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Tartarus System Details

When it joined the Jump Matrix for the first time only 300 years ago, Tartarus was the first of three such Jump Lane shifts that brought the prosperous Hadeon System more closely in touch with the rest of Interstellar Society. Primarily known for the rich Uranium Mines of it's 1st Planet, the merciless hell called Rhea, Tartarus is a dim burning star otherwise orbited by barren (often tide-locked) rocks with little interest to anyone. The system mostly serves as a trade route, the Red Dwarf allowing its Jump Points to form only 4 AU out, providing a quick passage between Garden, Center and Market.

The system isn't without interest, though. A delicate Ammonia-based ecology on the 4th planet, Hyperion, attracts the occasional bit of attention though it lacks anything even close to sentience and some xenobiologists have even gone so far as to call the planets life "somewhat boring". Marginally more interesting is a splinter Colony from Garden that settled the 7th planet, Ixion, not long after the system was first discovered three hundred years ago. Now numbering some 500,000 colonists, the inhabitants are hardy and self-sufficient, if considerably more legalistic and conservative than mainstream Garden society. Lastly, of course, there's hellish Rhea.

 Jump Points (4 AU from Star)

• Hadeon System? (Garden)
• Central System? (Center)
• Veege System? (Market)

Full World Details

 Rhea

First explored by settlers from Ixion, not long after the system was opened to the Jump Matrix, Rhea is the richest planet in the system in terms of deposits of heavy metals. In particular, the planet is known for its extensive Uranium Mines. Actually getting at those resources was troublesome, for few workers were willing to brave the harsh conditions of Rhea's surface without excessive wages, which combined with the already impressive cost of forming a mining base on the inhospitable world. The problem was solved by Market's Frontier Development Consortium, which formed a partnership with Bermeh AG, one of Market's strongest security and law enforcement corporations, and created the Rhean Mining Combine which employs re-educated and/or brainwiped convicts from throughout nearby settled Space.

The Combine eventually gave the Star and most of the planets their names, given its association as a "Prison System". Despite popular conception, R.M.C. Facilities are closer to hostile environment mining outposts than maximum security prisons, though it is true that most of their "employees" are hired for 10 or 20-year indentured contracts as a part of the same sentence that resulted in their being subjected to the neurovirus that destroyed their previous personality. Treatment is largely humane, and fatalities are rare, though accidents and mining complications are not uncommon. Employee Retention is, surprisingly, not uncommon. Today, most overseers and on-site executives are former miners.

Hellish by any standard, Rhea's average surface temperature is 1,168° F and it has a Surface Gravity of 1.28 G's (earth standard). The atmosphere is suffocating, lethally toxic in mere seconds, highly corrosive, and incredibly dense (126.1 Earth atmospheres). The only saving grace is that the planet escaped being tidally locked to the star due to it's highly eccentric orbit allowing it to develop a stable resonant pattern which gives it 44.6 hour long days. Rhea completes its orbit around Tartarus every 2 days and 19 hours, showing an alternating face to the star at every close approach. Slightly denser and larger than earth (8,959 mile diameter), the surface devoid of any water and heavily influenced by the planets heavy vulcanism, which tends to cluster in arcs around the planets fault lines. In some regions the crust has been weakened to such a degree that magma seeps right up to the surface through the wounds in the planet.

Starport: Class II
Trading Classification: Extreme, Non-Agricultural
Opportunities: The R.M.C. has steady contracts with freight liners from Market to ship most of its ore, but uses small independent traders to handle most of its shipping of supplies to the mining facility on the planet. It's a potential market for mining equipment, life support equipment, and the occasional luxury to make life less harsh.
Leisure: Most of the miners are, due to their reprogramming, somewhat dour and serious and the facility itself is not one that leads itself to vice or excess of any kind. Multiply redundant Force Screen systems can only reassure so much, when you're entirely reliant upon them -- and other similar equipment -- to prevent a quick and painful death. Hence, while the mining facility has a singular bar, few Spacers would consider it worth the title.
Tourism: Rhea's many and splendid volcanoes can be quite an impressive sight, but are hard to fully appreciate given the planet's infernal heat and the hideous pressure of its superdense atmosphere. The planet is marginally more hospital at the top of its highest mountain ranges, such as the vast range that dominates the middle of the (uninhabited) northern continent.

 Ixion

It's a testament to just how much the people of Garden wanted to leave their solar system, to put down roots on an unclaimed system as of yet untouched by man, that they put as much emphasis on settling any of Tartarus' planets as they did. In fact, when the incoming Jump Lane was first announced, Garden was practically brimming with optimism almost despite the facts. Everyone knew that the incoming Jump Point would lead to a Gas Giant, and that it was unlikely it had any habitable worlds, but none the less people hoped for something. If anyone felt disappointed after the first Survey Teams returned, no one said anything, and it wasn't very long until Ixion was chosen as the best option for settling the system. Cronos was larger and possessed of an atmosphere, but has more severe seasonal variations and wildly erratic weather, not to mention that Ixion seemed more resource rich (which was later confirmed).

In the early days, Ixion received a lot of attention and funding from Garden, and for the first 100 years the settlement grew in great leaps as colonists seemed eager to deal with the frontier and settle "their" planet. There was initially some competition from Center, but once the people there saw how keen the people of Garden were for this marginal system, they backed off. Market never really showed any interest in the first place. Then, another jump point connected Garden even more tightly to the Jump Matrix. The people of Garden discovered Eden, and on Ixion, everything changed. The influx of colonists all but stopped, funding from the Colonial Board was cut, and even the spirits of the settlers seemed shaken. Almost as if they'd bet on the wrong horse.

Ixion is now a very different world from how it was in its infancy. It's government has all but separated from Garden itself, and grown more reactionary and conservative. The people itself are stubborn and independent, neither wanting nor expecting much help from "the homeworld". Despite that, the colony shares many traits with Garden, including its Technocratic government and the many factions that shape its society. One noticeable thing missing from the system, compared to Garden at least, is the absence of any Void Dancers.

A frozen ball of rock, any atmosphere it might have developed instead frozen on its surface, Ixion is evenly inhospitable with a average surface temperature of -367° F and a Surface Gravity of 0.31 G (still comfortable for natives of Garden, when the world was first settled). The planets considerably smaller than Earth, only 3,795 miles in diameter, and is noticeably less dense with an icy core. Despite that, it's the most resource-abundant of the "outer planets", and other than the lack f any real atmosphere and the freezing cold, Ixion doesn't present any extreme challenges to colonization. It's day is 27 hours long, and it orbits the dim speck of its star every 572 days.

Starport: Class III
Trading Classification: Fringe
Opportunities: A somewhat Struggling world, the people of Ixion are actually a good market for small independent traders -- if you can navigate the government oversight, at least. Actual opportunities vary wildly, but things that make the environment more comfortable are always common. In terms of production, Ixion is primarily known for rare minerals, precious metals, and (via slow boat) chemicals.
Leisure: The people of Ixion, like many worlds on the edge, like to have a good time but can be somewhat wary when around outsiders. The Spacer Bar locate in the Highport is a major exception, and a cultural pressure release. It's spoken of kindly by many Spacers, but only kindly. Nothing to write home about, but be sure you try out the local homebrew, Extract. If your next stop is Center, party here, otherwise, wait for Garden or Market to whittle down your paycheck.
Tourism: Everyone who visits Ixion should tour its Highport, and enjoy the culture there; constructed 75 years ago by the Government to encourage more Interstellar Trade, it was made with no help from Garden and is a testament to Ixionite innovation and pioneering spirit. It's also a very different society, in many ways, than the surface settlements, both more inviting to outsiders and more cosmopolitan.

Other Noteworthy Worlds

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