Within
the next few weeks, if all goes well, I'm going to start running the
first full-length campaign of Deep Space Bitches. This post is a
player-facing setting document for that game, detailing the worlds of
the Alpha Sculptoris system (more commonly known as Galatea). Details
regarding planet classes and
faction generation can be
found in my previous posts on the subject. Redactions represent
hidden information, future events, and conflicting rumors where
everybody knows something's up but no one has the full story. Stellar bodies are ordered by distance from their primary, nearest to furthest.
1. ◎ ThemisOrange-class
tidally-locked independent world. Scorched by proximity to system
primary.
Outlaw
base on terminator line in crater shadow, population ~10,000. Run by
the pirate queen Costia Coriolis,
formerly Brevet-Admiral of the Cepheii Republican Guard. The
Coriolis pirate armada carved out independently-recognized
territory several years ago after mutinying en masse from the Cepheii
Ninth Expeditionary Fleet. Constant hazard to inner-system
shipping.
✧
Crimson
Watch mercenary company reported taking shore leave on Themis
between contracts, (in)famous for their high-collateral kinetic
operations in the aftermath of the Periphery Wars.
✧
████████ spotted
landing at Themis Docks and
casing several ████████.
Anomalous individuals, take necessary precautions.
✧
██████████████████████████████████████████████████████
Green/Grey-class
lost colony. INFOHAZARD RADIOHAZARD TECHNOHAZARD DO NOT APPROACH.
QUARANTINE ENFORCED BY DAEDALUS COLONIAL COUNCIL, CEPHEI REPUBLICAN
GUARD.
Initial
human settlement efforts (circa. -300 years) in the Alpha Sculptoris
system chose Icarus, previously habitable Green-class,
as first colony location. Records of first colonial era are sparse
due to multiple
spontaneous AI
hard takeoffs and
reduction of biosphere to
raw materials for
evolutionary
adversarial network conflict protocols. Population
decreased from >10,000,000 to below replacement levels in failed
planetary evacuation to
Daedalus. Over past centuries, Icarian self-optimizers have evolved
beyond comprehensible combat strategies, deactivation deemed
impossible without total obliteration of planetary crust.
2a. ⧂ Daedalus
Blue/Red-class
moon of Icarus, partially terraformed.
After
fall of Icarus, refugee settlers established last-hope
arcology habitat on
Daedalus. Without access to abundant Icarian resources necessary for
maintenance and interplanetary travel, estimated time until full
collapse did not exceed 2 centuries. Imperial arrival in system
provides hope for survival and opportunity for expansion; ongoing
internal debates over how best to maintain unique culture while
obtaining access to imperial resources. Current population ~20,000.
✧ “WHO
KILLED THE WORLD” militant artist co-op
committing art-terrorism against current government, demand
accountability and reparations for the Icarian ecocide.
✧
Third
Cosmic Internationale revolutionary thought leaders
writing polemics about what Daedalus should do to survive the
unstable political landscape. Prominent in system-wide ‘net
discourses under pseudonym “Theseus”
but not government or street activism; support largely comes from
outside Daedalus.✧
Rumored
████████
intelligence
presence funding
████████ factions
in the Daedalan government and underground.✧ ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████
⁂ Minos Asteroid Belt
Rich
in raw materials; noncitizen-workers contract out of Minos Station to
harvest metals for Cephei presence in Galatea system. Often preyed
upon by Coriolis Armada.
Permanent population 0, employs ~50,000.
Constructed
and administrated by Cephei Republican Protectorate. Integrated jump
gate, starship drydocks, industrial sectors. Residential citizen
population 95,600; temporary worker and contractor population
~100,000.
✧ AdamEx
biotech conglomerate provides experimesntal but remarkably accessible
healthcare to Cephei citizens, building medtech and synthesizing
pharmaceuticals from biota harvested from Talos. Managed
by
Executive Officer
of the Republic Emerson
Tyler, rumored to be
████████.
✧
Extensive
financial services industry. Sets
price on
dozens of intra-system commodities; stock indexes currently at
all-time high. Under heavy audits
by
Imperial Accountant
Rhea
Blanche,
rumored to be
████████. ✧
███████████████████████████████████████████████
3. ◎ Talos
Green/Yellow-class
world, recently settled by the Cephei Republican Protectorate.
Toxic-to-humans
atmosphere hosts diverse
ecosystem of
photosynthetic flora-fauna; low gravity allows for vast organism
growth. Prefabricated bubble-cities under martial law to survive
megafauna
depredations. Citizenry
heavily armed.
Population ~300,000 first and second-generation colonists, spread
equally across three cities in close proximity. Exports pharmaceutical organics, agriculture, and reality entertainment shows
about hard-bitten mech-suited warriors surviving the Talosian
jungle.
✧ Autonomist
Talosian sovereignty movement
demands right to self-determination. Primary spokesperson is
mech-warrior and
prominent actor Akina Jakande,
who’s managed to escape the colonial gov’t’s repression through
the threat of mass popular outrage and her Republican Guard
commission (honorably discharged).
✧
Charismatic
demagogue Heath Burke
building biochauvinist power base in reaction to autonomists. Uses
threat of monsters as easy rhetorical tool to demonize anyone who
would challenge “safety” of status quo, reportedly heavily
invested in AdamEx.
✧
█████████████████████████████████████
✧ Primary
criminal enterprise is poaching rare flora and fauna to smuggle
off-hab. ✧
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
4. ⦵ Rhea
Coral-class
ringed gas giant.
Atmosphere
is rich in fuel gasses, hydrocarbons, and recently discovered ██████.
Permanent population 0, employs ~100,000.
Red-class
moon of Rhea with thin, barely-breathable artificial atmosphere.
Private
habitat owned by Brett
Lightspeed, trillionaire founder of LightSpeed Enterprises.
Population ██.
✧
Brett
Lightspeed’s private
estate is the size of an
entire city. Hosts lavish parties for the system’s elite, both
corporate Cepheii and noble Siriac. The afterparties are legendary
for brutal ████████████,
which Lightspeed has
elevated to a spectator sport.
✧
██████████████████████████████
✧ The
Green Light Brigade
operates
out of Hestia, as an
informal club of biochauvinist paramilitary thrill-seekers with
extensive combat experience.
4b. ⧂ Hera
Grey-class
asteroid moon of Rhea.
A
fully-privatized rentier habitat. Occupants are billed for
breathing – plan visit
costs accordingly.
Houses the workforce for the Rhean
megacorporate gas mine,
owned and operated by by Lightspeed Enterprises. Gas harvesting,
mining ship construction/maintenance, and gas refinement are all
vertically integrated into Hera habitat; worker
turnover is 85 percent
within 5 years.
Population ~500,000.
✧
Labor
organizers with the Gas
Miners’ Local 19520
are working to get a growing general strike off the ground,
obstructed by both dissent within union and from larger workforce.
✧
Dissent
within workforce fueled by LightSpeed Marketing’s extensive
propaganda campaigns and the recent discovery of ██████.
Union boss Talia Lin,
respected for her unmatched
20
years working Hera
habitat, has not yet
weighed in on dispute.
✧
█████████████████████████████████████████████████████
4c. ⧂ Demeter
Blue-class
ocean moon of Rhea with a thick, icy crust.
Independent
research commune runs a
wildlife preserve for theoretically fascinating but visually
unremarkable local
ecosystem. Researchers
hail from across the Sculptoris sector, with a focus on pure (read:
unweaponizable) science. Population ~2000.✧
Primary
export is rare food and narcotics, manufacturing process is
highly secretive and tightly controlled by the commune so as to
maintain leverage that can keep them independent from
LightSpeed.✧
Famous
for bite-sized farm-raised xenofish, fed on a diet of proprietary
███████████████,
kept in ██████████████████████████████
until they can be dispensed onto the plate and flop around a bit
before being eaten whole and alive as an affront to every deity on
record.
✧
Demeter
ecosystem recently discovered to be substantially more interesting
than previously thought in submersible
█████████████████████████████████
disaster,
precipitating
recent LightSpeed
acquisition demands.
Cyan-class
ice giant. High water concentration, in ice rings and vapor atmosphere.
Purple-class
frozen moon of Mnemosyne with Siriac naval base.
Being
strip-mined
to construct next-generation battlefleet. Mining operations are owned
and operated by minor
nobility exploiting
android labor.
Population ~100 aristocracy, ~500 familial servants, ~5000
administrative staff. Android labor force ~50,000.✧
The
family patriarchs of the mining houses aspire to become Holo-Men,
and pride themselves on emulating their inhumane detachment.✧
Royal
Bank of Galatea
established in moon’s spaceport to fund fleet construction. Holds
unmatched wealth in Second Dark Age art, imperial treasury bonds, and
██████.
✧ Android noncompliance incident rate rising by █ month over month, in loose correlation with shipments from ███████.
⧮ Mnemosyne
Station
Constructed
and administered by the Royal Navy of the Federal Kingdom of Sirius.
Integrated jump gate, heavy military cordons. Imperial naval
shipyard and base - all
traffic must be sanctioned by local admiralty. Population ~5,000
permanent support staff, ~25,000 naval personnel, docking capacity
██.
✧
Under
administration of Admiral
Viktoria Zakharova of
the Siriac Royal Navy’s Nova Fleet. Highly decorated in the
Periphery Wars, but took heavy casualties at the Battle of Gamma
Sculptoris III and was ultimately forced
to retreat by
Costia Coriolis.
✧
Most non-military personnel on station are part of an archeological
dig excavating potential relics of a long-dead civilization in
Mnemosyne's atmosphere.
✧
████████████████████████████████████████████
Grey/Purple-class
dwarf planet, ice-cold, in eccentric elliptical orbit.
Potentially
a captured rogue planet. Vivarium House Sculptoris’ local satellite
campus. While established less than a decade ago, enrolment is already highest in the sector.✧
Affiliated
with the Federal Kingdom of Sirius, unable to settle any world closer
to star because of strained relations with current Cephei government.✧
Governing
council is research-focused, with the primary goal
of ███████.
Advancing psychic research at startling rate.
✧
███████████████████████████████████████████████████✧
█████████████████████████████████████████████████████
???
HESIOD ASH ???
REDACTED
REDACTED REDACTED DO NOT APPROACH. QUARANTINE ENFORCED WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.✧
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████✧
████████████████████████████████████████████████✧
█████████████████████████████████████████████████████
Oh this is /fantastic/. The conflicts, the symbols, the redactions, perfection.
ReplyDeleteYeah this is so damn good. Dan brought me here and I am so happy about it.
ReplyDeleteWhere do the color grades for the planets come from?
the color grades are from my post here https://crateredland.blogspot.com/2021/02/one-roll-space-exploration.html, linked in the first paragraph!
DeleteAaaah damn that is embarrassing. Can I say I was so sucked in by the content that I missed it?...
Delete