Asteria deWinter
Mistress of Elements
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a planet suitable to become the new home of lady deWinter, where she can expand her business but also one with holds plenty of potential for growth through roleplay and unique technology.
- Image Credit: Deviantart (by opreadorin1)
- Canon: N/A
- Links: N/A
- Planet Name: Caligo
- Demonym: Caligons
- Region: Outer Rim
- System Name: Algor System
- System Features:
Suns: 1 - Moons: 2
- Other planets: Dynas
- Asteroid belts: 1, small, separates Dyas and Caligo
- Spatial anomalies: N/A
- Other features: N/A
- Orbital Position: 3
- Rotational Period: 38 hours
- Orbital Period: 456 days
[*]Coordinates: AM-31
[*]Major Imports: Workers, Technology
[*]Major Exports: Coal; Potential: Slaves
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
- Gravity: Standard
- Climate: Arctic
- Primary Terrain: Mountains, Tundras, Forests; Oceans
- Major Locations:
Hiems Aeterna (City of Eternal Winter): The once center point of the entire Rulers caste is defined first by the fact that it’s located in the depths of coldest regions of the planet, where the temperatures never rise as in other areas. Since the construction of Princeps Castellum, it became social and academy center of the planet, filled with Artists of the group, who use the area to create wonders and make use of the eternal ice. Despite the cold temperature, it houses important points such as The Scholarship, the central hub of the Scholars and the main point of their education, and Academy of Arts, the school of the Artists where the Rulers are taught the knowledge and skills becoming of their group.
Source: 1zoom
Princeps Castellum (High Castle): Build several centuries ago upon the the mountain rage as the Leaders began to develop into the Elective Monarchy they are now to give the group within the caste a residence of their own. The mountain top was first built in and then expended high up, providing a large city on several levels. Primarily, it houses Leaders and the Warriors that protect them but it is considered the capital and diplomatic central of the planet where outsiders are first brought and housed upon their arrival (provided they are not Aliens). Highest levels of the Castle are reserved for Leaders and no one is permitted there. Middle level are for other members of the Ruler caste who choose to reside within it while the lowest levels are designed as a place of trade though after the isolation, the area was abandoned for the most part.
Sanus Montis (Sounds of the Mountain): During the Scholars exploration of their planet, they discovered sounds coming from beyond the High Castle mountains, allowing it to lead them to three peculiar objects which seemed to emit sound when the harsh cold winds struck into them. The inside of the structure is predominately mechanic and filled with a number of equipment which at the time had seemed odd to the Scholars but in time, they began to interpret the Sonus Mortis as modified remnants of ships long arrived to Caligo and forgotten with time. Some of the Scholars chose to remain behind and study the structures they had discovered, allowing them better understanding of ancient technology. It’s this knowledge that had progressed the planet’s technology but the buildings have since become respected artifacts in their own right, ones that other curious Caligons come to witness themselves.
Opus Novum (New Industrial City): This city is the results of a the Workers revolt, in which the Rulers and Warrior came out victorious. Because of the threat they had come to be, the Rulers decreed the building of the underground city which began small but with the better understand of technology and their advancement with building, it grew bigger and stronger, becoming a modern day city beneath the ground. Though Workers within it are not free, they are contractual slaves since the influx of outsiders. Each citizen of New Industrial City either upon arrival of upon their fifteenth birthday signs a twenty year contract after which, they are free to leave the planet. However, once the planet was closed off due to the Plague, majority of its citizens re-signed their contracts as they had nowhere to go, dying within the grounds. At death of a New Industrial citizen, their bodies are burned in furnaces.
POPULATION
- Native Species: Ice Demon, The Snowmen
- Immigrated Species: Near Humans, Humans (believe to be indigenous), different Aliens (e.g. Duros, Chroman, Jenet)
- Population: Moderately Populated
- Demographics: Caligo is mainly inhabited by Near Humans and Humans who believe themselves to be native to their planet, having lost records of the First Discovery. Humans are predominately members of the New Industrial City and part of the Workers caste while the Rulers and Warriors consist more of Near-Humans whose DNA is a mix of different humanoid species. The concepts of Human and Near Human were derived from the Scholars studying their inhabitants based on what they have learned through their travels through their galaxy. In truth, Caligons have always considered themselves as such, terms such as human or species lost upon them for so long. Before the Second Discovery, they knew that each caste looked similar but they classified themselves as Rulers, Warriors and Workers. The separation between the castes was made a so long ago that they lack any historical note of it, but some Scholars were free to theorize that the distinctions came from the differences between them. The thinkers (leaders, artists, scientists) came together because of how similar they were and in their grouping recognized each others as equals and procreated amongst themselves. In the same was Scholars theorized that it's entirely possible that Workers themselves had other genetic structures within their groupation but because of the dominative human gene, it became so small in numbers that it's become unrecognizable. Caligons are an artificially created term derived from the original naming of the planet because it's far enough from its star, with an asteroid belt separating Caligo and Dynas, its affects have always been weaker upon Caligo, deriving its name.
Aliens arrived to the planet when Caligo first opened its borders to outsiders after the Second Discovery, however, because of their notable differences from all three castes, they were permitted to join the Workers caste only, allowing for alterations to the overall population of their caste with time. Upon their arrival, Scholars had not yet gone through the studies of identifying their people so the term alien was meant to stand for foreign and non-Caligon, in this case these foreigners stood apart far too much from the Caligons as they had known, with oddly shaped bodies, multiple limbs, tusks, unnatural eyes etc., all which determined them as aliens to the Caligons. It was the Rulers who decided this, refusing to allow these aliens near them, keeping them strictly within the New Industrial City allowing them to be part of the Workers caste.
The lines between castes still don’t blur, the Rulers and the majority of Warriors remain defined as Near-Human and remain within the human spectre but because some Warriors were sent to live within the New Industrial City as a form of peacekeepers and protectors, generations have grown among the Workers caste and in time have procreated with members of the Workers class, including what is still defined as Aliens if the distinctions remain. To the Rulers, these Warriors are considered "damaged" because the produced offsprings are hybrids and have lost their defining humancentric features. Despite their xenophobic outlooks, the role of the Warriors is extremely important to the Rulers and such, the hybrid offspring may continue to grow up within the caste of their Warrior parent but because of their "damage", they are never allowed to leave the New Industrial City. Because of the mixing of species, the outlook of the Workers city has allowed for a more open mind while those in other cities, dominated by Rulers, maintain a more xenophobic outlook. - Primary Languages: High Caligon, Caligon, Galactic Basic
- Culture:
Daily life: Caligons as a whole are highly focused on their working lives, spending most of their time doing what they’ve been assigned to. Scholars study, explore and develop technology. Artists create beautiful things, especially ice sculptures within the City of Eternal Winter though the Rulers caste does indulge themselves in more leisure activities and enjoy the finer things while the Workers’ out-of-work activities are predominately considered crude and out-dated. - Society: In terms of their planet, Caligo is for the most part a well-developed in their own pace society who has grown immensely from where they had once been; accelerated only to a point by the travels of their Scholars who returned to the Caligo, however in terms of other societies, it is for the most part outdated, keeping to their own ways, viewing slavery as a form of life for some of its members and refusing to change or mix between the castles, other than very few examples (such as the Warriors who reside within the New Industrial City to keep the Workers at bay) which are always looked down upon.
- Arts: The artistic side of the Rulers has always been valued and respected. Their artist create sculptures of ice and paint with natural colors derived from plants grown in their closed gardens of artificial heating.
- Sports: On a planet that is for the most part and year covered in ice and snow, their sports are for the most part devoted to this. The yearly games involve races through the snow, those with gifts make jumps etc. All this is meant to entertain the Rulers and Warriors caste in whole while the Workers have simpler and often considered barbaric by the other groups, simple games of betting with objects of value (never credits) or cage fighting.
- Religion: There were once old gods on Caligo and they had names. This is what Caligons have always known though those names have been lost to unwritten history of their planet. Modern day Caligons view magic as undiscovered science so while they acknowledge what they cannot explain, their Scholars try to do explain it as best as they possibly could. While Force Users aren’t uncommon, it doesn’t dictate anything but rather the actions and success of each individual, even if they choose to accomplish them through the use of their gifts.
- Death: Each caste approaches death differently. Workers merely perform brief ceremonies after which bodies are burned in furnaces in order to give warmth to the living. Warriors burn their bodies out in the open, adding a small amount of coal around the body to give out a black smoke.Rulers choose to preserve the dead in farthest corners of the City of Eternal Winter, concealing their dead into blocks of ice which contain the body’s human appears. This is especially true for the most honored of their caste who had contributed most to their society.
[*]GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY
- Government: Elective Monarchy (the Kings and Queens of Caligo are primarily elected by those equal to them)
Oligarchy (the only dominative form of government, the Rulers caste, especially their Leaders still hold power while a single individual is selected among them) - Dictatorship (Workers live under rule of dictatorship, with no say to how the planetary government is run)
[*]Affiliation: Currently none (in the future the Ancient Eye and Asteria deWinter)
[*]Wealth: Medium (Caligo had once grown into wealth through strong commerce but lack of it through the last several hundred years, it had depleted drastically but since the venture of its people into the galaxy again, it’s slowly rising)
[*]Stability: Medium (There hasn’t been real civil unrests since before the Second Discovery. The Workers, the one caste that had caused it has been moved beneath the ground, into New Industrial City, to be contained and controlled by the higher caste but since new arrivals had joined them prior to the Gulag plague, the rules under which they live had been lessened, allowing some form of freedom in the sense that Workers are free to leave the planet after their contract is up. For the most part, it is a civil scenery into which an outsider can enter but interaction with the Workers without being one is limited and most outsiders are not’ permitted into New Industrial City. Within it, oppression is heavy and while Workers, the citizens of the New Industrial City hold very little freedom.
[*]Currency: Because their previous dealings with the Galaxy, Caligo’s society comprehends the value of credits and uses it for commerce. However, on the planet itself, there is a different currency. Each Worker upon signing their twenty year contract has a sum of credits noted which they receive upon leaving the New Industrial City however this currency has no value within the city itself. Instead, its citizen trade in items of value whereas food is without value, only enough to sustain and never enough for it to be consumed in glutinous quantities. Coal isn't really any form of currency but some bold ones have done it in the past, some of them being caught and punished while others getting away with it. The concept of personal value is regarded in the story and history of an item, in which the trader mustn't lie (news of a liar attempting to give bigger persoanl value to an item in order to gain better items would quickly spread without the city and they wouldn't be able to trade anymore). For example, an item could have very little value by itself but it has been passed down in a family for generations and thus holds emotional value because of it. None of this would matter outside of the City, it's an import way of trading and aquiring items that would be important to the Workers. The items can range between clothes, small crafts created by individuals in little leasure time they may have or items that have been brought by newer Workers upon their arrival into the New Industrial City. Other castes for the most part use credits though they will on occasion use the old currency system and trade things of value as well, though their own personal belongings would be riches (finer clothing, better art work etc.)
[*]Freedom & Oppression: Freedom is a commodity on Caligo. Rulers are born with it, Warriors are given a healthy dose of it though they live under their rulers. Slavery is part of their many laws. Term freedom is foreign to their native languages as prior to the invention of contracts and the arrival of outsiders, Workers were literally slaves who were driven to work and given very little off time to divide up as they saw fit (including sleep) and it was that kind of attitude that brought on the revolt and the creation of New Industrial City. Invention of contracts brought in a slightly more freedom as the Workers were now able to end their servitude after the twenty year work time has passed and were free to leave after it but for as long as they live within the Industrial City and are considered Workers, freedom isn't in their vocabulary at all. Only children born within the New Industrial City have a sort of freedom though and until their adulthood aren't obligated to do anything but what their parents or guardians tell them to. Once adults, they either sign the contracts or leave. Generally, all adults sign the first contract and enter the first working era while once it was up many of them left prior to the closing of borders due to the Plague. Once the planet had banned travel of any kind, however, most entered new contracts as many times as necessary and died in servitutde. In that way, there is no old age or retirenment, Workers generally die during their third and sometimes forth contracts. Within the New Industrial City, the ones with most freedom are considered the Warriors as they are sent by the Rulers to live among the Workers and control them, into a City where Rulers will not enter themselves.
MILITARY & TECHNOLOGY
- Military: The Warriors caste are the military of the planet with majority of their members soldiers in service of the Rulers. Because the Rulers themselves possess no military capabilities, their rewards and freedom are high by which they rule over the second caste. Caligo possesses no navy to speak of right now as they’ve only began to explore the galaxy again and have never found need for it but their army is strong, loyal and ruthless towards the Workers. Majority of their weapons are archaic however, relying on brute strength and metallic weapons that can strike the enemy at close range. Weapons such as blasters are theoretical and described in Scholar documents due to their previous explorations.
- Technology: For the most part, the technology of Caligo predates to the time of the New Republic though using previous knowledge, their Scholars have advanced it as a necessity for their planet. None of it is at par with what is now in the galaxy yet but is unique to Caligo because of this very reason. Because of this, they’ve been importing modern day technology since their slow return to the galaxy.
Artificial Lightning Garden - most notable of their technology is that of growing food under artificial lighting due to the weak sun exposure to the planet which became even more important after the construction of the New Industrial City which is completely beneath the ground
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
First Discovery
Welcome to Caligo.
Centuries ago, it was a booming world and a land of opportunity for workers. In the peek of its power, coal was their most valuable commodity. Of course, none of the outsiders knew what they were stepping into when they first arrived because the advertising o n the HoloNet sounded so delightful, so colorful… so perfect. That was not Caligo.
The first discovery of the planet occured about 10,000 ABY. Until, it was for the most part uninhibited. New arrivals were predominately Human and Near Human species. Many of the settled on the planet, discovering what the planet had to offer. For a time, they lived together though not all could survive the long harsh winters of the world they’d set into. In time, they be separate based on their strengths and weaknesses, adjusting to the planet and what it had to offer.
History never recorded the moment in which the three castes were created, no trace in the present day would show there were once equals to each others. Those who would become the Rulers proved themselves to be capable in leading and thinking, capable of subjecting the two other groups to themselves. The Warriors proved themselves strong and able to stand beside those they served and the Workers… they showed how easy it was to be controlled and subjected to the will of those who thought themselves their betters.
The Castes
Before its second discovery, Caligo became a quiet and closed off world with a endogamous caste system.
- The Rulers: Leaders, Scholars, Artists
- The Warriors: Soldiers, Guards
- The Workers: Coal Mines, Farmers
While the workers divided between two possible professions, the rulers divided into leaders, scholars and artists. That is to say that originally, there was no singular ruler of the planet but instead, groups were selected among the Rulers caste, by the Rulers caste alone. Together, these groups of rulered for as long as their body and mind were functioned properly, after which the entire group was changed. In time, the groups grew smaller until they reached the point in which single individuals were chosen to role throughout their lives. And thus, Caligo became an elective monarchy, where the monarch was chosen by their equals. While the ruling monarch selects their heir in public proclamation, elections are still mandatory at each passing.
The middle caste was that of warrior, where children were groomed and trained to become either soldiers or guards to the rulers. Soldiers have a divine order of protecting their rulers against the workers before anyone else while the guards are select, best of the best, who are bonded to their charge and serve until they die. All members of the middle caste have the same education and training but in their adulthood, they either strive as soldiers and rise amongst themselves for their achievements or are chosen to protect a single individual until the day they die.Special accomplishments and decorations are given to soldiers who save the lives of the rulers against revolting Workers.
- Decoration of Valor
- Decoration of Lifelong Servitude
- Bond of Protection
- Public Declaration
- Bloodletting
- Marking of the Flesh
Old Caligons never quite comprehended the Force the way the galaxy had, not while they had lived by themselves, unaware of what lay outside their world. Extraordinary members of their societies were feared but also revered for their gifts, which was how they had identified it. Workers who possessed gifts were respected among their equals but their gifts, whether used for good or evil were treated with either respect or fear, depending on their intentions. Warriors who could master the gifts given to them were elevated to higher positions but their use of it remained in the service they were given without understanding they could achieve more with it.
Among the Rulers however, it was considered to be honor by the gods. Scholars that possessed it could understand the world around them faster, quicker to learn and achieve their intentions. Leaders with great power were elevated by their own peers.
Scholars would ultimately define it as an advanced form of science, a blessing for select individuals though those individuals would never come together, not in any caste. And it would be a long time after they had ventured into the galaxy that they would give it the name it possessed elsewhere - the Force.
Second Discovery
Outsiders first arrived to Caligo over a thousand years ago. The came curious and interested to learn about Caligo. The Rulers and Warriors though wary of the unknown welcome them. The Workers did not, thinking them another body of oppression. The outsiders spoke of a democracy, of a government at the very heart of the galaxy. The Workers grew curious with more knowledge but the Rulers grew even warier of the outside knowledge, however they were curious still, wanting to know what else was out there. Their scholars began to develop new technology with the help of those outsiders, bringing a rapid new dawn to Caligo.
Scholars were the first who left Caligo, leaving the planet to learn about other civilizations with the explorers. They returned a decade later, teaching their equals of what they had learned about the galaxy - Coruscant, the Senate, the technology, the criminal elements… their knowledge was vast and confusing.
The production of coal was strong enough by that point, that Caligo began its export of it, opening themselves to trade. Opening themselves further to the outside gave knowledge to the Workers as well, they began to revolt against their Masters as they had never done before. The outsiders had given them more than just simple knowledge, they can introduced them to weapons as well. The great war of Caligo began a mere hundred years before the course of the Galaxy began to stir itself. Under the thumb of the Rulers, the Warriors marched on the Workers, numerous deaths on each side. The number of both castes decayed greatly but in the end, the Warriors won on behest of their commanders and the Rulers and the Scholars began to construct a city beneath the ground, just beneath what would become Old Industrial City, creating an unground world for the Workers as their punishment, away from the sun and natural air. New Industrial City began slow but in centuries would grow into a vast civilization of its own, with generations of Workers not seeing the outside unless they worked in the mines. With the technology of inside farming, generations of Farmers were not given privilege of seeing the outside.
Numbers of the Workers caste decayed however causing the work itself to hurt drastically, because of which they had opened themselves to outside workers, welcoming them onto the planet. However, once it was no longer Caligons that, Caligo was forced to alter their traditions. While the Caligon Workers who had caused the war of Caligo were punished, generations that follow would not be so rigorously treated. They would be permitted outside of the underground cities and the outsiders were even permitted to leave once their work contract had ended.
At the same time both Scholars and Artists were permitted to leave Caligo for the duration of ten years in order to learn of other worlds and to bring new knowledge to their homeworld. Leaders however would not permit their own kind to leave the planet, not for centuries to come, whereas only Guards were allowed if their Ruler had left the planet.
Their numbers began to decay, their natural order refusing for the connections between castes and the Ruling caste growing smaller in numbers. Caligo had never truly joined the Old Republic and their connections with the old Empire remained seldom and commerce related only. To Caligons, what was beyond the planet mattered to them very little when their races were slowly dying.
Their scholars continued to study their planet and their people, trying to find a cure for their smaller numbers. In their studies, they came to learn the differences between their races, though with little explanation to why that was. They were all Near-Human based on the outside terminology, though their genetic structures were different. Original Workers were, for example all human until the arrival of the outsiders, who began to change the gene pool. Aliens had brought changes, even when some of them for the most part continued to appear human. The arrival of the first Aliens to the planet had been a shock to the Caligons that the ruling caste quickly dismissed the possibility of them coming near them, thus putting them into the New Industrial City. The Rulers and the Warriors turned out to be more similar to each other, and yet somehow different.
Curious minds of the Scholars continued the exploration of the planet beyond the reaches of the established cities. Their explorations of their own world brought them to lands they themselves had not seen before, the Rulers proclaiming themselves monarchs of all their eyes could see. In such exploration, they discovered the Sounds of the Mountain, where the harsh northern winds hitting against the metal produced delightful music. Their knowledge of technology allowed to understand that the three structures were in fact once ships, modified into structures upon the thick unmelting ice, giving them a better understanding that perhaps even the castes themselves had once, long ago arrived to the planet, claiming it for themselves though no documented history would shine a light on the discoveries that the structures were studied and prepared, put to function, became a respected artifact of their planet.
The Rulers resided in both the City of Eternal Winter and the High Castle, the later being the dominion of the leaders and the scholars and the first the ancient city of ice where the Rulers sent their young to educate themselves, and where Artists remain to create sculptures and other artwork. The Scholars would come to use the three structures known as the Sound of the Mountains in time as their main domain, leaving the High Castle to the leaders and even the majority of the Warriors. Some Warriors, especially the Soldiers, would take residence in New Industrial City, among the Workers, primarily to uphold the law of the Rulers within its limits.
The Gulag Plague
In the mist of arriving Workers, the virus arrived to the New Industrial City spreading through the large population like wildfire, taking lives with an ease the Caligons couldn’t understood. It had taken hundreds of lives before the people mobilized themselves and began pushing out the sick. Word spread to the Rulers and their Scholars began working on way to salvage their population. Not even they, their greatest mind had managed to create a cure that could save the destruction of their people but they did come up with an alternative. Workers with symptoms and even those who had believed to be exposed had been cast out of New Industrial City and banished from the Cities for all times, sent into the coldest parts of the planets where many of them would die in the harshest cold while a device had been created to sterilize the City’s air to ensure it didn’t spread, or at least, so they had believed.
Even after the very last traces of the virus had vanished, the fear of both death by the disease and banishment remained strong within the citizens. Caligo closed their borders for the first time, not allowing visitors to come or their own people to leave again.
In the hundreds of years that followed, memory of the virus began to decay but the fear of death and banishment remained. The Workers worked harder and faster, an involuntary peace settling on the planet. Generations of Workers and Rulers wouldn’t meet in person, reserving contact through through screens. For the Workers, their highest caste became distant rulers they began to fear before they simply became far away leaders that allowed them to live their lives, as long as they did their work.
The Isolation
Four centuries had passed since the virus had first spread and had been dealt with. Each of the castes continued to live in their own cities, aware of each other and continuing communication. The Rulers continued to hold their power, to an extent, over their Workers, yet they became distant and far creatures to each other, progressing each their own. Their technology, for the most part, remained as it had been before the isolation. Within the cities of the Rulers, it progressed faster and for the pleasure of its wielders while the ones within the New Industrial City advanced as necessity.
The Netherworld
History of Caligo remained mostly intact to its people. In dark times, their own adventures far more written than that of the Workers, the Scholars became restless where they were and eager to leave the confides generations were now born into, knowing full well that those before them had seen the galaxy, studied it and brought much knowledge to Caligo. They began to develop rapidly, their drive to explore leading them and their old records teaching them of how the galaxy and technology once more. They began to build vessels and devices they would help them in their endeavors.
When Caligo began to tremble beneath the feet of its inhabitants, fear erupted. The Leaders demanded of their Scholars to give them meaning of such behavior, the Workers cried to leave the New Industrial City but instead, their only exit had been sealed shut for lack of understanding. Some had even began to spread stories of the end of their world yet the planets end wasn’t near.
The ground tremors subdued but before it was all over, people began to disappear in each caste. Workers called it the act of old gods though they no longer had none to name, the Leaders instead called it punishment of the planet itself. The Scholars though, forever wiser than many of the others, studied again, connecting dots among their own people. Only those who wielded extraordinary gifts had vanished within their caste. Their discovery had led to further investigation, opening communication with the Workers and Warriors within the other New Industrial City though the comprehension of the lesser castes was harder. Their findings however did give results.
A New Dawn
Fear had slipped among its people once more yet after the loss of its people, the incidents throughout the planet had lessens. Scholars rushed to try to explain what had happened yet some held too much fear to comprehend. Warriors were urged to push the Workers to continue work as the Scholars worked on advancing their knowledge from where it had been left. The first ship created on Caligo was of ancient designs yet functional, allowing the Rulers to venture into the galaxy once more. Their emergence into it was quiet, with only the Scholars and Warriors going out to see what they had been deprived off through the dark times of their isolation.
