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An informal buffer region of free & independent worlds nestled between three powerful galactic states: the Empire Of Sol, Tri Fed and OGRE. The Garden Cluster is an informal alliance between the worlds of Garden, Market and Center, formed primarily for the purpose of maintaining free trade through the cluster and defending against any aggressive expansion from Rimward (the New Empire of Sol) or Trailing (the Tri World Confederation). Individual member worlds have total autonomy in running their individual affairs, and each contribute ships and/or personnel to a central Navy.
Stryck Wiki Garden, Hadeon System?
The most powerful world within the Cluster, Garden is so named for the massive forest of Dyson Trees that have saturated some 1/3rd of the systems asteroid field, and is an advanced world with a population of 40 billion and a powerhouse economy. Noteworthy for the awesome amounts of solar energy that the forest can efficiently collect and radiate, which in turns provides enough energy output to outproduce the rest of the Cluster combined, the people of Garden live very well and enable the rest of the Cluster to enjoy their independence. It is likely that, were memes such as anarchocapitalism and self-determination not so strong in Garden Society, the world would hold a great deal more central authority over the cluster. As it is, a large portion of the Cluster's central Navy is supplied and manned by Garden, and the Gardenite faction on Center is the most influential.
Unsurprisingly, Garden is home to a great deal of individual expression and factionalization, having attracted numerous settlers from far off parts of the Galaxy over its long history. The most dominant of these include the System Defense Force & Gardenite Naval Contingent, the pantropic Tree-Tenders and their sister factions the Colonization Office and World Shapers Inc., and the highly spiritual Techno-Cult that runs the systems nanofactories and dolls out the energy. Clan Shiest also maintains a sizable presence in the system, as well as a shipyard, though it has competition from Clan's Yoshida and Hieran.
Center, Central System?
A broken shell of a system, with burned out worlds and more than its fair share of interstellar debris, Center is none the less an important world in the Cluster and home to the meager central government that coordinates the UWA. Once a Pantropic Enclave, the system was burned by the Empire of Man in a seven year campaign, rendering the three different pantropic species that once lived here extinct and the system a barren remnant. Settled by refugees from the Empire's fall hundreds of years later, most of the system's 3 billion inhabitants live in orbit around one of the burned out worlds or in hives dug within the various asteroids that litter the system. Smaller numbers eek out a living on the surface of one of the three previously habitable planets, often as part of a scientific team attempting to salvage lost technology or in hopes of reclaiming the surface and cleaning up the signs of the final war.
Center is also home to a large & thriving community of Gypsy Angels living within the system's Oort Cloud, all but unconnected to the rest of the system, and a few independent splinter communities in scattered parts of the system. Other than these independents, Center itself is a fairly organized system, with an extensive bureaucracy, a large system defense force, a respectable contribution to the Cluster's Navy, and a wealth of laws and regulations. It's also the home to Clan Shiest?, which effectively exists as a part of the system government, and operates off one of the systems few pristine planetoids -- a unsettled virgin moon.
Market, Veege System?
The Veege System has gone through many hands, having first been marked for settlement by the Orion Alliance some 1,200 years ago. Most of the original settlement took place amongst the various moons of the systems two largest gas giants, but some of the interior planets were marked as potential canidates for terraforming and some initial work was done. By the time the Pantropic Collective took over the system following their succession, the process was already far underway on the worlds now called Cinder and Market, but the system's new leaders decided to slow the program while seeding the planet with pantropic parahumans. When the Final War started out, Cinder was a heavily settled world that dominated the system while Market was still overwhelmingly marginal. When the tides of war began to turn against the Collective, first an Androdyne Planet-Killer slammed into Cinder at a velocity considerably close to c and later the various Lunar Settlements were burned out by the Empire of Man. When the wars finally ended, only Market remained and the process of terraforming had reached its culmination.
An intensely capitalist world, Market is dominated by the twin forces of the Trade Consortium and the Blue Triad, as well as the five Merchant Clans that maintain a permanent presence on the world. Most of the settlements are still located far under the surface of the planets deep oceans, or on the single Asian-sized continent in the Southern Hemisphere, but individual groups often have isolated communities on various islands or in deep oceanic rifts. The single largest city, Wavecrest, is more of a shallow underwater city surrounding the equatorial island that houses the planets Space Elevator. Up the well, the Orbital faction is under the thumb of the Trade Consortium, though constantly seeking ways to convert the system into a three-rung power structure.
Eden, Eden System? Ixion, Tartarus System Tradepoint, Loros System? Crosspoint Station, Hyrune System?