Matsu Xiangu
The Haruspex
NAME | MaenaREGION | Unknown Region
SYSTEM | Tetra System
SUNS | 1 K-Type Main Sequence Star - Prymis
ORBITAL POSITION | 3rd, Habitable Zone
MOONS | 1, Hermes
SYSTEM FEATURES |
- 3 planets: Trismegistus, Clor (inhabitable), Maena
COORDINATES | 5, 8
ROTATIONAL PERIOD | 32 standard hours
ORBITAL PERIOD | 320 standard days
CLASS | Terrestrial
DIAMETER | 18,896 km
ATMOSPHERE | Type I
CLIMATE | Temperate
GRAVITY | Standard
PRIMARY TERRAIN |
- Volcanic Wasteland (75%) Most of the planet is volcanic bedrock and magma flows. Some parts are more solid than others. The edges are inhabitable where they join with the plains around the more ancient, active volcanoes.
- Inactive Volcano Range (15%) A massive, dead string of volcanoes meanders along a portion of the planet among a string of flat plains and small plateaus. Most inhabitants flock here where things are relatively stable and safe weather-wise.
- Oceans/Lakes (10%)
NATIVE SPECIES | Humans
IMMIGRATED SPECIES | Varied
PRIMARY LANGUAGES | Galactic Basic; immigrated species bring many languages with them.
GOVERNMENT | Despotism
POPULATION | Approximately 303 million.
- New City: 300 million with approximately 10 million transient
- Shanty Towns: 3 Million
- The Unit: ~10000
MAJOR IMPORTS | Various foodstuffs to supplement poor growing conditions.
MAJOR EXPORTS |
- Nova crystals
- Agrocite
- Alchemical Materials
- Ores & Raw Metal Materials (none restricted)
AFFLIATION | None
MAJOR LOCATIONS |
THE WASTELANDS
Magma flows lazily between plates of rock, meandering along lonely, gray fields of ash. Few besides Matsu or the workers who don’t mind the job for the pay dare go to this side of the planet nowadays. There are rumors among the locals, though they are not of the sort told to children to keep them from doing something. They were the kind that speak of very real danger. On these dead, dry fields Matsu lets her necromancy experiments roam. It is a perfect place to farm the Undead for future assaults on other planets, and thousands of miles of open space to let the more...interesting of her creations roam and watch what they are capable of. Punctuated by the occasional lake, this place is also home to the largest body of saltwater on the planet.Those locals brave enough to head out in this direction and confirm such things for themselves come back with fear in their faces, or do not come back at all.
Chris Goff
THE UNIT & THE TOWER
What was once the sprawling capital city of the planet is now home to the ‘Unit’, the sinister and shadowy biomedical complex used by Matsu and her associates for the more clandestine of their experiments. Dozens of miles from the New City - far enough that only the Tower can be seen on the horizon - it is a quiet fortress that most of its workers go about their business in and forget as quickly as they can. From the outside it appears as a ruin, an eerie silence of an overrun city. Broken duracrete and damaged windows compose an ugly visage. But disguised within the ruin are miles of state-of-the-art medical facilities - officially a testing ground for biomedical engineering, but unofficially a bioterrorism and human/alien experimentation facility. Looming over the massive complex is the Tower, a repurposed skyscraper in which the worst of these experiments are conducted. Every prisoner knows being reassigned here is a more painful death sentence than being held elsewhere, and even those who consider the Unit ‘employment’ are not keen on walking its halls. Modern and sleek in every way, the Unit and the Tower are misplaced marvels of technology in an otherwise archaic landscape.Many of the planet’s repopulated citizens are workers within this facility: doctors, nurses, maintenance, and most importantly - security. Hired mercenaries, soldiers, and a personally trained military force patrol to combat any who might make it past the outer defenses and Undead milling its innocent, abandoned exterior. Highly militarized, ground-to-air installations slowly scan the air, threatening to shoot invaders from the sky.
Jesse Van Djik
THE NEW CITY
Built within a dead volcano, the New City is where many of the planet’s inhabitants reside. From the surface it is not immediately visible, but Air Control would guide any newcomers to the mouth of a hollow, inactive volcano that has been most marvellously rebuilt in to a glittering city. Perhaps the only beautiful thing on the surface, its architecture is wild. Part stone and part metalwork, it fits millions all on top of each other. Walkways criss-crossed seemingly everywhere, hallways and tunnels built in to the rock of the volcano to allow passage through all levels of the massive city and leave the center open for ships to glide downwards and enter. Somewhat reminiscent of Utapau but on a much grander, richer, and more populated scale, those who love Coruscant or Nar Shaddaa will certainly find something to catch their interest here.
THE SLUMS
Outside the New Capital, one finds the Slums. Populated almost exclusively by the wretches working the mines and refineries associated with them, it is a place equally dangerous and dirty. Trillions of credits in valuable resources lay beneath the planet’s surface and those looking to make their own piece of it stay in the clapboard rickshaws that cropped up as the planet rebuilt. They are mostly happy to ignore the atrocity of it all considering the pay is steady and the death rate is average for the sort of job they’re doing. A roof over their heads and mouths fed is enough for the lowest of the low. Addiction to alcohol or drugs runs rampant here, making much of its inhabitants unreliable at best and deadly at worst. Still, it has something of its own charm if one stops and takes a look around at the laundry drying in the sun, or the occasional sound of laughter from children who know nothing more than this wretched planet.CULTURE | Maena, like most planets with cities supported by the revenue of massive resources, has a glittering facade covering the seediest of underbellies. Both the excessively rich and the brutally poor call this place home though they rarely mingle. Up top in the New City, the world shines welcomingly with all its riches on display. Fine and modern, this is where the business of Maena’s booming industry is done with outside visitors. The lower you go, the more the rot underneath stinks. Crime and nightlife are easily found here as long as you’re looking. The Slums are home to even harder people as liable to spit on you as to ignore you.
Due to the small areas of the planet inhabited relative to its overall size, daily life tends to be a blur of activity never void of the sound of dozens of other voices passing by. Those in the Slums tend to focus on their work for the grueling hours it consumes them, and their vices when they are home. Life there is simple and monotonous though for some that is a blessing. The city seems to be awake at all hours as people finish their shifts at the Unit - or for those less fortunate, travelling out to the mines, the refineries, or any other of hundreds of odd jobs that keep a planet running.
Entertainment on Maena is not in short supply. Depending on the tax bracket of those concerned one can enjoy anything from theatre and music to gambling and all manner of vice. There are no real sports played on the planet itself but any of the galaxy’s great pastimes can be bet on in the casinos sprawling through the New City’s underbelly. The planet’s art is characteristic in its wildness, the somewhat lawless nature of their culture manifest in every painting and sculpture produced and exported.
Overseeing it all is - quietly, almost invisibly - Matsu Xiangu. As in most things she does not press down on the throat of the planet she calls hers, instead allowing its people to thrive and grow within their means. She keeps a cabinet of trusted people - some of them Sith and some of them citizens of Maena who proved themselves resourceful when she came in to power - to watch over the place whenever she is not planetside but for the most part she calls Maena home. The populace knows her by sight, but her forays out among them are few and far between - usually just to quietly take care of problems with her brand of precision.
TECHNOLOGY | To Galactic standard, though the best of it rarely reaches the New City’s lower levels, and certainly not the Shanties.
HISTORY | Long before Matsu stumbled across it, Maena was a wildly prosperous planet for a place so far from the Core. This was due mostly to their vast natural resources, something the rest of the galaxy was willing to pay a premium for. Precious jewels, alchemical ingredients, base metals, and all manner of medical supplies could be found here. This gave a planet that should have been a backwater a steady and large flow of credits. With the same technology as the galaxy at large, they boasted a larger population than most other planets so deep in the Unknown Regions. The Gulag Plague struck hard here as was common in most planets boasting large cities where it was impossible to keep infection from spreading in any meaningful way. Though like much of the rest of the galaxy history is lost to the 400 Years Of Darkness, there are some who say that the Slums were built originally to house the sick away from what used to be the capital. Shunned, the dead and dying occupied the clapboard houses until finally the plague died off and left a desolate world ready to rebuild.
And rebuild they did, those who survived getting back to work in the mines so they might get back to their old way of life. Their quiet planet once more not only survived, but thrived as millions returned for their share of the stakes. The Old City was abandoned and gave way to the building of the New City, a jewel as glittering as its people's hopes for a new Maena. Years passed in progress and riches.
Another cataclysm came to Maena's shores when Netherworld stole from its population. Like the Gulag plague, the opening of time and space had no qualms about traveling half the distance of the galaxy to steal souls from Maena and thousands disappeared. The more wealthy or galaxy-savvy of its occupants now know what happened that day - or, at least, think they do - but those in the Slums still believe it was the wrath of some angry god that stole their families from them. Some never returned.
Though the planet changed hands several times over the course of its history, it has been largely left alone to fend quietly for itself until Xiangu took an interest in it.
As befit her namesake, the Sith Lord took her time spinning a web of deceit so thick that when she quietly murdered the planet’s current monarch it was blamed on some jealous underling. And thus she quietly wrested the reins of a planet wildly profitable and endlessly useful.
NOTABLE PC'S |
Matsu Xiangu | Six-O
Carach | Irajah Ven | Aria Vale | Jacob Crawford
INTENT | To provide opportunities for other characters to further their personal journeys through new settings and places. Also because I LOVE CITY PLANETS.
DEV THREADS | Can be provided if/as needed.
