the incident reached the local Sector Command, GalCop justice was swift and severe; the Galactic Navy dispatched a task force to the system, easily obliterated Aesbion's makeshift navy, and arrested, tried, and executed for treason the entire Board of Directors as well as a number of lower-level administrators and any survivors of the battle they could lay their hands on.

In addition to serving as a powerful object lesson to anyone considering defying GalCop's charter to preserve peace between the planets, the Aesbion Incident also brought about the common stereotype of Aesbionians as short-tempered neurotic psychopaths. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth; the incident arose because the Aesbionians believed that the High Lords of Aronar had breached their code of honor, a grave insult in Aesbionian culture, and that repaying them in kind was the only way to prevent themselves and Aesbion itself from falling into disgrace. The Aesbionians place a high value on honor, believing that all relationships bring about "debts" of honor in some way or another. Should you decide to visit Aesbion, keep in mind these simple rules of hospitality: Always be courteous to your host, don't be overly belligerent, and be careful what you joke about. Don't worry yourself too much, of course--your host will probably expect and tolerate a little bit of coarseness from an off-planet visitor--but exercise discretion.

As far as sightseeing goes, most of the main attractions are centered around the capital and primary city of Shisoli. Those with a passion for history might wish to visit the Exalted City, a relic of the planet's Imperial era. The entire complex was both home and workplace for the God-Emperor and his staff, many of whom lived and died without ever setting foot outside its walls. A must-see for any visitor, a few miles outside the city proper, lies the Cathedral of Winds. Situated atop a cliff by the coast to take full advantage of the local wind patterns, the Cathedral is built with a number of funnels to catch the winds outside and run them through an enormous organ inside, producing a neverending, always-changing, haunting melody; it is especially popular during the region's storm season. Those lucky enough to arrive during the local new year will be able to take part in the annual Carnival of Fools, a celebration where the strict rules of personal honor are flung aside with reckless abandon and the population throws itself into a whole week of concerts, performances, drinking binges, and general hedonistic revelling.

However, a word of warning: Be careful to watch out for signs of "honor duels" taking place. These can range in scale anywhere from one-on-one tests of personal skill to full-scale warfare between two corporate branches (the latter giving rise to the typically-overstated Register entry). While most conflicts generally have a third-party overseer present who makes sure the proper rules of conduct are carried out and that deaths of innocents are kept to a minimum, this is one of those situations where their relaxation of the rules for outsiders will work against you, not for you. As you're not likely to have any friends or family come to claim a hefty compensation for your death or injury, approach areas beset by conflict at your own risk.

[[Image:Aesbionmap.jpg]]

{{RoughGuide}} 
{{Famous Planets}}