(no subject)
21 Apr 2014 22:36There were plenty of places on the rim as barren and wild as the universe could possibly create. Places where the settlers were as hard as the sun baked ground they mined or farmed, as harsh as the plains of a starving man's face.
Then there were the places that the central worlds craved as badly as they did money, rich worlds that beckoned to the sentient species like catnip to a Katzu. Those worlds either fell to central's forces within a generation or two, or bred people that made the rest of the rim seem like a series of feather pillows.
Tyaba, circling the star Ilanga, was one of the latter. Originally settled by the Katzu, who wanted nothing to do with being forcibly 'civilized', it and the other two planets that circled it's sun within the sweet spot for sentient life had become the bane of central's plans.
The hottest of the three, Tyaba was a world practically designed for Katzu; large, open plains filled with giant beasts, and tangled jungles filled with smaller and more dangerous ones. It was populated almost entirely by Katzu, but was also the place that the three worlds had planned to fall back to if central took over the other two. Deep caverns were expanded into empty, underworld cities built to house the citizens of Aarde and Žemė.
Humans and Olia dominated the other two planets, Žemė for it's agriculture and Aarde for the biggest reason that central wanted Ilanga's planets: medical technology. Focused mainly on reproduction, Aarde's citizens had bent themselves to the task of Katzu survival with a ferocity eclipsed only by it's defensive technology. From Aarde came the early warning systems for the solar system, the majority of the militia that kept their space theirs, and the closest thing that Ilanga had to 'civilized society'.
For central, Aarde was the planet to consume; they couldn't conceive of a system with modern cities and technology that didn't have that planet as the heart of it's political society. After all, in the central worlds only the powerful had a voice. It never occurred to them that a system settled by Katzu would be run like the Clans; one adult, one vote.
Citizenship was conferred onto settlers after two years of employment. Spies were dropped on islands near Tyaba's equator with nothing but what nature had granted them.
All in all, Illanga was a very, very attractive place for people who didn't want to live by central's laws. It was also a good place for an ex-soldier to retreat to when his best friend's family was targeted for reasons none of them knew, costing Jerrig his wife and one of his twin daughters.
Waiting for them, when they got to Tyaba, were one of Nevada's old war buddies along with members of his Clan and a scattering of Olia who lived the life of the Clans happily. Amongst them were a pair of children not too much older than Aya, brought so that they could start giving her something new but familiar to focus on. The twelve year old Olia boy had one hand around his eight year old half-Katzu friend's.
Then there were the places that the central worlds craved as badly as they did money, rich worlds that beckoned to the sentient species like catnip to a Katzu. Those worlds either fell to central's forces within a generation or two, or bred people that made the rest of the rim seem like a series of feather pillows.
Tyaba, circling the star Ilanga, was one of the latter. Originally settled by the Katzu, who wanted nothing to do with being forcibly 'civilized', it and the other two planets that circled it's sun within the sweet spot for sentient life had become the bane of central's plans.
The hottest of the three, Tyaba was a world practically designed for Katzu; large, open plains filled with giant beasts, and tangled jungles filled with smaller and more dangerous ones. It was populated almost entirely by Katzu, but was also the place that the three worlds had planned to fall back to if central took over the other two. Deep caverns were expanded into empty, underworld cities built to house the citizens of Aarde and Žemė.
Humans and Olia dominated the other two planets, Žemė for it's agriculture and Aarde for the biggest reason that central wanted Ilanga's planets: medical technology. Focused mainly on reproduction, Aarde's citizens had bent themselves to the task of Katzu survival with a ferocity eclipsed only by it's defensive technology. From Aarde came the early warning systems for the solar system, the majority of the militia that kept their space theirs, and the closest thing that Ilanga had to 'civilized society'.
For central, Aarde was the planet to consume; they couldn't conceive of a system with modern cities and technology that didn't have that planet as the heart of it's political society. After all, in the central worlds only the powerful had a voice. It never occurred to them that a system settled by Katzu would be run like the Clans; one adult, one vote.
Citizenship was conferred onto settlers after two years of employment. Spies were dropped on islands near Tyaba's equator with nothing but what nature had granted them.
All in all, Illanga was a very, very attractive place for people who didn't want to live by central's laws. It was also a good place for an ex-soldier to retreat to when his best friend's family was targeted for reasons none of them knew, costing Jerrig his wife and one of his twin daughters.
Waiting for them, when they got to Tyaba, were one of Nevada's old war buddies along with members of his Clan and a scattering of Olia who lived the life of the Clans happily. Amongst them were a pair of children not too much older than Aya, brought so that they could start giving her something new but familiar to focus on. The twelve year old Olia boy had one hand around his eight year old half-Katzu friend's.