[2400AD] Worlds of the League (Part 2)

[rfmcdonald]

[King]: This massive superterrestrial world of DM+2 3312 a is Earth-like only because of its dense nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere and its broadly Earth-like biosphere; its atmospheric pollution, the inimicable nature of its multicellular organisms, and above all the crushing gravity makes it impossible to colonize using biological organisms. If it was not for [King]'s unique biosphere and its abundant tantalum reserves, the world might not have been settled at all. After an examination of the possibility of engineering colonists, the South American Community settled the world with cybershell-inhabiting AIs beginning in the 2210's. Currently, some 14 million individuals--almost entirely AIs--live on [King], involving themselves with supervising mining operations and biological research. The planet and its orbital space have been organized since 2321 as an extrasolar member-state of the South Atlantic Community.
[Dawes]: On close survey, this terrestrial world was recognized as a prime subject for ecopoesis, lacking only a sufficiently warm temperature to be an Earth-like world. From the 2320's, a pseudo-Cerean society has existed in various planetary and orbiting habitats, its colonists (primarily Colombian and Angolan humans) overseeing the manufacture of heat-retaining chlorofluorocarbons on the planet and orbital mirrors in space. Notable success was seen by the early 24th century, at which point a cold-adapted biosphere incorporating Earth, Martian, and Tiranean organisms was put in place. [Dawes] is currently a moderately Earth-like world, breathable to people who have been modified to tolerate the relatively cool climate and the high carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. Dawes' population of 28 million people is largely descended from the original colonists, with smaller minorities of [King]-derived incorporated AIs and Vilani.
Titicaca: DM5 3409 A b is a tidelocked world closely orbiting its red dwarf primary. It is notable for the fact that its habitable areas are limited to the twilight zone (barely 550 kilometres wide), and for the fact that this zone is encircled almost entirely by a deep body of water, the "world canal" (the canal del mundo) which lies just beyond the habitable zone on the dark side. A relatively marginal Earth-like world isolated on its discovery on a spur of the South American Arm, it was settled only thinly in the 2240's by a motley assortment of ethnic minorities from the South Atlantic Community including southern African Khoisan, Surinamese and Trinidadian Indians, and Guyanese Creoles. Titicaca was a minor extrasolar dependency of the South Atlantic Community until the development of stutterwarp technology in the late 2290's allowed the DM+5 3409 system to be used as a jumping-off point to the back door route, leading to Ylii space. In the Second Kafer War, Erie was a major staging area for the various military forces of the South Atlantic and Pacific Arms, and since the introduction of Eber stutterwarp it has enjoyed a modest prosperity as the first naturally habitable world on the route to Ylii space.
Mares fríos: DM+5 3409 B b, on discovery, was a marginally non-Earth-like world; although there were occasionally shirtsleeve temperatures on the planet's equatorial zone and the atmosphere could be breathed with a compressor, indigenous life (showing basic genetic similarities to that of Titicaca) was limited to simple ecologies of micro-organisms, while the world's oceans changed from being water-dominated at the equator to being carbon dioxide-dominated at the poles. After the Second Kafer War, however, the establishment of regular trade on the Back Door route to Ylii space encouraged the South Atlantic Community to consider ecopoeticizing the world using methods similar to those used on [Dawes]. Modern Mares fríos is still a marginally habitable world; although landmasses in the equatorial zone nowhave consistently shirtsleeves environment and the sublimation of the polar carbon-dioxide oceans has created a heat-retaining atmosphere, the introduction of a relatively complex biology has been delayed by the unexpected hostility of the native micro-organisms to many of the more complex organisms introduced by the ecopoeticizers. There are seven large domed areas in equatorial regions with Earth-like ecologies; of these, three domes are maintained by the South Atlantic Community, with a combined population between them of some 800 thousand people, one maintained by the Sung with some 250 thousand people, and three maintained by the Ylii with 900 thousand residents.
New Santiago: The tiny desert world of New Santiago, only world of its red dwarf primary, serves as a kind of trade nexus for commodities travelling between the sub-arms and in and out of the arm proper. The jointly sponsored base on the planet's surface houses a large array of warehouses, corporate and otherwise. The entire surface facility is either domed or subterranean, since New Santiago has only a trace carbon dioxide atmosphere.
Hermes: Mu Herculis a, on discovery, was an unhospitable world: Not only was it one of the coldest Earth-like planets discovered, but Hermes' indigenous life has its base in dextro-amino acids and is, therefore, indigestable by humans. In the 23rd century, the world's sparse human settlement was concentrated in a narrow temperate band circling the equator, with a planetary economy. Early 24th century plans to ecopoetize the equatorial zone were complemented by heavy Vilani immigration from the 2330s to the present. Hermes became an extrasolar member-state of the South Atlantic Community in 2339; its population of 12 million is equally divided between Lusophones and Vilani, with smaller minorities of Hispanophones and Ylii.
Vega: This massive star's protoplanetary disk supports extensive pseudo-Cerean settlement, but the Vega planetary system is important mainly as a jumping off point for further travel, to Bolivar and the 61 Cygni Sector to spinward and to the Beta Aquilae Sector to trailing. Eight of the largest self-sustaining habitats have confederated to form a semi-independent state linked with the South Atlantic Community, but the Community maintains refuelling and military stations of its own.
Red Speck: In the 2250's, a small way station was built on a small moon orbitting one of an unusual pair of binary gas giants in the outer system. The facility was greatly expanded when first Bolivar then the 61 Cygni Sector were opened up. The binary gas giant system has attracted much research.
Bolivar: One of the South Atlantic Community's greatest achievements, Bolivar is the Community's model world. 12 850 kilometres in diameter, Bolivar is the closest of a family of three planets in orbit about the red dwarf star AC+48 1595 89. When Bolivar was first surveyed in 2223, it was found to be a garden world in decline, with large, growing stretches of desert choking off a scattered family of land-locked seas. A remarkable reclamation program, spearheaded by the Argentina Farmer's Cooperative, halted and slowly reversed the downhill slide of the world's ecosystem. Today, the population of Bolivar--some five million people, mixed equally between Hispanophones and Lusophones with a large Vilani minority--is clustered about the perimeters of many of the planet's seas, which serve as the centres for the irrigation networks which spread out to nurture the growing Earth-type ecologies implanted on the surface. Many towns and sensitive new ecologies are protected by giant artificial wind breaks to protect them from the tremendous winds generated in the vast, flat, barren zones. Currently, Cerean immigrants in the outer AC+48 1595 89 planetary system are being contracted to move large Kuiper-belt objects to close orbits of Bolivar, with the ambitious aim of reintroducing lost water to the planet's surface. Bolivar is an extrasolar member-state of the South Atlantic Community.
Ross 863: Though the extensive halo of asteroids and cometary debris here was once the focal point of support operations for the South Atlantic Community's colonial operations, its facilities have since dwindled to nearly nil. The Ross 863 outpost is an asteroidal nugget; its activities center primarily around the operation of the ISPIB dish nestled in its side.
Maracaibo: The third of nine planets circling the K7 star of DM+33 2777, Botany Bay is the site of the first solely South Atlantic Community colonial effort on an Earth-like world. The planet's surface is unusually smooth, exhibiting maximum surface elevation extremes of only a couple of kilometers; consequently, 90% of the world's surface is covered by a shallow, muddy ocean, and land masses are restricted to a scattering of fairly small islands. Maracaibo quickly developed over the 23rd century into a prosperous colony world, largely Hispanophone by population, which became an extra-solar member-state of the South Atlantic Community in 2291. Modern Maracaibo is a prosperous world home to some 37 million people; unlike other worlds in the South Atlantic Arm, most of the inhabitants of Maracaibo are humans who trace their ancestry back to immigrants who came directly from the Community's Earthly territories.
[Kingsland]: When it was first visited in the 2340's, the world of Zeta Herculis A d was a glacial world; thin temperate equatorial regions were girded by vast expanses of tundra, and [Kingsland]'s polar regions were dominated by vast ice caps that locked up most of the world's water. The world was considered a prime candidate for ecopoesis, and beginning in the 2370s genetically-engineered native bacteria were seeded on the ice caps, altering the albedo by virtue of their dark colour and releasing carbon dioxide. A feedback cycle quickly took over, and by the 2310s [Kingsland] had become a cold temperate world, with large equatorial oceans. The world was neglected, however, by the opening of La Plata to settlement; most of the world's residents are of Colombian, Venezuelan, and Peruvian descent, having arrived in the 2320s. The sparse population of seven million is scattered in the equatorial regions, but there are large populations living in habitats in the polar regions and in the depths of the oceans.



[Highland]: The colonization of the temperate Earth-like world of DM+38 3095 a was delayed by the hostile native life forms known as the ravvers, which infested the world's temperate zones. Settlement was only achievable with the discovery of the ravvers' sensitivity to electrical fields; large areas were fenced of for future settlements. Beginning in the 2300's, a collection of ethnic-separatist societies from across the South Atlantic Community--Afrikaners from South Africa, Hindus from Surinam and Trinidad, Brazilian and Angolan Muslims, and Chilean Mapuche--were implanted on the world's surface. Currently, the four colonies (with a combined population of just under one million people) are self-governing colonial territories of the Community.
Avalon: In the 2260's, the Australasian Federation--aided by the South Atlantic Community--planted its first extrasolar colony in a century on the surface of DM+51 2402 a. Although Avalon orbited a mildly-unstable pair of close-orbiting stars (one an orange dwarf, the other a red dwarf), it was remarkably Earth-like, notable for its relatively uniform global temperates (the difference between the poles and the equator is less than five degrees Celsius) and by its omnipresent cloud cover and humidity. In the 2260s and 2270s, the Federation spared no expense in shipping some 200 thousand colonists and their accompanying supplies to this world; the Federation's goal was to create a self-sustaining industrial economy that could serve as a base for future expansion to the mineral-rich world of Alighieri in neighbouring DM+45 2668. In 2278, however, Federation elections placed a Liberal-Nanosocialist coalition in power which drastically reduced the massive expenditures; Avalon declared independence in retaliation, and received general recognition in 2280, at the cost of ceding claims to the Alighieri planetary system to the South Atlantic Community. Avalon subsequently prospered through supplying the Community's colonial efforts on neighbouring [Highland] and Alighieri. The introduction of Eber stutterwarp drive to Avalon in 2308 allowed Avalon, with its substantial industrial base, to develop its won small interstellar presence; the acquisition in the late 2320s of Vilani jump drive made Avalon a true power. From the 2320s on, Avalon received a constant stream of immigrations, from Australasia, from Community colony worlds, and from Nakulakak Sector. Modern Avalon is a thriving planet-state home to 23 million people; groups of Melanesian and Vilani descent together form a bare majority, but there are smaller Australasian, Balinese, Polynesian, and Pakéha minorities. The dominant ethos is one of energetic mercantile expansion throughout the coreward half of the League and beyond, with some fear of neighbouring Alighieri.
Alighieri: The tidelocked glacier world of DM+45 2668 a was originally ceded to Australasia, but with Avalon's declaration of independence it reverted to the South Atlantic Community in 2280. The Community tried to encourage settlement, but the world's difficult conditions limited Alighieri's appeal; many settlers were recruited elsewhere, whether as incorporated AIs from [King], colonists from [Dawes], or even Cereans from the Sol and Barnard's Star planetary systems. In 2308, Alighieri's planetary government declared its independence from the Community in response to the Community's decision to withdraw its fleet presence from the Alighieri Arm; the Community accepted this independence only in 2311. Since independence, Alighieri has been an isolationist planet-state, even after absorbing some three million Vilani refugees (rumoured, it is suggested, to have been selected at the Beta Aquilae processing centres for their technophilia). Alighieri life is dominated by a radically technophilic plan of self-enhancement with uncertain long-range goals; nanotechnology and related technologies have apparently advanced enormously without any League restrictions on research being enforced, as evidenced by the gradual ecopoesis of Alighieri, the construction of vast solar-power arrays in near-stellar orbit, and the beginnings of large-scale antimatter generation. More, Alighieri's citizens appear to have abandoned traditional concepts of human bioethics, cloning themselves and copying their consciousnesses to multiple platforms without restrictions. So far, League intervention has been forestalled only by the Alighieri government's complete disinterest in interstellar affairs; Avalon, however, has built a moderately-large planetary defense network just in case.



Okeanos: Delta Aquilae c was known to be a predominantly oceanic world as early as the 22nd century, thanks to long-range telescopic examination from Sol system. It was not until the arrival of the first probe in 2282 that Okeanos was confirmed to be almost entirely a water world--with a diameter 10% larger than Earth, Okeanos' land masses (a single large volcanic island, Nueva Galapagos, with outliers) amounted to a mere half-million square kilometers. Further research in the 2280s further confirmed that while Okeanos' world ocean once supported a vast and complex biosphere, a series of devastating impacts with Kuiper-belt objects reduced the biosphere to scattered deep sea vent habitats and microbial ecologies. Okeanos was slated for ecopoesis, with the intent of allowing water-adapted Community citizens--genetically-engineered humans along with uplifted cetaceans and cephalopods--a self-governing colony world of their own. The first colonies on Okeanos were implanted on Nueva Galapagos in 2303; the colonization of Okeanos' oceans only began in the 2310s following the partial implantation of an Earth-like aquatic ecologies on Nueva Galapagos' continental shelf. In the 2330's, Okeanos' planetary government succeeding in getting the South Atlantic Community to place immigration to Okeanos and the Delta Aquilae planetary system under its control; this spared Okeanos the massive Vilani immigration that affected La Plata and Delta Aquilae, and allowed Okeanos to progress to independence within the South Atlantic Community as an extrasolar member-state in 2346. The modern residents of Okeanos--numbering some four million people, including a half-million cetaceans of various species, one million humans (equally divided between water- and air-breathers), two million squid, and large resident populations of Ylii and Sung--enjoy a pleasant lifestyle. Okeanos has recently begun to consider ecopoeticizing and colonizing the ice moons of Delta Aquilae d.
La Plata: Beta Aquilae d was first visited by the South Atlantic Community manned probe VSCAS _San Martín_ in 2281. Community colonial planners were overjoyed to find this world, almost as Earth-like in its vast oceans and temperate land masses as Tirane or Beta Canum; the only factor delaying Beta Aquilae d's colonization was its extreme distance from Earth. Nonetheless, by the thrid decade of the 24th century waves of immigration from across the Community--from Earth, from Tirane, and from the South Atlantic Arm proper--had arrived, making La Plata a thriving world home to some nine million people. When the Vilani merchanter _Danulak_ arrived in the Beta Aquilae system in 2322 just several million kilometres away from La Plata, the world took on an entirely new role as the League's gateway to the Ziru Sirka. By the 2330s La Plata had become one of the wealthiest worlds in human space thanks to its location at the beginning of the Silk Road, attracting immigrants from across the League and the Ziru Sirka's Nakulakak sector. The implosion of the rimward Ziru Sirka was a major blow to the world, as was the subsequent arrival and resettlement of almost 25 million Vilani refugees from rimward Nakulakak. Modern La Plata has recovered from these blows and has become a major presence throughout the interface of League and Vilani space, both as an economic presence and as a jumping-off point for League expansion. In a 2378 referendum, La Plata's population voted by a margin of two-to-one in favour of independence within the League. The world--exercising sovereignty over the entire Beta Aquilae planetary system, and operating sovereign outposts in a dozen nearby red-dwarf and brown-dwarf planetary systems--is a planetary union of 41 sovereign states. Most of these states are cosmopolitan in population, with French, Portuguese, and High Vilani being the main languages, but there are some ethnic states as well (three Vilani, three Lusophone, one Sung, one Peruvian, and one West African).



Kiyomori (61 Cygni A a): The innermost world of 61 Cygni A a had been known to host a marginal Earth-like biosphere from the early 21st century, but it wasn't until after the development of stutterwarp tug technology by the Japanese in the 2280s that the system and its sole habitable world was visited. Despite initial Japanese hopes that Kiyomori could become an important Japanese colonial world, the extreme eccentricity of Kiyomori's orbit and the low oxygen content of the planet's thin atmosphere discouraged settlement. Above Kiyomori, however, some two million people--mostly Japanese citizens, but including large populations from across the League--live in several dozen self-sustaining habitats which exist for the sole purpose of refuelling ships heading to points deeper into the 61 Cygni from Sol and Alpha Centauri via Barnard (and vice versa).
[] and []: Eta Cassiopeiae A b and Mu Cassiopeiae A a were known to be Earth-like worlds as early as the 21st century, but Sung astronomers were likewise familiar of these two planet's generally pleasant environments as early as the 17th century. When the Sung acquired Eber stutterwarp technology in 2304, they were quick to claim the Eta Cassiopeiae and Mu Cassiopeiae planetary systems as exclusive Sung possessions. In the subsequent centuries, massive Sung investment and immigration has turned these two planetary systems into some of the most heavily populated and densely-industrialized systems in the League, with more than 1 100 million inhabitants between the two (most on the two systems' habitable worlds of [] at Eta Cassiopeiae and [] at Mu Cassiopeiae). The Cassiopaeiae systems collectively dominate the interstellar economy of the 61 Cygni Sector.
Beidaihe: The Chinese planted their colony at Sigma Draconis a, with extensive Japanese and Thai technical support, in 2309. A largely oceanic world, Beidaihe's colony was placed on a large archipelago in the northern temperate zone; China sponsored other settlements, including non-sovereign Eber and Thai colonies near the Chinese archipelago, and a semi-sovereign Sung enclave in the southern hemisphere archipelago. The Sigma Draconis system served as a waypoint for Vilani refugees being resettled in the 61 Cygni Sector, but few Vilani immigrants chsoe to stay. Of Beidaihe's total population of nine million, five million are Chinese citizens.
New Mars: The world of DM+63 229 a was claimed by the Martian Federation in 2315. This world--a generally Mars-like world with, however, a relatively dense carbon dioxide atmosphere and much larger polar ice caps--was selected as Mars' outpost in the 61 Cygni Sector, to demonstrate Mars' skill with ecopoesis. Equipped with advanced nanotechnologies purchased from Cerean colonies in outer Sol system, the Martian colony progressed by leaps and bounds, soon attracting immigrants not only from Mars but from across the 61 Cygni Sector and even the Pacific Arm. New Mars' government also welcomed Vilani refugees, granting them automatic citizenship. New Mars' population of 19 million people live on a world that is passably Earth-like, with water oceans covering 45% of the planet's surface, an Earth-like distribution of climatic zones, a dense atmosphere breathable with respirators (or biological modification), and a biosphere rapidly growing in strength, New Mars is a great success.
DM+63 229 b: This terrestrial world, located like New Mars in the DM+63 229 planetary system, orbits on the fringes of the system's life zone. Ecopoesis is theoretically possible--indeed, given the near-global glaciation of the world and its dense atmosphere it could be made into an Earth-like world with external support, but this process has been hampered by the division of the planet into more than a dozen different sovereign states. There has been an on-going terrorist conflict between the world's Cerean and Vilani populations precipitated by border disputes; Chinese and Martian mediation has failed to end the conflict, or to establish a planetary government capable of organizing ecopoesis.
Lagash: DM+61 366 a was claimed by China in 2313, but the world's extreme distance and hostile conditions kept any substantial number of Chinese immigrants from settling on this world. In the 2350s, China unilaterally decided to cede this world to a well-organized group of Vilani refugees. On arrival in 2354, the Vilani declared the existence of a sovereign planet-state of Lagash; Lagash became a full member-state of the League in 2361. Almost all of the world's population of four million people are ethnically Vilani; although the Vilani caste system did not survive, Lagash's government is attempting to restore the corporate structure of the Ziru Sirka in the DM+61 366 planetary system.
Dingir: TIOC and China claimed the glacial world of DM+63 238 b in 2313, but the overwhelmingly hostile climate discouraged immigration from either claimant. In the 2350s, the world was granted to Vilani refugees from Nakulakak as a new homeworld; these refugees, who named the planet Dingir, were given extensive technological and economic aid to help them establish themselves and their new planet-state and to begin the slow process of ecopoesis. Current conditions on Dingir are harsh, but the planet's climate has warmed sufficiently to create a cold but habitable area around the planet's equator; the world's five million inhabitants are almost purely Vilani, with small Chinese, Persian, and Marathi minorities.



The remarkably Earth-like world of DM -4 4225 c was deeded to the Ylii Associative in 2311 at the end of the Second Kafer War, in light of the prehistoric Ylii presence in this planetary system. Ssuushni'a (SS -27 6854 c) is the Ylii homeworld, and the heart of Ylii civilization. DK +32 2390 and DM -33 1023 contain the only Ylii colony worlds which avoided subjugation by the Kafer before the Second Kafer War, although both systems saw heavy fighting as Kafer forces retaliated against joint South Atlantic and Ylii attacks into Kafer space. The HC +25 1902 planetary system was conquered a generation prior to the First Kafer War, but it was liberated in 2310. The nearby HC -24 1124 planetary system held the homeworld of the Kafer suzerain of V'ded'ah, but the world was conquered at a very heavy cost to the Kafer civilian and military populations; the surviving Kafer are outnumbered eight-to-one by recent Ylii colonists, who are currently altering the world's climate to better suit the Ylii. In the realm of the suzrain Vakach*, the old Ylii colonies in the planetary systems of HC +3 1919, Oneil 723, and DK +21 6825 were liberated in 2311 and 2312, as was Vakach*'s homesystem of HC-4 9701; the Kafer populations of all four planetary systems have declined sharply since conquest while Ylii populations have been reestablished through direct migration from the unconquered Ylii systems. The reconquered Ylii planetary systems all have large human populations, drawn mainly from the South Atlantic Community and from Nakulakak sector; although minorities, these populations are known among the Ylii for their aggressive and mercantile nature, and are prized for their role in rallying the Ylii against the Kafer. The HC +3 1919 planetary system has served since the 2320s as the main League based against the Kafer to trailing; since the Third Kafer War, the Ylii have cautiously explored Kafer space from bases in this planetary system.