Grand Admiral, First Order Central Command
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To expand and develop the most populous world in the Tingel Arm, and create a distinct and interesting feel to a planet otherwise very scant on details.
- Image Credit: [x]
- Canon: Axxila
- Links:
- Planet Name: Axxila
- Demonym: Axxilan
- Region: Outer Rim - Tingel Arm
- System Name: Axxila
- System Features: Beyond the star, Axxil Major, there are five planets, of which the first (Axxila I) is an uninhabitable molten rock, and the last three are all gas giants. The planet Axxila (properly Axxila II) features an unusually high number of moons, asteroids, and other stable satellites in its immediate orbit and orbital path. Nearly all of these have been repurposed for some manner or another, whether it be asteroid mining, a Naval Patrol Base, trade station, or some other purpose. Of particular note is the large asteroid known as the ‘Gantry,’ hollowed out centuries ago and existing now as a massive space shipyard.
- Coordinates: 15, 10
- Major Imports: Foodstuffs, Ice, Raw Materials.
- Major Exports: Processed Materials and Goods.
- Gravity: Standard
- Climate: Heavily Controlled, prioritizing breathability over comfort (tends to run a little hot).
- Primary Terrain: Urban Hab Blocks
- Major Locations:
The Palace of Law: The seat of the Concord, the Palace of Law is a gargantuan complex dozens of miles across that lies right on the equatorial zone of the planet. Nearly the entire government functions out of this single complex, and it is ostensibly from here that Axxila is ruled. In practice the halls and passages of the Palace are a quagmire where justice stagnates and dies, and the Great Houses run things on the planet as they see fit. - The Spires: While all of Axxila is a marvel of technology, being a single planet-wide city, the Spires pierce the veil of fog and ascend to the the stars above. There are at least twenty such structures, each a monolith of authority and power for a Great House. Most are constantly being renovated and added on to, as no Chair wants to see his or her rival rise any higher.
- The Citadel: The ‘Spire’ of House Tregessar, the Citadel is not the largest, nor visually the most impressive of these megastructures, but it is the most fortified and most secure.
- Space Elevators: Four great elevators provide the main conduit for which raw materials are funneled to the planets surface, processed, and pushed back into orbit for export and sale. Given the vital importance of these structures to the welfare of all Axxilans, three of the elevators are owned by the Concord itself. The last is owned by House Majhellain, the shipwrights, and is a direct path to the command station ‘Port Wayfarer’ which manages nearly all the inter-system traffic.
- Port Wayfarer: The largest spaceport in Axxila is a massive mid-orbit construct tethered via space elevator to the planets surface. Almost 40% of all traffic flows through this one station. Owned by House Majhellain, the port is largely responsible for receiving bulk freighters and other large trade and merchant ships that move goods in bulk.
- Sioness Argenta Memorial Spaceport: Located in the Upper City, this is the largest spaceport actually on the planet, and sees roughly 19& of all traffic in-system. It is connected to the lower city via a series of large elevator and speeder taxi systems, and the Concord maintains a sizable permanent garrison to ensure stability and repel any incursions by gangs. Tramp freighters and smugglers tend to prefer this spaceport to Port Wayfarer, in no small part because of how much easier it is to bribe Concord Federales than Majhellain Enforcers.
- The Upper City: A more recent construction, the Upper City is suspended around gargantuan support columns (rivaled in size only by the Spires and space elevators) and is oriented towards the planet surface. The roofs and endless metal coverings that make up the top sections of miles of urban hab blocks and factories are the home of the working poor of Axxila. Largely exposed to the violent elements of a planet that regularly rages against the billions of denizens that destroyed it, the upper sections of the Hab Blocks are worn down and hazardous, to say nothing of the acid rain, and excessive amounts of radiation that bombard the planet. The 'repopulated' section of Axxila, there is much less control of the Upper City by the Great Houses and the Concord (beyond key locations). The population of the Upper City is employed as day laborers and for unskilled, expendable, and excessively hazardous jobs.
- The Lower City: The 'civilized' part of Axxila, this is the original city section built over many millennia and once clawed at the heavens. Now it faces the suspended Upper City, and is lit only artificially. Once the domain of the poor and unfortunate, people fled here en masse during the gulag plague, and by mostly sealing sections off managed to survive where the Upper City was nearly depopulated. Protected from most environmental hazards, breathing climate controlled air, and secured by the forces of the Great Houses, the majority of the population living here is those who directly and indirectly serve those corporate houses and the Concord. Their lives are relatively poor, but free of the pervasive violence and uncertainty of above.
- The Black Ring: Where the Lower City touches actual ground the soil is toxic and ruined from thousands of years of misuse. This land is mostly uninhabitable, but there are those who do survive. Dependent almost entirely on automated aid stations and the refuse dumped by both the Upper and Lower cities, the Black Ring is known to be incredibly hostile and the inhabitants are considered practically feral. Most will die young, only wondering at what magnificence can exist in the great durasteel bastions that tower over their very lives.
POPULATION
- Native Species: No sentients. Non-sentients long since extinct.
- Immigrated Species: Human, many others
- Population: Extremely Heavily Populated. Approximately 314 billion.
- Demographics: Human (61%) Various other species (39%)
- Primary Languages: Galactic Standard Basic
- Culture:
Society: Axxilan society is built around several key concepts, largely a merging of the aristocratic mentality of the ruling houses with a corporate mindset. Generally a stratified society, the people of Axxila are known for being hard-working, resilient, stoic, and resourceful. Roughly half the population is aligned with one of the Great Houses or another, and live in a status somewhere in between citizenship (with certain rights and obligations) and servitude (one does not simply leave a the service of a said houses). The other half of the population resides int he Upper City or lives in a status more akin to a 'permanent resident' than that of a citizen. - Government: The government of Axxila is known as the Concord, which exists essentially as a court of arbitration for the Great Houses. All real authority is vested in those organizations, each of which acts practically as a nation in of itself. Made up of representatives from all the Great Houses, the Concord is riven with discord and while it manages to govern things on a global scale it fails to be a check on the rampant abuses and authority of the Great Houses. The Concord maintains the Naval Patrol and local police force, known as the Gendarmerie. The current elected head of the Concord is one Atharet Goriot, who has made a great deal of effort in the past to actually act as source of justice and arbitration. He receives little support from any of the Great Houses, including his own.
- Daily Life: Daily life on Axxila is similar to that on any other city-planet, but with a certain harsher edge to it. It's overall just slightly less pleasant than Coruscant, for example. The air feels just a bit heavy, and most people will never see natural light unless they make an effort to. Think Blade Runner, I guess.
GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY
- Government: Corporate Oligarchy
- Affiliation: Dominion, but independently-minded.
- Wealth: Medium – Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a very few (the Great Houses), with the vast majority of the population living if not strictly impoverished lives, not strictly comfortable ones either. But most of the Great Houses reward loyalty, and there are many stories of common proles rising high in the corporate structure. They never reach the highest levels, of course. Proles will ever be proles.
- Stability: Medium – Personal freedom is generally high, the Great Houses and Concord have little concern for what the populace does in its spare time. There are few regulations on drugs, small arms, and other vices. Only those things which could severely disrupt the ceaseless churning of the factories and flow of goods through the space elevators is controlled by law and enforced by the Gendarmes. In the Upper City things are less stable, with gangs running things there is rather pervasive violence and almost no law.
- Freedom & Oppression: Axxilan’s tend to be a stoic lot, with the average citizen grumbling about the excesses of the Great Houses but also acknowledging their role in keeping the planet relevant and fed. The Chairs and Directors of the Great Houses are no fools either, they have been playing this game a long time and know how it works. As long as the people can eat, they aren’t going to want to risk everything. Perhaps surprisingly there is very little direct force used to coerce dissidents and malcontents, at least openly. Generally oppression exists as a function of the systems of governance and the daily cycle of life, though the direct application of boot to face does happen from time to time.
The true power of Axxila, each can be considered like a nation, with hundreds of millions of subjects and their own sets of laws and rules. The Great Houses of Axxila are a sort of aristocratic corporate hierarchy, formed out of the 400 year darkness. The ruling family is dynastic, but their power is typically subject to the approval of the Board of Directors. This is not an intentional development, merely the result of a thousand years of stagnant ascendancy and bitter infighting.Typically these two factions are addressed as the 'House' or 'Dynasty' (being the ruling head of house their numerous scions and relations) and the 'Directorate.'
The Directorate families are also aristocratic in nature, preferring to keep power within their own family line rather than risk having some upstart rise above their place. A powerful Directorate usually comes to be because of a weak Head of House (or 'Chair), and a strong Head of House must necessarily conflict with the Directorate, especially for a new ascension. While violence, assassination, and other such methods are not officially condoned they are commonplace, but it would be a fool who does not acknowledge the value of a well placed propaganda pict.
The exact system of election or selection varies between the various Great Houses. The Horigawa's elect the Chair from among the various Directorate members every thirty years, while the Tregessar's tend to operate on an 'ascension by merit' system, wherein one must depose the current ruler, either by force or guile.
Below is a list of the most significant of the Great Houses, along with their main source of power and wealth. All the Great Houses have a significant amount of operations in resource processing, and all also are fully capable of basic and advanced military and civil production, researching, etc. This list is by no means all-inclusive.
- House Majhellain – Starship Production. Nearly all the ships that come out of Axxila are based on several standard frames built by House Majhellain. They are famous for their durability and versatility.
- House Horigawa – Trade and Commerce. While most houses have a presence in orbit, House Horigawa has a total monopoly on trade stations and commercial spaceports (with the exception of Port Wayfarer and the Memorial Spaceport). Far and away the wealthiest Great House.
- House Cholot – Banking. Self-explanatory, they keep currency and credit on Axxila fluid
- House Troqwai – Infrastructure. A planet-wide city simply does not maintain itself. Houes Troqwai uses an army of droids and legion of civil servants to keep things functioning more or less smoothly. Keeping the roads paved means keeping the taxes flowing, which keeps the Concord afloat and Axxila stable.
- Houes Tregessar – Security. House Tregessar has always focused on security, but also dabbles in many other operations. Recently the new head of house sold or traded away most other industries to form a private corporation, called Shadowline. They also hold a majority in the remains of the Banat-Marath power monopoly.
- House Merod – Planetary Welfare. Keeping a planet with a population in the trillions fed and clothed is an astronomical task, one accomplished by Houes Merod. It is House Merod that builds and staffs the hundreds and thousands of aid stations, nutrient depositories, and automated clinics. While the quality of life for the average Axxilan is not great, it would be much worse if not for House Merod. The house itself profits in this by netting the majority of the Concord's planet-wide taxes. As one would expect, only a fraction of this goes to maintaining the aforementioned infrastructure.
- Houes Goriot – Resourcing. Primarily metals from deep core mining and agriculture from vast hydroponic farms. Goriot keeps the planet fed and the materials needed for constant expansion flowing.
- House Banat-Marath – Power. A former great house, Banat-Marath was the subject of a conspiracy involving House Tregessar, Majhellain, Merod, and Goriot. The house was toppled from its position of power at a high cost, and its geothermal and core-tapping plants were distributed among the conspirators. It still exists and is nominally a Great Houes, but it's a puppet of the Concord at this point.
MILITARY & TECHNOLOGY
- Military: Despite the large population and wealth, Axxila has typically been content to act purely in its own interests, and tends to depend on economics and politics rather than military force to extend its influence. Nevertheless the planet boasts a large standing military, founded at least in part to keep the peace between the constantly feuding Great Houses. Known simply as the Gendarmerie, the military consists of a standing space force and smaller planetary force.
In contrast, the planetary Gendarmes tend to be only moderately well equipped and suffer from poor training, bad leadership (nepotism is rampant) and a lack of motive. Ostensibly to act as a sort of mediating force between the Great Houses and enforce the will of the Concord, the weakness of the federal body means that the Gendarmerie suffers from a lack of direction and motive.
Additionally, all the Great Houses maintain private armies (and small fleets) to guard their estates, factories, and other holdings, and also to pursue the endless internecine shadow wars between one and other. Of all of these the most notable is the red and gold armored troops of House Tregessar, legendary on Axxila for their discipline and training.
- Technology: Axxila has long depended on its surplus of manpower to make up for deficiencies in other areas, and this is perhaps most noticeable when it comes to technology. Certain things common to other, wealthier planets are absent here, including a general lack of droids and advanced automation. Axxila makes up for any deficiency with extra bodies, supplementary facilities, and eschewing normal safety measures and concerns. It’s a brutally efficient method, but has larger ramifications. As a general rule, the more advanced the system, the less likely it is commonplace on Axxila. For example, ships produced by Majhellain Shipyards tend to feature more projectile and missile weapons, rather than the more advanced turbolaser.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION: Axxila was once perhaps the most populous planet in the Outer Rim, a product more of circumstance than anything else. Centrally located on multiple major trade lanes, the planet has been a key stopping point in the galactic carrying trade for millennia. Colonized originally the early expansion period, the population grew rapidly as the planet was used as a key waystation, and then exploded later on when it became a vital conduit to run supplies, goods, and people to and from the core. As the years passed, local authority remained decentralized and unregulated, largely focused around economic concerns. Confirmed as an ecumenopolis several hundred years before the fall of the Republic, Axxila quickly came to depend entirely on processing and manufacturing to fuel its economy and feed its populace, most local resources having been mined out hundreds of years prior by unchecked expansion. The planet played mostly a nominal role during the Galactic Civil War, having never acquired the political importance of the Core Worlds. Once described as 'like Coruscant, but inside-out,' Axxila has always had rim mentality towards too much law and order. At times this has meant the entire planet was practically run by gangs, but this has not always been the case. However no regime has ever stayed in power long, and the political climate of Axxila is cutthroat and violent.
In 426 ABY the planet boasted a population of almost 800 billion and was undergoing an economic boom. More surprisingly, there was political stability under the control of several corporate conglomerates that had cracked down on the gangs and were working together to grow Axxila's political prestige. The Gulag Virus struck with staggering force. By the time any concrete facts could be made about the cause and spread of the virus millions of refugees and traders had passed through Axxila's numerous ports and station hubs. The impact was sudden and dramatic. Entire hab blocks were wiped out in a matter of days, whole districts turned from prospering neighborhoods into massive mausoleums. Total quarantine was put in to effect, ships were blasted out of the sky,and all traffic to and from the planet was halted. It hardly mattered, as all galactic travel and trade ground to a halt shortly after.
The plague wiped out half the population in a matter of months, before proper procedures could be implemented. The instability, total societal breakdown, and resurgent outbreaks that followed would see the population reduced yet again. By the end of a year 90% of the population had died. The very fabric of society had changed, down to the very air they breathed. The atmosphere control system, regulated by a series of AI and droid brains, had been forced to adapt in a way that exceeded their programming in order to compensate for the massive release of CO2 that was the result of 600 billion corpses decomposing. The Upper City was practically abandoned, and what population remained scattered into enclaves, relying as they could on automated systems and stockpiles.
But the planet endured. The two organizations that had the most power prior to the virus, the gangs and corporations, banded together in the name of survival. They adapted and overcame, gradually reaching out to other enclaves of survivors and slowly but surely re-inhabiting most of the Lower City. Stability was maintained by martial law, with most excesses excused in the name of survival, a mentality that exists to this day amongst most Axxilans. Bit by bit, the survivors began to reclaim their planet. After the first century the population had stabilized at 100 billion, still a gargantuan number but incredibly small compared to what it had been before. Manpower was the greatest resource, and the various factions of survivors, now showing signs of corporate-dynastic houses they would become, utilized it to its fullest extent to reclaim the planet and their prosperity.
By 835 ABY the Great Houses were well established and Axxila was, though not exactly a thriving planet, a stable one once again. Expansion back into space had occurred in the previous century, motivated mostly by a desperate need for mineral resources. Early contact with other planets occurred shortly after, and in spite of early tensions soon gave way to a burgeoning trade relationship with neighboring planets and systems. With respectable mineral wealth in orbit and an abundance of population, Axxila found itself in the position of becoming a processing and manufacturing powerhouse, able to convert vast quantities of raw materials into goods or more easily usable resources. As galactic trade became a factor it once again found itself a trade nexus, and the prosperity of the Great Houses increased even more.
The Netherworld event in 844 ABY brought the planet to its knees once again, but it was not nearly so devastating as the Gulag Virus had been. The most significant effect was the general withdrawal of the Great Houses from the Upper City, which quickly became overrun with gangs and criminal organizations. Since then a careful detente has existed between the Concord and the powers that be of the Upper City. So long as they do not interfere with off-planet trade or disrupt life in the Lower City too much, they are let be. But most of the Great Houses still send regular patrols to clear out key sections of the Upper City, and utilize said excursions as combat training for their household troops.
Since then Axxila has mostly operated as an independent planet. Though technically owned by the Mandalorian Clans on and off over the years neither party has had particular reason to interact with the other. The Great Houses pursue their own schemes against each other and to increase their prestige in the galaxy at large, but otherwise go unnoticed. Most recently the Concord engaged in annexation discussions with the Dominion, agreeing to submit on peaceful terms following the signing of a generous trade treaty.
