Exoplanet Files - Ginnungagap

(Rogue Planet/—/Martian):

Asteria (Gas Giant/G4V/Pandora): A gas giant captured by an alien Oort cloud. In its orbit lie a Titan research colony, a Scum exploration effort and a boring hypercorp waypoint - which just happens to be the entrance to one of Pathfinder's most secret projects.

Field Report on Asteria:: Sentinel Chika <Info Msg Rep>

So, I've been asked to write another report! Cool, huh?

Asteria was a Greek goddess of falling stars and nocturnal oracles, who turned into a quail and threw herself into the Aegean Sea to escape Zeus and became the island of Otygia. Asteria the gas giant is kind of like that! She was a rogue planet that got kicked out of its system somehow, and spent untold millennia drifting through space before getting caught in the orbit of some distant star. Now she drifts in an alien Oort Cloud, just barely hanging in at 42000 AU away from her star! If that wasn't weird enough, the gas giant spins crazy fast and has an axial tilt close to ninety degrees! Oh, and there are several Pandora Gates in its orbit. All that has attracted a crowd of people who like studying the planet and the (spectacular!) view of space beyond - Asteria is a popular place among extrasolar astronomers.

Asteria was also the name of one of the Alkyonides! Some of Saturn's moons are named after those girls. So, I guess Titan being here fits? They have the biggest habitat here, a nice little place called Solaris near a free-orbiting gate that also serves as a giant observatory. The microcorp Citation Needed runs it - good people with good rep. It's popular with plenty of Argonauts and even hypercorp scientists, if they're allowed.

Speaking of, they have a colony they've dubbed New Oort around another gate on one of Asteria's moons. It's mostly to access Solaris, though. It has a decent saloon! They were going to slap a hotel here, staff it with indentures and sell tickets to the glitterati, but so far Titan and the other colony are making them nervous. Speaking of, the Fissure Gate opens onto another moon here, and the anarchists have set up Gravity's Swag around it - nice place, provided you're okay with a lot of Scum. Apparently they're trying to decide which of the cool stars Citation Needed is looking at to send a really fast ship to. That's going to be one long road trip! The other anarchists are searching the other moons, looking for more gates. No luck yet, though.

Overall, it's a nice place that's worth keeping an eye on. As a research hub Solaris is definitely worth watching - never know what's going to happen with scientists! Someone should probably stay here a while, relax, enjoy the view. Drink this amazing iced tea.

Vance (Chthonian/D2Z/Martian): The headquarters of Ogremoch Engineering, this planet has nothing particularly interesting going for it besides its proximity to a white dwarf. Someone might have followed Ogremoch here, though.

Mei Houwang (Hot Jupiter Moon/K7V/Martian): This cramped colony was originally founded by prospectors in the wake of some major xenoartifact discoveries, but the supply dried up faster than expected. Now an alliance of hypercorps has stepped up to "utilize" the gas giant and its stranded colonists who can't afford to leave.

Field Report on Feng Bo:: Sentinel Leigh <Info Msg Rep>

The number of people on Feng Bo that want to be there is basically zero.

Sure, the sky's pretty - four score and change moons and a puffy Saturn practically kissing its star's dick, you're going to see some amazing sights when the radiation shields aren't up. That gets boring after the first few months, though, and while Fucanglong gets called a lot of things - some even compliments - none of them are "nice to look at".

Fucanglong was gouged out of the rock around the Gate scant years after the Consortium got into the exoplanet business. Some gatecrashing team hit jackpot with a couple caches of alien relics stashed away on the moon (on top of the exploitable resources elsewhere in the system) and made some frankly ludicrous bank; last I heard, they all moved to Titan where the real action is and are still people to watch on the X-net. Look up Madame Mirabelle sometime if you're curious, but I'm here to talk about the people who came after - exoplanet "scientists" looked at the maps, crunched some numbers and estimated that there could be hundreds of little caches left undiscovered on that moon alone. The Consortium decided they were on that like libertarians on bad ideas, and soon a wave of prospectors seeking their own fortunes rushed in as a settlement named after a treasure-guarding dragon was carved out to temporarily house them until a better city could be built.

It took less than a year for the relic well to run dry.

This put everyone in a bit of a pickle, as you can imagine - a lot of people had taken a gamble on this place, even brought their families here, and they couldn't exactly afford a return ticket. The corps slowed expansion of Fucanglong and left those who didn't sign up for another round of indenture just to get back to Mars to eke out what living they could, scrounging minor artifacts from the moon's surface and mounting long, dangerous trips to the other moons to do some more scrounging there. Other hypercorps slowly moved in to fill the void, co-opting the moon's "potential labour pool" for mining operations, corp-funded xenoarchaeological expeditions and spacecraft experiments in the gas giant's hot, radiation-heavy atmosphere.

The goal of nearly every colonist here is to leave. If you're not indentured, you're working for a hypercorp and scraping money for a ticket. If they won't hire you or it doesn't appeal, though, there are a few options. There's a thriving prostitution business thanks to the bored executives in the corp district - mostly staffed by the family of workers on long trips to other moons. The minor Bad Tortoise Triad is always looking for errand-runners when they're not fucking you over - they started as infugees who just happened to be moved here, and even they don't want to stay. If you're not fucking someone on Feng Bo, you're being fucked.

So, what's the place like? Most of it's a network of narrow canyons, up to ten stories tall in places and too narrow for vehicles. It's wall-to-wall buildings everywhere you look - apartments and shops were stacked on top of each other without consulting an architect, except maybe one who was tripping balls, and many of the upper ones are accessible only by the network of stairs, ladders and makeshift walkways the residents have slapped together everywhere. It's cramped, crowded and could use more maintenance than it gets - some people actually prefer pitching tents in the caves and unfinished alleys outside the town, where indentures and their cases usually sleep between construction shifts.

Oh, unless you're in the little hypercorp district in Fucanglong's center. There it's cool and airy, with white tiled surfaces and a much lower population density. Rather lovely, really, unless you're the guy fucking people in its hotels for cred while your wife is an indentured infomorph for some surveying company. Then, a little less lovely.

Posted by: Quaterina the Barsoomian <Info Msg Rep>

Hypercorps active on Feng Bo, filtered for reprehensibleness notability:

ExoTrek: The prospecting/survey experts sell their services for xenoarchaeological expeditions, though they'd probably rather everyone got over it and let them do some real prospecting. At the moment they employ a lot of infomorph indentures.
Fa Jing: Fa Jing runs multiple operations across Feng Bo's moons, particularly Dòu-zhànshèng-fó, Sūn Wùkōng and Xíngzhě. Their suits have a grander reputation for being pillocks than usual; rumour is Fa Jing assigns execs to Feng Bo as a form of punishment.
Feng Bo Five: This xenoarchaeology corp was founded by some of the few prospectors who struck before the relics dried out. Now that they've bootstrapped their way to the top, these plonkers seem determined to muscle other prospectors out of the business and are rushing to scan as much of the system as possible hoping to score the easy relics. They think they're the dog's bollocks, but everyone I've talked to hates them.
Fujizo: This consortium uses Feng Bo to test a few of its ship designs in the unusual atmosphere of the gas giant, mostly using indentures sleeved in Fujizo cases. Most of the clanking masses here are stamped with their logo, and Fujizo uses them to experiment with methods of built-in obsolescence.
Fusang Dreams: Fusang is a "xenoarchaeology and astrosociology consulting enterprise" run by Titanian exiles which mostly tries to invite themselves to other people's expeditions and use legal wrangling to steal as many relics and profits as they can. They've fooled a few people, but it's likely some hypercorp is going to get bored and crush them soon. Probably in with the local crime element.
Galatea Engineering: This habitat design corp uses Feng Bo to test radiation shielding designs and other engineering projects. Really know their onions. They still use indentures, but provide steady, safe work and are thus seen by the locals as their best ticket out of here.
Kui Xing Technical: Kui Xing is a xenoarchaeology and metaconsulting corp which does deep, thorough searching of the places regular prospectors couldn't reach looking for bits and bobs they missed, and hooks up other outfits with suppliers, advisors and crashers. Also seen as good, steady work, but they have a (tad deserved) reputation for workers going a little technical on the job.
Peng Communications: Peng is present throughout the system, but mostly known for vetting messages before they're sent to Mars. Some of the other corps pay them a "human resources fee" to censor requests to outsiders for financial or legal assistance. They used to alter messages to family to say "I'm getting so rich here! Bring the kids!" but that plan was scuppered when they got their asses sued off. The suits responsible were thrown to the wolves and replaced with new suits, who decided to make up the lost revenue by taking kickbacks from the triads for giving them uncensored message space to use (and sell).
Phoenix Tail: A subsidiary of Medusan Shield who protect Fucanglong, or at least most of it. They mostly patrol the hypercorp district and the nearby worker's district. They favour Asian combat morphs with flashy red-and-yellow smart outfits in the hypercorp district, and proper armour outside. While they keep the workers in line and are prepared for alien threats, they mostly ignore the distant alleys and dangerous caves where the triad rules. For those places they've set up the Fucanglong Rangers, who are mostly made of poor local saps and in Bad Tortoise's pocket anyway.
Sanzuwu Science: This corp maintains a research facility and a helium mining outfit in the system, but avoids Fucanglong as much as possible. Many of its workers hit up the town for entertainment every few weeks and are probably smuggling drugs and XP into the system.
Tu Er ShEntertainment: This minor corp runs several bars, brothels and other entertainment outlets around Fucanglong, particularly catering to the bored suits in the corp district. Founded by locals who were already making a little extra dosh off corporate punters, with the help of the triad. More or less a triad front.

Blunderbore (Terrestrial/B8V/Eos): This address was given to Omnicor by the Factors, and leads to the surprisingly intact ruins of a recent civilisation which suffered its own Fall event. This planet only really exists in Firewall's records, and with any luck it'll stay that way.

Hitodama (Terrestrial/M3V/Martian): This ugly brother of Mars is important for one reason only: some previous civilisation has used a piece of its landscape as a garbage dump for hazardous materials.

Kringle (Terrestrial/M0V/Martian): A frozen world which connects to many other Martian Gate planets, this world is used as a transport hub by Pathfinder for efficiency reasons. It is also the secret supply depot of the Gate Gang.

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Yatsugatake Park is a research park located approximately west of Pavonis Mons. The hypercorps and organisations within have put together their resources to purchase cheap land on which to build their own homes, offices and labs. The initiative is also bankrolled by the Argonauts, who have received an agreement to open-source much of their discoveries in turn, and MIT maintains a satellite campus here.

The atmosphere of this town is very relaxed and carefree, with much of its population comprised of young, bright scientists and science fans with new ideas and an "indie" attitude - unrestricted by the regulations and strict requirements of larger hypercorps, many work odd hours and all are free to pursue their own pet projects. Most of these groups comprise less than ten people, and have become notable for small but significant contributions to their respective fields. Despite attempts to poach their best workers by larger corps (particularly Cognite and Omnicor), they remain fiercely independent and maintain ties to autonomist and Barsoomian interests. @-rep and r-rep is favoured here.

In alphabetical order, the corps and groups are:

Aleph Seven – Five mathematicians, two of which are Nobel Prize winners, and two AGIs. When not crunching math problems they do cryptography, algorithms and detective work.
Bunbunmaru^2 – The home of science blogger Maya Shu Liu, who collects science news from across the system and beyond through her own contacts. Lives entirely off her reputation.
Crikey Wombat – Smart animal lab assistants and menton-style uplift bodies.
Enigmatics – a cutting-edge computer science corp which develops software and AI for scientific research purposes and performs grey hat work clearing out security flaws in complex technological systems, like morphs loaded with implants. Occasionally develops gatecrashing software.
Hakurei Industries – Social networking and antivirus software as well as several small robotics projects, all pet projects of its members.
Komachi-Tec – Researches neuralware that help scientists understand the world better. Known to dip into into overclocking. Current slogan: "Helping you cross the river of knowledge!"
Meson-C – A relatively serious group of boffins experimenting in particle physics and spacecraft propulsion. Have built up no small amount of capital making physics edusofts.
Moriya Corp – A science metaconsultancy firm which leverages a wide network of lobbyists, analysts and boffins to create think tanks on the fly to suit the client's needs.
Nanodyn – A nanoprogramming hypercorp which develops swarms for specialist tasks.
Uni-Sol – A copyration consisting of astrophysicist Richard Hamdorf and approximately 7-20 forks, depending on his workload. Though publically these are swiftly-reintegrated beta forks, it is an open secret that Richard frequently runs them for days at a time. Often contracted by Pathfinder to study astronomical phenomena.
Turbo Science – A group of terraformers, engineers and nanoscientists who work on odd theoretical problems, like how to mark hazardous waste sites to ward off future civilisations.
Vulcan Incorporated – A chemistry hypercorp which performs contract work for several larger corps (including Omnicor) while doing interesting things with exotic materials. Known, legal purchaser of xeno-chemicals.

Wandjina (Tidally-Locked Ocean/K0V/Pandora): A nexus world popular with the Argonauts and, until recently, the site of a xenodeist-run beach resort.

Mahou (Terrestrial/B7V/Martian): This world, littered with the ruins of a strange, lizard-like alien race, was recently host to a few episodes of the popular vid series Sword of Pandora.

Eos (Terrestrial/Pulsar/Sky Ark): An exotic resort for hypercorp executives aimed at currying favour with the Consortium, though its management and security leave something to be desired. Like management and security.

Field Report on Eos:: Sentinel Chika <Info Msg Rep>

Everyone just calls this place the "Party Pulsar", by the way.

So, I was on Sky Ark anyway, so Firewall asked me to book a ticket to the Party Pulsar and check it out. And here I am!

The advert isn't all hype. Most beautiful night sky I've ever seen. The actual world is unspeakably barren, but that just seemed to lend an aura of mystery to it. Maybe I'm just a romantic, who knows.

Anyway, the pulsar's stripped all its planets of their atmospheres and continues to bombard them with radiation, so the worlds here are unspeakably barren. Don't ask me who would build a Gate here. Maybe they like the sky! TerraGen did, enough to set up a resort here to try and get some more cash for their terraforming efforts. There are a lot of hypercorp execs here - rumour is TerraGen's trying to calm down elements in the Planetary Consortium pushing for them to cut their ties with Venus by pampering them. (Nobody in Pathfinder comes here without an escort, though.) Not many guys from Venus, but they're here if you look.

Party Pulsar has all the usual entertainments – gambling, relaxation, spas, pleasure simulspaces, XP casting, restaurants, nightclubs and more. I spent most of my first "day" enjoying a spa and watching the pulsar, and the night at this nice nightclub they have here with a retro theme. Whether you want to rock, relax or just fuck there's probably something here for you. You can even hire a buggy and go for a jaunt around the planet, but you can do it on Mars for cheaper.

The actual facility is nice - nothing fancy, but comfortable. Most of the decorations are just windows for the view. Apart from that, the place is a huge TerraGen advertisement - hence the Sky Ark tour packs. The Gate connects to Sky Ark anyway (one Pandora Gate away indeed!), and it takes a while to get back to Sol, so you might as well read some promotional material while you're there, right? They even had a few Earth creatures and dinosaurs running around, just so nobody forgets all the great things they've done. Kind of odd that they'd pick a lifeless world for that, but it's hard to notice.

There are some underground facilities and a research facility for the pulsar a ways away, but nothing fancy or suspicious. I think it's worth keeping an eye on this place, though. Someone should keep an eye on the hypercorp traffic and the deals they're making here.

I think I'll volunteer my services for a week or two!

Crowley (Terrestrial/M3V/Martian): Formerly an autonomist settlement and aquatic research institute linked to the Pandora Gate, this barren world was shaken up when its link shifted to the Martian Gate and Omnicor tried to start a project of its own.

Excerpted from Exoplanet Wiki: Crowley

Crowley is a terrestrial world noted for its modest compatibility with transhuman life and diverse marine ecology. Though it offers little of interest compared to many other exoplanets, it has still drawn interest as a research base.

Crowley's conditions are generally hospitable to transhuman life, though the air contains too much carbon dioxide and not enough oxygen to be breathable without a suitable morph or equipment. Three-quarters of its surface is ocean, and the land itself is barren, with some volcanic activity. The plains and mountains contain little life, but the coastal regions do contain plant life, amphibians and the occasional reptiles. The oceans teem with life, with much of their depths still unexplored. There are no signs of sentient life or alien visitation.

Originally accessible from the Pandora Gate, Crowley was settled in AF 7 by an autonomist research collective known as Waveform, who established the small coastal town L.O.A. to support a marine biology research initiative. Over its short years in operation it built up a large catalogue of marine life, contributed to several advances in aquatic morphs and maintained a small business selling several sea creatures as designer pets, until approximately six months ago when the exoplanet disappeared from the Pandora Gate's library.

That same week, a connection re-opened via the Martian Gate. Pathfinder Corp found L.O.A. during its initial exploration and established contact, but initially denied requests by Waveform and the population to use their gate to send and receive supplies and aid to their contacts on Titan. After a tense standoff, a compromise was reached: L.O.A. agreed to pay Pathfinder a fee for use of the gate and shared their research. In exchange, Waveform was granted research rights to Crowley's oceans, use of the Martian Gate, and an agreement not to despoil Crowley's oceans.

Since then, Pathfinder has sold research rights for the land to Omnicor. Omnicor have contracted the small research hypercorp Trans-Global Dynamics to set up a private research facility in the mountain ranges.

Currently, it is unknown whether Crowley will shift again. Though there is no evidence that Crowley will return to the Pandora Gate eventually, all parties are acting with caution.

Posted by: Mark Hoborg, argonaut <Info Msg Rep>

Crowley is a dump. There isn't much wrong with it, but unless you're a marine biologist or love blasted deserts, you better really love gatecrashing.

The first thing you'll see when you step out of the gate is a soft, light purple sky overlooking a huge expanse of barren, rocky desert and jagged hills, and maybe a couple of moons in the sky if it's night. Bland ones. You won't last long breathing the air, so hopefully you've brought breathing apparatus or a ruster, because otherwise this is will be the last thing too.

The Gate itself sits in some rocky hills about ten minutes from the shore. It's in a bad spot for Waveform, so they only ever set up an outpost to watch it; Pathfinder has added walls and a few infomorph synths with nothing better to do, though, so it's on Consortium hands now.

Is it as open as it should be? Not really.

See, Legends of Aquaman - yes, that is the name of the town - is an autonomist collective and not a Consortium pawn. And Pathfinder's real goal is to spread the Consortium's interests. Science? Nah, not really.

Once you get there, Legends of Aquaman mostly consists of sealed buildings and old tin-can modular habs, with about a third of the buildings open to the atmosphere. The main attractions are Waveform's semi-submerged facility and the Aquarius Club, the main entertainment in town and a great place to be if you want to argue genetics over a beer or watch underwater vids and XPs. Population is barely a couple hundred, mostly rusters at this point, and nearly everybody is some sort of autonomist. And a lot of them are stuck.

See, right now transport back home is through the Consortium only, and a lot of them are paranoid about stepping back onto another planet they're not a citizen of. A few of their hypercorp fears are unfounded, but if they don't wanna go, that's their problem. Everyone who wanted to leave already did, and the town gets hardly any new colonists.

It doesn't help that sometimes messages and packages to (or from) Titan and the outer system are sometimes "lost", or arrive late or edited; behind the scenes, Pathfinder has been tampering with their messages and checking packages to see if there's anything they'd like. They won't actually screw over Legends of Aquaman, but they are cheating the colony where they can.

And Omnicor?

Well, Omnicor (or rather, Trans-Global Dynamics, which is more or less their subsidiary at this point) gets free reign of the planet, of course. They tend to keep to themselves, in a sealed mountain facility a half-hour north of Legends of Aquaman. Apparently, contact with the autonomists is banned; a couple of them have snuck into the Aquarius Club to unwind, but seem afraid to do much interacting.

See, it's pretty obvious Trans-Global Dynamics is up to something there. There's a betting pool at the Aquarius Club and the good money is on energy and anti-matter research they don't want Starware to get their hands on. Some of the more anarchic hackers in town have tried to get into the systems, but they've had little luck so far.

And that's Crowley, really. Lively oceans, barren landscape. Nice town, secluded hypercorp. They're kind of tense, each testing how much the other will let them get away with, but for now, they're coexisting.

What choice do they have?

Ginnungagap

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