The Ironstar Sector: Planets and Factions

Below is the current map for the sector the game will be set in, called the Ironstar Sector by most, or Sector 164 by a select few. Pardon the odd numbering system. Every star system on the map has one inhabited world surrounding it, and each dotted line represents the publically available trails and interstellar highways for easy travel, going to and from any star along an unmapped route is a dangerous endeavor.

Star systems bordered in red belong to the Ironstar Consortium, the dominant culture of the sector, a tremendous collection of corporations and oligarchs forming a plutocracy where culture is determined by the highest bidder, and anything can be found for a price. Everyone has something to offer, and everyone needs something. The Consortium has wealth, power, and an endless supply of people hoping to climb the social ladder.

Systems bordered in magenta are the foothold of the United Galactic Protectorate (UGP) in this sector, a large pseudo-military organization from a neighboring sector that clings to the old ways of technology, seeking to unite all of humanity and alien kind under its banner to usher in a golden age of prosperity and peace through scientific advancement and understanding; though having a little firepower also doesn't hurt.

The systems bordered in Cyan belong to the Vespari Empire. To call them an empire in decline would be a disservice; make no mistake, traveller, they have fully fallen from greatness. No greater social stratification exists in the Vespari Empire, either you are a jaded aristocrat of old wealth, or you are a dirt farming peasant. What they lack in cohesion and ships, they make up for in secrets and credits.

Finally, systems bordered in green belong to the Athenian Liberation Front (ALF), a rebellion against the powers that be within the sector that now exists as an independant entity, naming itself after the ancient Greeks of old Terra, they exist in their current form as a matriarchal band of space pirates that sees the Ironstar Consortium and the Vespari Empire, and the men that control them, as the root of all evil. While they lack wealth and many connections (being seen by many as an overgrown terrorist group), their fleets of marauders are nothing to scoff at. That said, some among them (and other groups) conduct clandestine trade along their frontier.

Systems not bordered in any color are not considered owned by any faction for one reason or another, but are coveted nonetheless.

Below are descriptions of each system/planet sorted by their allegiance, with the independent planets being last.

The Ironstar Consortium

12: Kartikeya

Named for an old Earth deity, and the pre-calamity corporation which took his name, Kartikeya exists at the frontier of the Ironstar Consortium, still controlled by that very company which retains the use of many of its most advanced factories, able to create weapons, ships, and other advanced feats of engineering which will happily be sold to the highest bidder. The system is swarming with pirates, militias, gangs, privateers, and terrorists of all stripes, barely policed save for the core planet and its bustling factories.

15: Oberon

A planet inhabited mostly by millions of robots, rendered almost totally uninhabitable by Castor's planet-killing weapon. With the few human survivors left underground in smoggy early-industrial cities, burning coal for warmth and eating whatever processed food they can scrounge up or trade for, the robots of the surface enjoy their newfound liberation, and in the meantime have discovered the joys of culture, art, and capitalism. Building great cities not made by or for mankind's comfort, they will happily trade with offworlders, hence their membership in the Ironstar Consortium. Oberon's atmosphere is invasive, eating through even sealed suits, and nothing carbon based can survive on the surface.

18: Eden's Landing

Eden's Landing is home to the greatest feats of terraforming in the sector, with several companies building large habitats on the surface and creating a variety of human-compatible environments, and a few more exotic ones. The planet has also become home to a large variety of refugees from the planets Castor and Pollux looking to escape the bounds of their interstellar cold war and find new life on the outside. While largely comfortable, few "natives" actually live here, but still the planetary engineering corporations run wild making a patchwork paradise.

19: Ironstar Prime/New Terra

The heart of the Ironstar Consortium, this sector's star has died out and lost all of its energy, having gone through iron death. In a feat of Pre-Scream engineering, the scientists of that era somehow altered the system's largest gas giant to make it go hot, allowing it to output some warmth and function as a new, if dim, sun for its many moons. With the original rocky planets left uninhabitable, Ironstar Prime (or New Terra as it's informally called by many) is inhabited by billions of people spread out among dozens and dozens of moons, each with their own cities and towns. Many replicate old Earthen cultures or newer subcultures, such as the Vespari diaspora. Here, money flows like water in the space stations and great domed cities that dot each moon like dewdrops.

20: "El Dorado" or "The Scrapheap"

Referred to by name only sarcastically, the actual name for this world is long lost. A large, cold, lifeless rock, this entire planet once belonged to someone else, maybe early colonists lost from the records, maybe the Vespari, but whoever they were they seem to have disappeared. Covered in ruins defended by death traps, alien fauna, and the occasional greedy lunatic, this is where many go to seek their fortune sorting through ancient rubble and machinery.

22: Järnvalv

Järnvalv is where the waters of Ironstar's wealth comes to freeze and thaw in the frigid bergs of business and banking. The entire system is dominated by bureaucracy, with the sector's largest stock exchange, brutalist architecture, and Pre-scream transmission technology making sure every check and balance, every credit, every decimal, is fully accounted for. Barring the FTL radio stations that make their homes here (and most of those are still pundits, ad-mills, and Stock Stations), Järnvalv is where fun goes to die. The planet is also home to some of the most dreary weather in the sector, always dark, rainy, and stormy in its grey rain-slicked alleys. This is also the primary port for the Ironstar Consortium's trade with the United Galactic Protectorate.

The United Galactic Protectorate

23: Anvika-163

Named for the starship captain who landed here, Anvika-163 is a frigid world far from its bright star. While comfortable enough to settle on, the fauna are large and hostile enough, and the resources deep enough under thick permafrost and bedrock, that a few lucky conservationists were able to convince the Ironstar Consortium that it simply wasn't worth colonizing. The UGP has thus far respected this mandate, speaking with those conservationists and even taking a few under its wing, but they do use the world as a stepping stone into the sector, with a large space station and a small observational outpost on a scarcely inhabited mountain on the world below. The ideals of the UGP are unique within the sector, and there has been much pushback among the ruling powers, but still the UGP continues to strive for social change, though careful to avoid physical conflict. The political officials of Anvika-163 and its space station are all chosen via a lengthy battery of tests, largely selecting bright scientists and philosophers.

The Vespari Empire

9: Pennsylvania 2

A system in constant fear, the colony on Pennsylvania was Vesparica's last hope to find a new home, settling on a forested moon orbiting a gas giant, they made one fatal flaw. The orbit of the moon renders it pitch black for decades at a time, and the atmosphere is just too thin for human respiration, being mostly nitrogen. With the ark ship having survived, hundreds of millions have still managed to erect large fortress-cities in the great darkened forests of Pennsylvania 2, fearing what lives among the alabaster trees. With barely functioning hydroponics and oxygen filters, the silver cities of Pennsylvania 2 are monuments to Vespari hubris.

10: Vesparica

The doomed homeworld of the Vespari empire, while there are still millions living here under an uncomfortably bright sun, most live in a state of squalor, a planet of nation states well behind the sector's level of modern technology, with most of the planet being dotted with medieval serfdoms, while sickly aristocrats throw lavish parties in opulent towers and command an even more corrupt military with the best technology available. The reasons for Vesparica's original collapse are unknown, but the planet is largely bereft of natural resources and heavy metals

16: Xanadu

An even bigger disaster than Pennsylvania 2, this planet's ark of refugees also crashed, a silvery monument on this lush jungle world. The atmosphere is breathable, but thick with a natural sort of smog which leaves the planet one tremendous hothouse. Most of the original colonists didn't make it, and many of those that did were picked off by the native wildlife. The few remaining descendents converted their ruined arkship into a huge palace for their descendants who, while small in number, live in relative luxury with food replicators, an engineered atmospheric bubble, and a wealth of entertainment. Outside of Xanadu, the locals are considered a bit of an oddity; visitors coming to Xanadu, however, are accepted if they can bring something new and interesting to assuage the locals' ennui

The Athenian Liberation Front

2: New Athens

A fierce rebellion trying to go legitimate, the Athenian Liberation Front has claimed this planet as their core world, a temperate little planet perfectly comfortable, now home to hundreds of millions. New Athens styles itself after Ancient Greece with a few choice alterations, with each and every free woman being allowed a vote in a planetwide democracy. Infighting leaves social change stunted and slow, but far from the front where bands of ALF freedom fighters still wage war on the oppressive forces of the Ironstar Consortium and the Vespari Ghouls, life on New Athens is quiet enough.

4: Acheron

Though claimed and policed by the Athenian Liberation Front, the planet of Acheron as it is currently known is actually under a mandated quarantine, home to a strange hazard only formally known to the militaries of every major faction save the UGP, though all manner of horrible things are hypothesized. This backwater little sector is dangerous to all but the most heavily armed and escorted, and all but inaccessible to all but the most advanced ships by modern standards.

5: Ligia

The key front in the Athenian War of Liberation, Ligia is the bottleneck for travel to the rest of the sector. Millions live on the planet and in space stations, tense and armed to teeth in spartan facilities. While dangerous, the Athenian military is not as united as its governors would like, and clever, daring, and passionate spacefarers can often find soldiers, and even commanding officers, willing to fight for cause and coin as mercenaries, so long as it's not in support of their bitter enemies.

Independent Planets

1. Fjord's Founding

No publically available rutters exist to reach Fjord's Founding, a planet originally established by Scandinavian pioneers who found a planet rich in the elements used to create Spike Drives for ships. They use their remaining manufactories to create the most advanced drives in the sector, which they sell to the highest bidder with the understanding that they will be left alone. Toiling under a green-black sky, their planet is said to be as icy as their demeanors, and locals and traders have an incredible dislike and fear of psychics, whom they see as responsible for the collapse of the old Terran Mandate, and out of fear that some telepath will steal trade secrets.

6: Aljialidia

Largely ignored by the Athenian Liberation Front and the Ironstar Consortium alike, Aljialidia is a planet of ice and permafrost. The natives, settled here long, long before the Scream, dwell by the millions in huge "icebox cities," whose metal hulls melt and tunnel through the ice and independently contain everything the citizens need. Though the cities themselves are connected by communications relays, to date they have made no attempt to launch any satellites or space stations, a rarity in the sector. They do, however, occasionally form large groups between multiple of these iceboxes and combine various resources to launch small Spike-enabled ships for trade with the wider sector.

7: Asbestos

The Ironstar Consortium calls this planet "The Contained Autonymous Synthetic Warzone," but most call it by its Athenian moniker, Asbestos. This place is the result of an ancient war between human colonists and machines, and the humans lost. Its atmosphere is filled with invasive nanites that will chew through even the most armored vacuum suits, and the system itself is filled with unreasoning artificial intelligences who shoot at anything fleshy. Luckily they don't seem too keen on expanding.

8: Kalisznia

An old colony on a moon orbiting a hot giant, Kalisznian culture has regressed to a pseudo-Victorian society, technology and all. Several million live in a great domed city, outside of which is a barren wasteland brimming with untapped resources. Unfortunately for them, however, the moon's only native life are bacteria which cause all manner of strange illnesses hard to treat even by modern standards. For this reason, and for general lack of interest, travel here is rare save for pirates dwelling in the shadows of the system.

13: Castor

Locked in an eternal cold war with their neighboring system Pollux, a botched colonization has left Castor scarcely inhabited by neolithic tribes of humans living among the ruins of marvelous technology. While they cannot build or repair most of it, they worship the old technology and whoever holds the most of it rules any given group. Unfortunately, Castor is home to a weapon of planet-destroying power, built into the structure of the world itself by its original, likely Vespari, settlers. Several planets have fallen victim to this weapon already, making diplomacy difficult. Many are content to leave Castor well alone, with the occasional refugee finding their way off by stealing a ride from an unsuspecting missionary, pirate, or humanitarian, or some genius among them miraculously fixing an older ship.

14: Pollux

Pollux seeks only reunification with its sister planet Castor, even after hundreds of years of cold war. Dealt a glancing blow from Castor's planet-destroying weapon, the atmosphere has been left incredibly corrosive, with only a few million surviving in mountain strongholds above the dangerous clouds. Its government is slow and ineffective, made up of squabbling intellectuals who only take breaks from their bickering to repair the machines which account for every citizen's needs. They have no interest in joining the Ironstar Consortium, but both the Consortium and the Athenian Liberation Front want Pollux, perhaps to learn how to control Castor's weapon.