Stars of Steel

Factions

Gaean Transnational Accord - the capitalists

A league of capitalist republics (and a few constitutional monarchies), the G.T.A. (the acronym conventionally including periods) is collectively the single most powerful economic bloc on and off Gaea. While having ample resources, a sophisticated research sector and robust domestic politics, the G.T.A. often suffers from collective action problems. The Gateway mutiny remains a mutual nation trauma however, a 35 year-old wound that is only partially healed.
While the G.T.A. (and proto-G.T.A.) states were and still are often leaders in both science and exploration, they were not as fast as the Majestic Twelve at shifting from exploration to colonization and it wasn't until the dawn of the 52nd century that they were ahead of the monarchists in this regard - and between the G.T.A. and Majestic Twelve they all but locked other states out of the main, rich colony worlds.

Relationship Status:

• G.T.A. - The G.T.A. considers itself the best and brightest, but corporate capture of so much of the economy and government has led to a creeping dissatisfaction among much of the populace.
• Majestic Twelve - Both blocs can and do cooperate, particularly in the outer reaches where there is a reasonably formalized 'watch each others backs' policy. In the solar system however view of the Majestic Twelve are ambivalent at best with deep cultural differences resulting in a relationship that tends to be highly transactional.
• PPS - The G.T.A. and PPS are in a state of low-intensity cold war, having both incompatible economic systems and more recently the continued support by the PPS for various seperatists. Both sides have carefully delineated their respective territories however and have found a stable position-in-opposition. For now.
• Ironheart Pact - The Ironheart Pact's support for the ULORD in the wake of the Gateway Mutiny has earned them a place as State Sponsors of Terror and actions between them tends to be less regular than the PPS but higher profile.
• ULORD - Traitors hiding in the deep rim.
• Free Zodiac Coalition - Relations are complicated, ranging from paternalistic to regretful to considering them as being little better than betrayers. PPS support for the Free Zodiac has also led to a hardening of hearts.

Notable members:

• United Lemurian States
• Dassia Freisband
• Federated Territories
• Geunyeok Samhan (Triple Alliance of the Hibiscus Land)
• United Sovereignty of Azstantine

Military Overview: For much of the Expansion Age the G.T.A. through the ULORD was the most prominent military in the extrasolar regions, but the mutiny and consequent dismissals sapped the G.T.A.'s collective military strength and military experience. Today the G.T.A. operates slimmer, lighter forces and has put a particular emphasis on both loyalty and morale while also putting stringent controls in place to protect against the institutional corruption that led to conditions to allow for the Gateway mutiny.

The Majestic Twelve - the monarchists

This group of monarchist-noblesse states originally numbered seven, born out of an agreement in the middle of the 51st century for mutual support during a period of intense colonial expansion. By the end of that century it had added five additional members to become the now-familiar Majestic Twelve. The Majestic Twelve states have become leaders in biotechnology, particularly in the realm of human enhancement; a 'noble' class of enhanced humans has emerged over the past two generations as advanced human-augmentation technology has been applied to the elites of the states.
While not the first spacefarers, the Empire of Jaia was the first to establish an self-sustaining civilian settlement outside of the Solar System. With the rest of the Majestic Twelve riding Jaia's coat-tails the entire group was the leader in colonization until the end of the 51st century and even today the Majestic Twelve have some of the richest and most hospitable colonies.

Relationship Status:

• G.T.A. - The G.T.A. is a valuable ally (of convenience) but their civil society is often far too nosy.
• Majestic Twelve - The Majestic Twelve value stability and continuation above all else and are rightfully proud of their military history at defeating any aggressor (at least that's what their histories call them).
• PPS - The PPS and the Majestic Twelve are in a state of low-level undeclared war, though both sides generally keep direct military actions to automated ships and the like that won't instigate a more general war that neither (currently) desires. Decades of propaganda have painted the PPS as the eternal enemy however and this has narrowed the Majestic Twelve's political maneuvering room to resolve differences.
• Ironheart Pact - The Majestic Twelve and the Ironheart Pact tend to stay out of each other's way, though in the rim anything goes.
• ULORD - While privately having a large part of the G.T.A.'s extrasolar force go rogue caused some chortles in the Majestic Twelve, more pragmatically they're seen as a dangerous and destabilizing force.
• Free Zodiac Coalition - Deeply ambivalent and a taste of what might happen if governmental stability falters, though a pragmatic approach to try and pull them away from the PPS has been policy for some time.

Notable members:

• The Empire of Jaia (Third Empire)
• The Duchy of Hejazi Ambaria
• Principality of Greater Pellegrana
• United Ambar Emirates
• Zoetec

Military Overview: Once all member states are summed up the Majestic Twelve have known space's largest and most powerful space fleet, though much of it is warships built for the Solar War that are now starting to show their age. With most of its territories fairly close to the Solar system, the armed forces of the Majestic Twelve can also often enjoy having many reinforcements ready to arrive.

Protocol of Progressive Societies - the communists

A longstanding coalition of stable socialist/communist states led by the Gondoa Peoples Republic, the name of this block is shorted to the PPS or slightly more formally the Protocol. The PPS's states espouse a strong degree of solidarity and collectively have cultivated a powerful industrial sector. While mostly suffering a period of stagnancy during the latter half of the 51st century, various modern technologies and methodologies have revitalized them. Unfortunately this does mean that they have mostly missed out on the early wave of settlement and while it has ballooned in size, the territory claimed by the PPS is resource-poor, distant, or both.
While generally considered the loser of the Solar War, subsequent events have strengthened the PPS. The Secession Decade saw the birth of many new extrasolar states and many of these found common cause with the PPS, the Ironheart Pact or both.

Relationship Status:

• G.T.A. - The entire ULORD debacle has greatly discredited many G.T.A. institutions and as a military power, they have become much less of a threat despite their overall high technology. The greatest scenario of concern is megacorporations somehow stirring up a conflict in order to 'acquire' new markets.
• Majestic Twelve - The PPS and Majestic Twelve have been in opposition for a century and the thirty years since the Solar War have just been a continuation of that. A conflict with the G.T.A. is a hypothetical, a conflict with the Majestic Twelve is a fact.
• PPS - While having walked back some of the vanguardist ideology from the first half of the century in the aftermath of the Solar War, the PPS still sees itself as the bloc most dedicated to the betterment of the common person.
• Ironheart Pact - The Ironheart Pact is seen as counterprogressive and potentially dangerous but there are common interests; some sharing does happen but the PPS tries to keep them at arm's length.
• ULORD - Dangerous rogues that have become nothing more than pirates with a manifesto, but they are most definitely someone else's problem.
• Free Zodiac Coalition - Helping them helps the PPS.

Notable members:

• Gondoa Peoples Republic
• Federal Union of Tenarif and Darquitens
• Socialist Parsanid Republics
• United Panjent Socialist Republic

Military Overview: Coming out of the inconclusive solar war the military loser, the PPS has progressively rebuilt its military to effectively defend its borders. Intensive efforts have built up several industry hubs at a significant distance from Sol and the weapons produced at these has been difficult to track. This, along with a strategy of ambiguity and obfuscation, has made the question of if they are second or third behind the Majestic Twelve in standing military strength difficult to answer. The last decade has also seen a resurgence in PPS-supported 'militias', insurgents and the like.

Ironheart Pact - the fascists

A somewhat disparate group of dictatorships, juntas and ultranationalists, the Ironheart Pact (aka the Eisenherzpakt) mostly consists of otherwise also-ran states that have embraced 'active expansion' and various militant philosophies to advance their national goals. While not necessarily a bunch of bloody-minded conquerers, the Ironheart states are rarely loathe to use force or the threat of force and probably the most driven to collect xenotechnology.

Relationship Status:

• G.T.A. - The G.T.A. states are completely beholded to corporate profit-seeking and will turn on any friends or allies to make an extra 1% on the bottom line. Their complaints about the Ironheart's relationship with their former janissaries is just a smokescreen for their antipathy towards anything they perceive as a rival.
• Majestic Twelve - The Pact and Majestic Twelve have few points of friction due to a lack of common borders outside of the solar system, but the Pact will treat them much the same way as the G.T.A. in the outer rim.
• PPS - There is no particular trust or love between the PPS and the Pact, but unofficial agreements keep their borders quiet.
• Ironheart Pact - The only constant is strength, and so the Pact must be strong.
• ULORD - Various logistical support in exchange for some examples of cutting-edge G.T.A. technology has turned into a more enduring relationship. While they may not see eye to eye both is willing to work with the other.
• Free Zodiac Coalition - Relations between the Zodiac and Pact can be sometimes fraught due to association with ULORD or sometimes constructive. The term that best describes things is 'working'.

Notable members:

• Vorderrepublik Gilder
• Megelgica
• Eleutheria

Military Overview: The Ironheart Pact is generally considered to have the overall smallest and weakest militaries of the four major power blocs, though they are also recognized as having cultivated high esprit de corps and a number of highly trained elite formations. Having a particular focus on the outer edges of human space they do have a disproportionate presence and their ships and agents can range widely.

Non-Aligned League - the others (ASSYMETRIC START) Born out of a lack of voice in the Great Four, the Non-Aligned League consists of almost a hundred states, many of them small and almost all of them poor. The largest have booming populations and economies though and had begun to reach for their own future outside of the iron grip of the self-styled 'advanced' states.

Free Zodiac Coalition

Relationship Status:

• G.T.A. -
• Majestic Twelve -
• PPS -
• Ironheart Pact -
• ULORD -
• Free Zodiac Coalition -

Notable members:

• Londenium
• Asakura
• Transbaal

Military Overview: The rapid independence of many colonies led to the foundation of the Free Zodiac Coalition, but by and large they had little more than random near-orbit guard ships armed with a popgun blaster (if at all) and lightly-trained militias and gendarmeries. That changed rapidly as tens of thousands of ULORD veterans, dismissed from service in the aftermath of the Gateway mutiny, flowed out into the colonies and sold their expertise. The equipment issue took somewhat longer to resolve but various forms of aid (notably from the PPS) and domestic industrial development

Gateway Fleet (former ULORD)

The United Lumerian Outer Rim Defense was founded with noble ideas to be the protectors of the vast new frontier, the main military tool of the ULS and later the G.T.A. for both protecting extrasolar colonies and infrastructure and enforcing its hard power mandates. Unfortunately by the last two decades of its existence it was reduced to being the go-to corporate strikebreakers and watchmen. With the exception of the sort that power-tripped in these scenarios and often found themselves in cushy corporate security jobs after serving their time, morale was often low. The breaking point was the court-martial of popular general Cameron, widely seen as a scapegoat for the failure of an operation when he gave orders that protected his troops but not expensive corporate infrastructure. The consequent mutiny (named after the outer border station where it began) spread rapidly among many of the forces deployed in the outer rim, with more than fifty warships and almost as many unarmed auxiliaries failing to return to muster points.
The loss of a significant part of the total ULORD force in the middle of a shooting war that the G.T.A. had recently joined was a major blow, with more ships lost to the mutiny than hostile action and essentially removing the G.T.A. from a position of being able to conduct offensive operations. It is widely believed that absent the mutiny, the solar war could have been prosecuted to a favorable conclusion instead of an ambiguous armistice.
The mutineers themselves had made an escape into the deep frontier long before the G.T.A. could organize any sort of pursuit, vanishing into the dense Blavatsky miasma of ISIS-107. They came to an agreement fairly quickly to sell examples of technology in their possession to the future Ironheart Pact state of Megelgica and used their stolen supplies to set up a significant base in ISIS-107. While originally there were some nebulous plans to become a fleet to help liberate colonies, soon enough the situation meant the mutiny fleet became in effect pirates and an organized crime syndicate. Many former members of the mutiny eventually went their own way, some finding positions in the nascent Zodiac armed forces while others put their skills to use for profit as PMCs. As of the current year of 5179, it is believed that no less than one-quarter of all PMC organizations have ties to the Gateway Fleet, while some suspect that number is closer to one-half.

Relationship Status:

• G.T.A. -
• Majestic Twelve -
• PPS -
• Ironheart Pact -
• ULORD -
• Free Zodiac Coalition -

Military Overview:

Timeline

• 498x - First manned landing on Inanna
• 500x - Blavatsky-effect motor has first flight
• 501x - First manned landing on Nergal
• 5020 - Serial production of Blavatsky-effect motors underway by multiple states.
• 5020 - Start of the Expansion Age
• 502x - Association of Atlantean States transitions to the Atlantean Nations Community
• 502x-5050 - Permanent settlements established on Nergal and Inanna. Early spacecraft use chemical engines, transitioning to various forms of electric (and rarely, nuclear) motors as the technology for the latter matures. Flight times still remain several months.
• 503x - First Dirac-Crowley wormhole discovered and transited by automated probe. Third wormhole transited leads to extrasolar system and the intensification of exploration efforts.
• 5039 - Extrasolar transit to a system hosting an oxynitro (eg, habitable) planet. This galvanizes a greatly increased interest in space colonization.
• 504x - While signs of Dirac-Crowley wormholes are noted at Marduk's L4 and L5 points, Enki's relatively closeness (~0.5 AU at closest approach) makes it the hub of early wormhole transit. The short lifespan of wormholes poses continued problems and permanent installations in permanently shadowed craters in Enki's north and south poles grow to become quite significant transshipment points. The cumulative distance (ie time) to the destination world makes these extrasolar sites permanent colonies almost by default.
• 5048 - Majestic Seven founded (five more members added by 5100)
• 5050 - Empire of Jaia takes an early lead in extrasolar colonization but by this time more than a dozen major states are starting to spend significant resources on exploration and colonization. 'Solar' expansion age transitions to the 'interstellar' expansion age.
• 5050-5070: Fusion rockets finally achieve viability and they steadily replace older propulsion methods.
• 505x - First crude armed interplanetary spacecraft built.
• 507x - First system-rated jump gates constructed, with roughly two dozen in service by the end of the century. This opens up the Marduk L4 and L5 points for wormhole travel; previously too distant for easy access (unless a fortuitous wormhole from near Enki was found) the significantly longer-lived wormholes found there could now also be used.
• 5080-5100 - Colonization efforts accelerate exponentially as ships get larger and jump gate networks start to greatly cut transit times.
• 508x - Every state with extrasolar holdings has founded a dedicated space force and equipped it with at least a handful of small armed spacecraft; they remain crude and very limited but are rapidly improving.
• 508x - United Lumerian Outer Rim Defense (ULORD) founded to police and protect the rapidly expanding colonies of the ULA and its treaty partners.
• 5103 - Gaean Transnational Accord is founded.
• 5109 - ULORD mission to Nuevo Gaea ends in disaster.
• 511x - Several 51st century Blavatsky theories finally transion to usable hardware; the teens are a 'golden decade' where a number of now-familiar technologies such as small-scale artificial gravity, jump drives, compression motors and Blavatsky-feed fusion all enter the mainstream. Spacecraft become recognizably modern and thousands of ships, some less than a decade old, are rendered obsolete virtually overnight. Many are refitted to varying degrees, but 'used spaceships' are a thing for the first time in history as many minor owners suddenly gain the ability to purchase a ship.
• 511x - The Upwell War between the Majestic Twelve and the A.N.C. over settlement rights. Expected support from the G.T.A. does not materialize and the Atlanteans are the losers. Multiple governments fall in the aftermath, with the A.N.C. becoming moribund and dissolving within the decade.
• 5120-5140 - Hundreds of old-style spaceships sold to secondary users fuels a new wave of small-scale settlements on the outer edges of human-explored space.
• 5120-5140 - Period of intensive ULORD deployment to the colonies as local politics start to drift away from Gaean.
• 512x - Prototype stellar-rated jump gate pair activated, further reducing transit times to the colonies.
• 5141-5145 - The Solar War erupts between the Majestic Twelve and the Protocol, though much of it is fought in the colonies and via proxies.
• 5144 - The Gateway Mutiny happens in the aftermath of the G.T.A.'s entry into the Solar War when General Cameron was scapegoated and court-marshalled for the failure of Operation Eire. By the end of the year more than half of the ULORD fleet has mutineed or failed to check in and the organization itself was disestablished.
• 5147 - Large-scale population movement from Gaea to the colonies, put in abeyance during the war, resumes erratically. Much of the colonial economy and industry finds itself struggling to return to 'normalcy'. Depressions begin sweeping across human space, even as the number of humans living outside the solar system quietly exceeds 1 billion sometime during 5147. The Expansion age is belated recognized to be over.
• 5148-5158 - 'Secession Decade' as a significant number of advanced colonies are granted or seize various degrees and forms of self-governance. This radically reshapes the political geography of the
• 5149 - Ironheart Pact signed into existence including several former members of the A.N.C.
• 515x - The use of PMCs becomes widespread outside of the core worlds, up to and including light escort combatants (often small cargo haulers fitted with weapons, ballistic protection and extra fuel in place of cargo). Many of these are former ULORD servicepeople thrown into the civilian world when the organization was disbanded.
• 5150-present - While the PPS was nominally the loser during the Solar War, the Majestic Twelve were unable (or unwilling) to deliver a knockout blow and the following three decades have been characterized by a state of cold war between the two.
• 516x - Various institutional reforms and firewalls were effected in the United Lemurian States in the aftermath of the Gateway mutiny and the ULS and more broadly the G.T.A. finally sheds the post-mutiny malaise.
• 5179 - Current Day.

Setting Notes

Travel

• Blavatsky-Effect Motors: The Blavatsky-effect motor made its maiden flight in the first decade of the 51st century and by 5020 was being serially produced. Essentially the anti-gravity machine of fiction, Blavatsky motors allowed fitted vehicles to gracefully (or gracelessly, depending on your opinion) ascend and descend into gravity wells. All but obsoleting conventional surface to orbit rocketry, Blavatsky motors opened up nearly casual orbital travel. More traditional rockets were still needed to conduct actual interplanetary travel, but it was nonetheless a revolutionary advance that was the dividing line between the 'Space' age and the 'Expansion' age.
• Compression Motors: The fundamental problem with Blavatsky-effect motors is they pushed against a local gravity well; essentially they could go up or allow for a controlled drop. But for any other movement conventional rockets were needed. It wasn't until the early 51st century that these cumbersome nuclear and fusion rockets could be replaced with the far more elegant compression motors, a distant derivation of the century-old Blavatsky-effect counter gravity technology. One irony is that the two different motors mutually interfered and despite lofty expectations of an 'omni-drive' all but the most modestly-sized spacecraft remain locked in orbit just like their fusion-powered ancestors.
• Dirac-Crowley Wormholes: Naturally occuring conjunctions between two distant points in space that manifest in areas of high Blavatsky count, Dirac-Crowley wormholes were theorized in the 50th century and discovered 'in the wild' in the 51st. They allowed humanity to easily cross AUs of distance to reach other planets in moments and, when the conditions were right, cross light-years of distance to reach other stars in an equally short span of time. Unfortunately, all Dirac-Crowley wormholes are fundamentally transient and the only way to know the exit point of such a wormhole is to pass through it; even today several navigator's guilds maintain up-to-date logs of active wormholes. Wormhole transit had become a regular thing by the middle of the 51st century, such that by 5050 colonization of extrasolar planets was no longer a theory but a race.
• Wormhole Stabilizers: A crude, early effort to bring some consistency to wormhole travel, wormhole stabilizers are at their heart essentially just Blavatsky particle injectors that feed extant wormholes to extend their lifespan. Unfortunately human science has not yet found a way to stabilize a wormhole indefinitely and the fate of such is always to eventually collapse out of existence. Even the first wormhole stabilizers could more than double the lifespan of a typical Dirac-Crowley wormhole however and they became an integral part of the late 51st century interstellar economy. All wormhole stabilizers are actually self-propelled spacecraft, moving to newly identified wormholes once the current one collapses after a matter of months.
• Jump Gates: The problem with Dirac-Crowley wormholes is threefold: They appear (and disappear) at random, their destination is unreliable and they only manifest in regions of especially high Blavatsky particle count. All these had been recognized and begrudgingly accepted by the middle of the 51st century, though research continued to control the process. Towards the end of the 51st century the problem of artificially creating a Dirac-Crowley wormhole was cracked and a network of jump gates was rapidly erected across the Solar system to greatly simplify travel. The earliest generations of jump gates could only open a vortex to location 'over there', typically aimed by physically pointing the jump gate structure. Various inherent inaccuracies meant that 'over there' was a ovoid-shaped volume of space often several light-seconds across. Eventually it became possible to couple jumpgates together which provided not just the ability to open a vortex to a specific location (the destination jumpgate, known as the outgate) but doing so also was more efficient and imposed less stress on the machinery. This network was expanded out to the four main colony worlds and by the time the technology had matured enough (some five decades later) to construct a stellar-rated jump gate all four star systems had likewise become webbed with local jump gates and even several second-tier systems had their own limited set.

The introduction of stellar-rated jump gates theoretically obsoleted many of the highly-trafficked parts of the existing jump web, though the sheer cost of the much larger and more powerful stellar-rated units meant they never fully replaced the use of natural wormholes, particularly for shipments that were non-critical. Stellar-rated jump gates (which must be coupled to another gate) remain probably the most expensive single pieces of infrastructure ever created by humanity, but system-rated jump gates have become something even large corporations can afford, particularly if the jump gate in question is lightly stressed for low travel volume or is otherwise simplified to the bare essentials.

• Jump Drives: Another development of jump gate technology, jump drives are downscaled to fit on starships. Jump drives generate a small, short-lived vortex capable of transiting the host ship up to a point several AUs away. The first mobile jump drives were introduced in the early 52nd century at about the same time as the first stellar-rated jump gate was being built. At the time their bulk meant they were limited to the first 'capital' ships and indeed the presence of a jump drive was often taken as a mark of such, but the Solar War of the 5140s saw the rapid proliferation of jump drives to practically every class of ship beyond the shortest-ranged.

The most significant operational limitation of jump drives is they are relatively inefficient as compared to conventional jump gates. This led to the introduction of 'jumpships' in the decades before the Solar War and these slow, clumsy ships were regularly considered priority targets during that conflict. Conventional tactics were (and remain) to use a jumpship for ingress and a ship's own internal jump drive for egress, leaving the jumpship safely far from any hostiles.

Gazeteer

Sol

• Enki

The smallest planet in the Solar system, Enki is also known as the Great Comet as it continually trails a vast tail of Blavatsky particles for a distance of up to half an AU, sufficient to occasionally brush Nergal. Its dayside reaches several hundred degrees and with no meaningful atmosphere it is a blasted cinder of a world. The thick Blavatsky clouds regularly trigger Dirac-Crowley Wormholes, though this close to Sol they also tend to have fairly short lifespans.

• Nergal

Gaea's smaller sister-world, Nergal has lost much of its water and most of its surface has become parched and arid, though the polar regions are comfortable albeit hot. Evolution has gifted most of the inhabitants of Nergal with fantastic ability to resist heat, though the tropical zones are still lethal to everything save the pseudoavians that can soar in the cooler air. Nergal's gravity posed a problem - requiring rockets almost as powerful as those found on Gaea to return to orbit - and its surface was not visited until the development of the first crude Blavatsky-effect motors in the early 51st century. Those same motors opened up both worlds at the same time and like Inanna, by the middle of the 51st century they each had more than a million people flying dozens of different flags.

• Gaea

The richest world in the Solar System and the origin world of Humanity. It is a blue-white globe gently enveloped by Blavatsky clouds, its surface roughly 7/10th ocean. While scarred from rampant industrialization in the 50 and 51st centuries, the near-total adoption of a renewable as opposed to fossil-fuel economy by the end of the 51st has allowed it to start recovering. Today it is surrounded by all manner of space-based industry, the orbital detritus from the early 50-51st century space age long since recovered and recycled - or sometimes put in a museum.

Gaea's leading and trailing Lagrange points are also host to the largest collection of jump gates, four stellar-rated gates (plus one deactivated for dissassembly in a decade once its neutrino circuitry has fully decayed) and twenty-two system-rated gates, many of these going to duplicated locations.

• Inanna

A relatively small, heavily iced planet, Inanna was seeded by organisms from Gaea somewhat more than half a billion years ago and has evolved in its own direction since. The usual blanket of Blavatsky particles traps enough heat to keep the planet from freezing entirely and protects its lightly-gravitated atmosphere from being removed. Indeed remote observation of Inanna at the dawn of the space age in the middle of the 50th century identified that Inanna had an oxygen atmosphere. Inanna was the first planet to be visited by humans and the first to have a self-sustaining population.

• The Belt

The belt is a mass of tumbling asteroids lying between Inanna and Marduk, the remnants of a planet that never formed. The largest of these asteroids, 1 Cybele, is the capital of the otherwise decentralized Belt Free Association and has been inhabited since the late 51st century. Its clouds of subtle rainbow Blavatsky iridescence shrouds a fantastical landscape of sculpted ice and rock. Much of the rest of the belt is the perpetual frontier, home to a hundred ideologies and a thousand wildcat mining operations far from any government oversight.

• Marduk

The largest planet in the Solar system, Marduk is a massive gas giant orbited by dozens of moons. Its three largest moons - the Three Sisters - each have retained atmospheres, though the both the composition and climate is wholely unsuited towards unassisted human habitation. That said, so long as oxygen masks (appropriate to the temperatures, naturally) and sufficiently warm clothing is worn, their surfaces can be survived for a time, if in nothing resembling comfort. All have been inhabited since the early Expansion age of the 51st century, though none host particularly large populations.

Marduk has also gravitationally bound two large agglomerations of comets, dust and Blavatsky particles in its leading and trailing Lagrange points. These are both a major source of volatiles and two of the primary sites of Dirac-Crowley Wormholes.

• Ninurta

Last of the classically-known planets, Ninurta is somewhat smaller than Marduk and most known for its spectacular ring system. Consisting of reflective dust it has near-constant electrical activity. Like Marduk Ninurta has many dozens of moons, though being twice as far from Sol much of the Blavatsky density is relatively low and even today it is seen as something of a frontier.

• Utu

Utu was discovered in the 48th century, the first (and last) planet to be discovered via telescopy - all other bodies discovered were eventually found to be asteroids, comets or dwarf planets. A blue-green methane ice giant, Utu is significantly small than Marduk or Ninurta but still much larger than the rocky worlds close to Sol. Utu and its frozen satellites hold little value and various small-scale mining operations are the limit of its economic importance.

Windward

Windward was discovered early on in the Expansion age, one of the first extrasolar systems to be visited and the first to have habitable, lifebearing planets. Windward IV was found to be fairly similar to Gaea, having somewhat larger equatorial diameter partially compensated for by a relative depletion in iron-zone elements to give it a surface gravity only ten percent higher than Gaea. Local life was fairly undeveloped - little more than slimes and the like - and the planet was still in the throes of its great oxygenation.