Centares (System)
 |
This article is a stub, meaning that is should be expanded.. You can help the Archives by adding to it |
| Centares | |
|---|---|
| |
| Astrographical Information | |
| Sector | Maldrood |
| Galactic Coordinates | (288, 213) |
| Suns | Centares Sun |
| Orbits | 7 Planets |
| Asteroid Fields | 1 Asteroid Field |
| Space Stations | 32 |
| Societal Information | |
| Affiliation | Tresario Star Kingdom |
| Astrographic Entry | Centares System |
The Centares System is located in the Maldrood Sector controlled by Tresario Star Kingdom.
Contents
History
Politics
Economy
Planets
Nizon
Astrographic entry: Nizon
The remains of a once verdant world, the Nizon of today is a burned, airless world of barren rock, scarred by meteor impact craters. It was not always so. As few as seven centuries ago, the planet was a green and growing world, home to its own sentient species, the Nazren, who although isolationist and resistant to the idea of modern development, were nonetheless possessed of their own unique culture, language and limited technology. This all changed when a massive solar flare from the system’s sun, larger than anything Republic astronomers had observed up to that point, and still the third largest flare and coronal mass ejection in recorded history hurled untold billions of cubic meters of plasma into space on a collision course with the planet.
Nizon’s moon, which was in the direct path of the jet, was obliterated but partially protected the planet, and as a result Nizon’s equatorial regions were merely burned down to the bedrock as the atmosphere boiled away, while the polar regions suffered the full brunt of the inferno and were reduced to a fused landscape of glass and crystal resembling the ice caps of many other planets. These so-called “glassiers” are both a tragic reminder of the planet’s past and a key reason why economic activity has resumed on the remains of the planet in the ensuing centuries.
The interaction of the solar flare and minerals in the planet’s crust in the polar zones caused the formation of a number of unique crystals as well as remarkable pure and strong glass, both of which are being commercially exploited by the numerous corporations that have recently invested in mining operations on Nizon. The removal of much soil during the solar catastrophe means that there are considerable savings on excavation costs. The lack of a need to engage in any kind of environmental conservation measures means that the cost of extracting raw materials from Nizon is significantly lower than on most other planets and many mining corporations, large and small, have established operations on the planet. The profusion of domed mining towns means that Nizon’s population is now higher than at any point in its recorded history, which leads to some strains on logistics and supply of food, water and essential supplies, with their accompanying tensions between settlements. Local and offworld supply chains have so far held up under the load, but there is no telling what would happen if supplies were disrupted for any length of time.
Centares
Astrographic entry: Centares
Centares has been a part of the galaxy’s documented history for a very long time. Some scholars have mentioned of Centares being part of the Kiirium Reaches conqured by Xim the Despot a century prior to the founding of the Galactic Republic. Although this was later disproved – the Kiirium Reaches being identified as the Ash Worlds – the fact that Centarian civilization is ancient is not in question. During the early years of the Clone Wars, the entire Maldrood sector, including Centares, joined the Separatists. This led to the Battle of Centares between the clone armies of the Republic and the Separatist’s droid troops which was inconclusive but resulted in the system remaining in Separatists hands.
Modern Centares is a prime example of global development done right. In urbanizing and building up the world, the Centares local government has balanced the needs of economic development and environmental preservation, making the planet the economic hub and breadbasket of the whole system. The planet boasts a gentle and varied climate, with polar ice caps, warm equatorial forests and a mighty central mountain range. The planet is blessed with an abundance of water, from flowing freshwater rivers and marshes to oceans teeming with fish and other marine creatures. Small areas of sandy desert are located in the rain shadow of the central mountain range, and are home to a number of mining towns that extract and process the silica into building materials for the rest of the planet.
Approximately three quarters of the planet’s surface has been urbanized, with glittering marble towers and glass fronted skyscrapers rising from what used to be mountains, plains and forests. Municipal developers have been careful to incorporate environmental protections and wildlife preservation methodologies such as environmental corridors between fragments of forest, stepped waterways to bypass dams and regular underpasses under highways, for animals to cross. In the mountains, where parts of the huge cities are built on giant repulsorlift platforms, many buildings include nesting boxes for birds and other flying animals. Every city includes giant greenhouse complexes, many on repulsorlift platforms to maximize the planetary volume devoted to food production. Centares’ equatorial oceans, both fresh and salt water, are intensely aquafarmed close to shore, but further out, natural ecosystems prevail, with large marine organisms living mostly as they would have millennia ago.
Space transport infrastructure is particularly well developed, with almost every city having facilities for the loading of heavy transport vessels. The floating greenhouse complexes and shoreline aquaculture centres together supply almost half the food production of the entire system. Many cities also include tall towers with networks of freight elevators to service multiple heavy freighters simultaneously. With this level of economic activity, there are proportionately fewer impoverished citizens. Almost anyone who wants to work can find work in the farms, aquaculture centers, freight warehouses and associated facilities.
Filo
Astrographic entry: Filo
Filo, like its two sister gas giants in the Centares system, serves as a vital hub of economic activity. The planet’s stormy atmosphere is littered with massive floating city platforms, each covered with factories, wind farms, recycling facilities, giant, domed farms, and other infrastructure. These floating cities, each sporting hundreds of repulsorlift generators and station-keeping thrusters support the planet’s massive population of factory workers, technicians, supervisors, production specialists, and others that drive the planet's economic engine. So as not to introduce unhealthy competition between planets, the system government introduced a series of laws regulating the type of industry that can be established on the three gas giant planets. In Filo’s case, the main industries are vehicle manufacturing, industrial equipment, and building components.
The closest planet to the system’s sun, Filo is frequently buffeted by solar winds and particle discharges from its star. Fortunately, the thick gaseous atmosphere serves to attenuate and dissipate most of the solar radiation. Filo’s cloud cities boast additional ray shielding to protect the inhabitants from the frequent bombardments of gamma- and x-rays from these solar phenomena. The planet itself has a solar day of twenty-seven hours, which is quite comfortable for most sentient species, although the solar year on Filo is quite short, at one hundred seventy-seven days. Being the closest planet to the Centares sun, average temperatures near the band of cloud cities are very high, averaging two hundred twenty standard degrees. The changing temperatures between day and night generate strong winds, which the population uses to generate most of the planet’s power requirements. Extensive wind farms are found on every city platform, projecting above, below, and to the side of the protective bubbles. The maintenance of these, as well as the production of spare parts, is a significant industry on the planet, employing as much as five percent of the working population.
Handling food production and distribution to feed the planet’s numerous inhabitants is a full-time activity that also occupies a large section of the working population, as it typically does on most inhabited gas giants. On Filo, food production is mainly concentrated in large agricultural domes on dedicated floating platforms, where a variety of fungi and hardy grains are grown with the aid of artificial lighting. Meat is largely imported from Centares, where massive herds of nerfs support the population of the entire system. Advanced waste recycling and purification systems provide an ample supply of fertilizer and artificial soil. Water supply is a major concern, and this is managed using a system of reservoirs aboard each city and a highly advanced water reclamation system that captures and recycles up to ninety percent of all water used in each city. Oxygen is also imported and combined with locally produced hydrogen in large production centers to produce drinkable water, which is stored in the reservoirs. Despite all this activity, only fifty percent of the population’s dietary needs can be produced locally, with the remainder needing to be imported.
Ithoon
Astrographic entry: Ithoon
Ithoon is a world mostly shrouded under a blanket of sulfur-hued ice many kilometers thick. The sixth planet from the system’s sun, Ithoon is cold enough that remaining outside a climate-controlled hab dome or powered craft would be a death sentence within as little as an hour. Breathing the planet’s cold, dry air would result in lung damage in half that time, despite the composition of atmospheric gasses being able to support oxygen-breathing life. The exception to this can be found around the planet’s other, equally hostile local terrain – fields of bubbling volcanic mud and flowing lava that stretch for hundreds of kilometers around the planet’s southern and equatorial regions. The air around these seismically active regions is breathable but stinks of rotten eggs due to the hydrogen sulfide, methane, and other gasses released from the molten rock and sucking tar pits. The bare rock surrounding the edge of the burning fields is covered in layers of yellow sulfur, red iron oxide, and other colorful minerals and makes for some quite spectacular vistas leading up to the edge of the ice sheet.
Life on Ithoon is harsh – only the hardy can survive here – but herds of tauntauns and other specialized cold-weather grazers can eke out a living on the lichens and mosses that can be found on the surface of the glaciers and on the borders of the burning fields. Solitary predatory wampas and small groups of other predators such as kintan striders hunt these herbivores and pose a danger to the villages and small cities of hardy survivors and adventurers that call Ithoon home. Indeed, in peak winter, some of the smaller cities require armed patrols to travel the city streets to clear our hungry predators that might have wandered in from the surrounding icy wastelands. In connection with this, Ithoon has some of the most liberal blaster laws in the galaxy, as well as one of the most widespread homemade blaster industries in this region of space.
Economically, Ithoon is a marginally viable world with an ore harvesting industry centered around the extraction of minerals, as well as cottage industries such as the production of furs, ivory and bone trinkets, and jewelry. Much of the planet’s vegetable matter comes from imported sources, particularly from Ithoon’s sister planet, Centares. There are a number of large greenhouse complexes in the larger cities, which can supply approximately twenty percent of the dietary needs of the population, but without imported fruits and vegetables, the populace would swiftly begin to suffer from shortages of critical nutrients. Fortunately, the system government has implemented a highly effective intra-system transportation network, as well as a system of tax incentives and subsidies to ensure that all the system’s planets are viable and habitable.
Ussuis
Astrographic entry: Ussuis
First planet from the Centares sun. Type III environment, thermal protective gear and breathing mask recommended.
Liotch Asteroid Belt
Astrographic entry: Liotch Asteroid Belt
A cluster of rocky debris charted long ago by interstellar navigators. Research teams have not yet collected any substantial data concerning the origin and composition of these objects. Pilots are urged to use extra caution.
Qasqi
Astrographic entry: Qasqi
Qasqi is the fourth planet in the Centares system and the largest. The planet’s slow rotation, a solar day lasting almost one thousand three hundred hours and a solar orbit lasting over sixty-two standard years, makes time seem to pass with glacial slowness on the planet. Like its sister gas giants, Filo and Far Qasqi, the planet also serves as one of the major industrial and manufacturing hubs for the entire system and boasts a heavy cover of cloud city platforms that envelop the planet. Much of the heavy manufacturing capacity in the system is concentrated on these three gas giants and the system government has divided the different manufacturing sectors among the three to avoid unhealthy competition. In Qasqi’s case, the planet’s factories, manufacturing centres and workshops produce ships, shipboard components, engines and propulsion systems. The planet also hosts significant ship repair and maintenance facilities, as might be expected from a large ship manufacturing centre.
Located relatively far from the system’s star, Qasqi’s swirling gaseous atmosphere is extremely cold. The multitude of cloud cities within its frigid atmosphere require constant and continuous heating to prevent the engines and repulsorlift generators from freezing. Local engineers extract combustible gas from the planet’s atmosphere to fuel the heating engines, thereby assuring an uninterrupted fuel supply and allowing the factories and industries to keep manufacturing costs down. Ships approaching any of the numerous cloud cities will be able to see glowing heating coils surrounding the platform’s lower levels. While this method of heating might be considered wasteful compared to completely sealing the platform in a climate-controlled shield, it is significantly cheaper.
Qasqi’s bluish purple-hued atmosphere has another interesting advantage for manufacturers. A small, but significant chemical difference in the tibannagas extracted here lends itself to bolts of a brilliant purple hue, quite different from the more common reds and blues produced using blaster gas sourced elsewhere. Several tibannagas refining corporations, most of them state-owned, extract and refine this gas and market it as a slight premium over gas that produces the more commonly coloured bolts. Certain government navies and independent ship operators have been known to willingly pay the additional cost in order to be able to differentiate the fire of their turbolasers from that of other ships, the better to spot the fall of shot in pitched engagements. While this does have the drawback of making their ships easily identifiable during space combat, the advantage of being able to easily see where their bolts are impacting is enough to justify the slight cost increase.
Far Qasqi
Astrographic entry: Far Qasqi
Seventh planet from the Centares sun. Type III gas giant.
