Gazetteer
of inhabited globes of the Tesserelios system

The Tessereios system consists of four components, each a star system in its own right:

Avras   Vethas   Kamil   Telat

Avras System

Avras is a yellow dwarf and has many planets in closely spaced orbits, including six orbits in the habitability zone, with three standard earths, a twin earth, two trojan earths, and five earth-like moons distributed between two warm neptunes. The Avras Union claims the inner system, out to and including the inner neptune Agen and its moons. The Barudani Commonwealth claims the bodies of the outer system. The Avras Union is very clear that interplanetary space in the system is open sky, unclaimed, but the Barudani tend to patrol the outer ecliptic as if they owned it, the way they do the whole Kamil system.

Main Orbits

◄ = life-bearing world
● = Avras Union
● = Barudani Commonwealth

• Bremis (mercury) ●
• Farodis (mercury) ●
• Segemis (hot mars) ●
• Deleis (light venus, reverted from terraformed) ●
• Toropei (terraformed venus) ◄ ●
• Tharessa (warm oceanic) ◄ ●
• Ennetva and Essetva (twin earths, one wet, one dry) ◄ ●
• Eccome (prime earth) ◄ ●
• Agen (warm neptune) ●
      Soln (moon, dry earth) ◄ ●
      Ossel (moon, wet earth) ◄ ●
      Derrun (moon, wet earth) ◄ ●
      minor moons ●
    Brogen (leading trojan, prime earth) ◄●
• Torril (warm neptune) ●
      Hune (moon, cold earth) ◄ ●
      Tsfu (moon, light earth) ◄ ●
      minor moons ●
    Daha (trailing trojan, wet heavy earth) ◄ ●
• First Belt (featuring dwarf planets Helt and Iptic) ●
• Deese (ice planet) ●
• Outer Belt (featuring dwarf planets Vok, Vonel, and Petone) ●
• Hliff (ice planet) ●
• Uoc (ice planet) ●

Toropei ●

A former venus. Called "Kardis" by astronomers before the Aliquine Terraformers arrived. The habitable areas are limited to polar mountaintops. It features a system of shade rings, created by earlier civlizations, renewed by the Aliquine. Residents are mostly Terrans and tliggoes. Member of the Arvas Union.

Gravity: 0.93 g
Day: 292 hrs (12 days, on the surface)
Year: 214.84 days

Population: 39 million
Capital: Nungarin
Spaceports: Nungarin, Yangan, Japarit (aerostat)
Other major cities: Kardivaan, Nargulu, Kareela, Nippering (aerostat)

Planetography:

• Work in Progress - They're still dropping comets on it, to add water. The comets are carefully pulverized before reaching Toropei, so every few years, Toropei has massive, extended meteor showers as ice drops out of the sky and vaporizes, humidifying the planet.
• BYOB - Visitors are traditionally supposed to bring a liter of water with them and toss it out on arrival - every little bit helps.
• The Hot-Water Zone - Although Toropei is dry by Terran standards, there is far more water vapor in the air than on Venus. As terraforming has cooled Toropei, rain has started falling and forming lakes in the valleys of the polar mountains. They contain contain little life, since most native Toropean life is adapted to higher heat and dryness, while the water is too hot for the lifeforms brought by the Aliquine. The coolest of these lakes are tolerable to Terrans and others, and people go there for the swimming.
• The Shade Rings - The sky near the horizon, at either pole, is dominated by wide, pale, shallow, overlapping arcs, the artificial shade rings created by previous civilizations and renewed by the Aliquine.
• Mesas - There are a surprising number of flat-topped mountains in the polar areas. Geological and archeological research shows these mountains were truncated by earlier civilizations. Accordingly, though the Aliquine build their cities on the mesas, they keep an eye out for traces of the Precursors.
• Seasons - A large axial tilt means big seasonal variations (between hot and hotter), prompting a lot of migration and estivation by local lifeforms.
• Mountain-Building - Because it has so little water, Toropei has no shifting of tectonic plates. Instead, it has major orogenic and volcanic events, rather as they used to think Earth did.
• The Join - A major mountain range, called the Join, runs from arctic to antarctic zones. Though too hot for ready settlement, it is still cooler to traverse than any other route, and when Toropei cools some more, it will eventually become habitable—again, for there are artificial mesas in the Join.
• Fire Gems - Some metamorphic rocks occur on venusians that do not occur on earthlike worlds. Some of these are classed as gems, such as agnite, surtur, and muspelstone.

Biota:

 Native life:

• Like the rest of the system, Toropei was terraformed before, by the Precursors and other civilizations. With a few exceptions, all that remained when the Aliquine arrived were extremophile microbes, slowly losing the battle with the geology to keep down the carbon dioxide level. Modern terraforming is gradually pushing the extremophiles downward, off the mountain tops.
• Walking Ferns - These are survivors of earlier cycles of terraforming. Their upper trunks and foliage resemble tree ferns, but their lower trunks and roots resemble those of a walking palm. The tree grows and resorbs roots to slowly migrate up and down mountain sides, seeking the best temperature and moisture for the time of year.
• Land Sponges - These are the nearest thing to native Toropean animals. They feed on microbes of air and soil, and move in amoeboid fashion, just fast enough to be visible to the naked eye. They have no fixed forms, but come in a profusion of sizes, colors, textures, and habits of growth, including great hollow, tubular "sand worms" that may contain ecologies of smaller sponges.

 Introduced life—Venusian:

 Many introduced organisms are adapted from those used to terraform Venus. Examples:

• Silvergrass - a mainstay of the ecology, growing on mesas and in valleys in the relatively cool polar areas, pale green in color, overlaid with a silvery sheen of protective reflectance.
• Snow cactus - a name given in irony, since the nearly white color is protection against too much light. There are many species, adapted from Terran forms.
• Hesper apples - a cactus growing as a stack of glistening golden balls. It has a tough skin but is spineless and tasty, designed as a crop plant. Its speed of growth depends on the availability of moisture.
• Silverpine - pale-needled variations on bristlecone and pinyon pine.
• Siripard - a dry-adapted form of the cheetah, with a distinctive yellow-spotted white coat.
• Seercat - a dry-adapted wildcat, visually similar to the Abyssinian cat, found both in wilderness and near cities.
• Seerdog - a wild dog combining features of the coyote and the dingo, lean and tan-coated, with large heat-shedding ears and bare belly.
• Venusian fenec - based on the original miniature desert fox, it is almost identical in appearance.
• Drymouse or Venusian gerbil - adapted from the original gerbil, it has a lighter coat color and no need to drink water if it can eat enough insects or vegetation.
• Drybats - any of a number of small bats adapted to the climate, feeding on insect life, small lizards, flowers, and fruit. Since the Toropean day is so long, it is not possible for them to feed only at night, so the dark coloring of Earthly bats has been replaced with heat-resisting pale colors.
• Steelhawk - a small (~1 kg) hawk adapted to the climate, with featherless belly and legs; back, wings, head, and tail coated with silvery feathers of metallic reflectivity.
• Finches and hummingbirds - many species, based on Earthly ones. The finches often have bare bellies, to assist heat loss. Some hummingbirds pierce cacti for moisture.
• Lizards - a great variety of lizards, based on anoles, geckos, and the like. Many are no more than a centimeter long. The ground-cities are full of them, and they are common even in the aerostats.
• Hathor scarab - a large beetle, about as wide and long as a human hand, but no thicker than a finger, to avoid overheating. It has a mirror-like, coppery or golden carapace.
• Coal dragons - heavily adapted dragonflies, with the aquatic nymph stage of the Earthly dragonfly replaced with a beetle-like grub stage that hunts insects on the ground. The name "coal dragon" refers to the size of Coal Age dragonflies; wing-spans can reach 80 cm. There are several species, in a variety of colors. They prey on other insects, bats, and finches. They are, in turn, edible, and are sometimes jocularly called "air lobsters."

 Introduced life—Aliquine:

• Xericap - An Aliquine variation of the mountain sheep, almost deer-like in build, with a thin platinum coat on the head and back, bare skin on the legs and belly, large heat-shedding ears and dewlap. It normally gets its water from vegetation.
• Kwyfy - A mauve monkey-like creature the size of a cat, with prehensile tail, gecko-like toes, and parrot-like beak. It is a non-Terran animal introduced by the Aliquine, found in forests and city parks.
• Dairy Bugs - Called "Aphiclids" more formally. They are usually kept as domestic cattle, but feral populations exist. They are very like Terran arthropods, being truly exoskeletal, but have closed circulatory systems and bird-like lungs, allowing them to grow much larger. In particular, adult dairy bugs can weigh 15 to 25 kg. They look something like very large mantises, with beak-like mouths, four arms, four legs, and extra antennae. They range in color from bright green to gray-blue. Unlike mantises, they are fructivorous and can learn to do tricks. The females have very plump abdomens and give milk through four pipe-like teats. The males are smaller and more slender, with four antennae developed into gaudy plumes. Like the females, they lay eggs, but their eggs are more numerous, smaller, and sterile, used as treats to woo the females. Like the milk, the eggs of both sexes are edible by humans. Dairy bugs are used on many Tesserelios worlds.

Settlements:

• Sea of Fire - The mountain-top settlements are like islands, but with no sea—instead a gradual descent into unlivable heat. Tliggoes can live lower/hotter than humans.
• Aerostats - There are rather a lot of aerostat cities: each a fleet of enormous ovoid floats with skyscrapers hanging from them.
• Aero-nomads - Aerostat nomads live in miniature versions of aerostat cities, one or a few smaller floats with homes dangling under them, owned by an individual or, more often, a family.
• Carbon Fields - Aerostat dwellers often migrate regularly to "carbon fields," stretches of coal-sand deposited by the extremophiles. There, they visit surface facilities for extraction and early processing of light-atomic-weight materials.
• Migration - Aerostats also migrate to follow the cooler (well, less hot) weather.
• Manufacture - Further processing and manufacture is done in some big aerostats and in mountain-top cities. These materials and their manufactures are major Toropean exports.
• Silver Circuses - Mountain-top cities shelter under great, gauzy, silvery shade-tents, organized for passive ventilation and cooling.
• Hot Bio - High-temperature bio-tech is a major industry, for local terraforming and for production of specialized materials.
• Hot Gardens - Toropeans excel in exotic high-temperature gardening, for its own sake and to produce luxury exports.
• Fireproof - Prospectors for agnite, surtur, and muspelstone use firekey, temper, and dowsing to work in the lowland. Workers on the carbon fields often do the same. (This is in addition to conventional protective gear.)
• Double Time - Because of the long local day (12 standard days), Toropeans both use Gresh time (the 24-hour cycle based on Earth) and treat the "solars" (the local days) as a parallel system of months. There are 24⅓ solars in a Toropean year. Toropeans divide them into four groups, named after the seasons of the northern hemisphere, and then number then: e.g., "3rd Autumn" is the third solar of autumn and "10th of 3rd Autumn" is the tenth day of the third solar of autumn. Every day has three designations: day of the week, Gresh date, and Toropean date, e.g.:
    Friday, '012 February 10, 7th of 4th Winter
  The Toropean date is useful because it tells you what time of local day an event will be. Days 1 to 3 are dawn to noon; days 4 to 6 are noon to dusk; days 7 to 9 are dusk to midnight; days 10 to 12 are midnight to dawn.
• Night Lights & Day Shades - Because of the long local day, Terran Toropeans do not use it for their own circadian rhythms. (Tliggoes do not have circadian rhythms. Other biospheres are tiny minorities.) Cities and buildings light up during Gresh daytime, if the sun is down, with indirect lighting on the shade tents. If the sun is up, people draw shades during the Gresh nighttime.
• Bead-Baths - To conserve water, Toropeans often bathe in tubs of beads. You wipe down with a damp cloth, then get in and bestir yourself. The beads remove skin oils and do a little dermabrasion.

⇑ Go to top.

Tharessa ●

A wet, warm earth. Settlements concentrate on polar continents. The year features twice-yearly "steamer seasons" with hurricanes from the equatorial oceans. Residents are mostly Terrans, voms, and tliggoes. Member of the Arvas Union.

Gravity: 1.25 g
Day: 54 hrs
Year: 268.55 days

Population: 42 million
Capital: Kerang
Spaceports: Kerang, Ongerup
Other major cities: Yannawah, Koolgardie, Moruya

Planetography:

• Ocean - Tharessa is 85% ocean by surface.
• Storms - What land surface there is generates turbulence that seeds the formation of coriolis storms like typhoons or hurricanes, called "steamers." The long stretches of warm ocean let the steamers build up great force.
• Steamer Season - The main steamer season lasts from late summer through most of autumn, in each hemisphere. A dozen steamers per season is average.
• Spring Steamers - Then there are the weaker spring steamers, only six to eight on average.
• Borea - The arctic zone is occupied by Borea, the largest continent of the planet, but still not very large, about the size of India. Its size and location mean the north pole is the place on the planet safest from steamers.
• Antarctic Islands - The antarctic zone is occupied by an archipelago, regularly struck by steamers.
• Moonlets - Tharessa has three moons, but they are too small to create noticeable tides. Solar tides are much more significant. Of the three moons, only one presents a visible disc.

Biota:

 Native life:

• True Natives - Fossil studies and genetic analysis show that only some microscopic forms originated on Tharessa. The visible life that was here when the Aliquine arrived were all introduced by the Precursors and other previous civilizations.
• Golden Plants - Native plants use a brown pigment for photosynthesis, usually diluted to shades of golden yellow. Flat land surface is covered with tan prairie grass; there are no deserts. Hills have forests that look perpetually autumnal.
• Mallorans - These are redwood-sized trees with hat-sized heart-shaped leaves, of almost metallic golden shininess. The feather-like fruiting bodies are snow white, as are the undersides of the leaves. Tharessan settlers have made this tree a symbol of their planet.
• Sea Mats - Clots of weed thick enough, in some cases, to stand on. The underlying brown colors are obscured by other weeds and coral-like fungi. On the underside, small fry swarm. In quieter waters, near the poles, some mats sprout trees.
• Big Salps - The seas are dominated by whale-sized "salps"—invertebrate filter feeders like aquatic blimps, armored in hexagonal gray plates.
• More Salps - There is a wide variety of smaller salps, occupying fish-like niches. Picture a cucumber made of jelly, with a hole at either end and some fins. Then vary the size, proportions, and coloring.
• Dilobites - This taxon of arthropod-like animals resembles the the trilobites of prehistoric Earth in size, variety, and habitat (mostly oceanic, though some are found in fresh water), but all have a deep crease down the middle of the back. They have two modes of reproduction: a standard bisexual one, and one where the animal simply splits at the crease and both halves regenerate the other half. If an animal is badly injured on one side, it often jettisons that side and regenerates from the surviving side.
• Glass Shells - Another major animal taxon is a group resembling mollusks or nematodes. Unlike the salps, they have eyes and central nervous systems. Many grow glassy shells of silica.
• Sailor Balls - These animals are hollow balls ranging in size from grapefruit to car. Most are spherical and translucent, in various colors. Some are more cylindrical. Some are opaque. They migrate from one feeding ground to another by being blown across the water by the winds. When the winds are not favorable, they take on water and sink.

 Introduced life:

• Pirts - These are pegasus-like animals introduced by the Tharessan settlers. They are emblems of Tharessa, as kangaroos are of Australia. Pirts are the size of large dogs, with greyhound-like builds and huge bat-like wings. Tailless, they steer with the flat vertical antlers on their heads. They have a small eye on either side of the head and a large one at the base of the muzzle. Wing and body contours are streamlined by sleek fur of carefully regulated length and thickness. The coats are brilliant spectral colors, with accents of black or white.
  The first pirts out of the gestators had to be taught how, when, and where to migrate, but they were fast learners. Riding the steamers' outlying winds, they flash from pole to pole twice every Tharessan year, like arctic terns. Between migrations, they shed antlers, raise young in marsupial pouches (both sexes taking turns) if at the north pole, and hunt fruit and insects in the terraformed jungles, climbing with clawed feet and flap-hopping from tree to tree.
• Pogoboks - These look like small raptor dinosaurs, 25–35 kg, with a single leg and no forelimbs. Their head bears short trunks. They have sleekly pelted skins, which they shed regularly. The settlers track the semi-tame packs and collect the shed skins in molting season.
• Skoons - These are cart-horse sized animals that pull themselves along with powerful forelegs, the body gliding on a smooth-edged keel or runner. Their heads are neckless, equipped with insect-like palps and a tuft of many thin eyestalks. Tharessans keep several breeds, for riding and for flour.
• Dairy Bugs - Called "Aphiclids" more formally. They are usually kept as domestic cattle, but feral populations exist. They are very like Terran arthropods, being truly exoskeletal, but have closed circulatory systems and bird-like lungs, allowing them to grow much larger. In particular, adult dairy bugs can weigh 15 to 25 kg. They look something like very large mantises, with beak-like mouths, four arms, four legs, and extra antennae. They range in color from bright green to gray-blue. Unlike mantises, they are fructivorous and can learn to do tricks. The females have very plump abdomens and give milk through four pipe-like teats. The males are smaller and more slender, with four antennae developed into gaudy plumes. Like the females, they lay eggs, but their eggs are more numerous, smaller, and sterile, used as treats to woo the females. Like the milk, the eggs of both sexes are edible by humans. Dairy bugs are used on many Tesserelios worlds.

Settlements:

• Vom City - Yennawah is the only major city in the south polar archipelago. It is dominated by voms, and therefore sprawls along the coast, half in the water, with few multi-story buildings.
• Windproofing - But then, no coastal Tharessan city has many high buildings. Most of their buildings are low and waterproof and on short stilts.
• City-Fleets - There are four fleets permanently at sea, tending to aquaculture, salp fishing, and salp whaling. Koolgardie is the largest, with a population about one-third vom.
• Aerostats - Three aerostat cities circulate around the continent Borea, providing support to the aquaculture, salp-fishing, and salp-whaling industries. The largest is Moruya.
• Fortress Farms - Farms are neat patches of green on the golden background of the polar plains. They do not look besieged, but they are. Terran-compatible crops do not grow in Tharessan soil, because of metabolic incompatibilities with the soil biota. Therefore, each farm stands on a patch of ground that was sterilized and re-seeded. The Aliquine expect that, after our civilization transcends (whatever that means and whenever it happens), Tharessa will reclaim this land and erase these enclaves.
• Golden Ranches - Regardless of the soil biota, the yellow-brown grass of the polar plains is quite digestible to Terran ungulates and several Terran-compatible herd animals, so ranches do not need to be soil-conditioned. Sheep are a common choice, since one animal can provide wool, milk, and eggs.
• Days and Light - Because the 54-hour day does not fit human circadian rhythm (voms and tliggoes have no such rhythms), life is run on Gresh time, Earth's 24-hour cycle. Tharessans treat the actual light-level as sea-farers treat the tides—one of life's rhythms, but not the one you sleep to. It helps that settlements are at the poles, so for much of the year, it's either nearly constant light or nearly constant dark.

⇑ Go to top.

Ennetva ●

A wholly oceanic world, tidally locked with its twin planet, Essetva. Settlements are in aerostats or on reefwood platforms. Voms and neo-dolphins run the aquaculture industries. Other residents are mostly Terrans and tliggoes. Member of the Arvas Union.

Gravity: 1.15 g
Day: 28:18 hrs
Year: 335.69 days

Population: 3.4 million
Capital: Broceliande
Spaceports: Broceliande Polar (orbital), Tukanara, Goondiwundi
Other major cities: Mulgoa, Gymeo, Innaloo

Planetography:

• Ocean - Ennetva is completely covered in water.
• Storm Belts - Ennetva looks like a miniature blue gas-giant, with bands of clear and storm that shift fairly regularly over the year.
• Even Clime - Because of all the water and the unimpeded winds, temperatures vary little over the surface. There are no ice caps, for instance.
• Low Salt - With no erosion from land, there is very little salt in Ennetva's ocean. It barely tastes different from completely fresh water.
• Standing Moon - Ennetva and Essetva are tidally locked, keeping the same faces toward each other. As a result, neither moves in the sky of the other. Each is full at midnight and "new" at noon. Each is invisible from the outer hemisphere of the other.
• Eclipses - Ennetva and Essetva circle each other very close to their plane of orbit. As a result, they have daily eclipses through spring and autumn. This is the main seasonal change on Ennetva.

Biota:

• Simplicity - Since Ennetva is 1.5 billion years younger than Earth and of a much more uniform environment, evolution has not got beyond the microscopic stage (which is where Earth's was 1.5 billion years ago). Macroscopic life is all from current or past terraformers.
• Reversion - Most terraformed planets tend to revert to their previous state. Ennetva is a classic case of biological reversion. Its native biota may be primitive, but it is vigorous and well-entrenched. It is out-competing and generally bad for life-forms from other biospheres. Species from other terraforming civilizations were declining before our arrival, and the expectation is that ours will fade out, too, when we're no longer there to do aquaculture.
• Sargassos - The storm bands produce large gyres with quiet centers. Masses of weed accumulate there, and are home to distinctive biota.
• Commuters - Essetvan life may not have evolved much yet, but it has solved one tricky problem: the sunlight is at the top of the sea, but all the mineral nutrients are at the bottom, and there is no other source such as run-off from land. So many planktonic forms commute between sea floor and surface, absorbing minerals on the bottom, then developing oil droplets or gas bubbles and rising to the sunlight, where they or their prey can photosynthesize. These migrations may take several microbial generations.
• Blobs - They look like giant amoebas, but are actually colonies of connected jellyfish-like organisms. They act like amoebas, too, engulfing prey and dividing.
• Megaciliates - The standard megaciliate is a creature the size and shape of a cucumber, with an orifice at each end, some eyespots at the front, and several strips of bristles along the body, cilia that propel the animal by vibration. There are a great many variations on this plan, in size, shape, color, and lengths and arrangements of cilia.
• Echo Shrimp - The taxon Echosquillae, locally called "squills," resembles Terran arthropods. However, except for some abyssal forms, they have flippers, not legs. All lack eyes; they use echolocation instead. Many swim with lobster-like tails.
  • The largest animal on Ennetva, the zaratan, is an oval echosquill that reaches at least fifteen meters in length; it is a filter feeder.
  • The ventisquills are a group of "flying shrimp." They have developed their flippers into wings and escape predators by leaping out of the water, or migrate to new feeding grounds by jumping out of the water into storm winds.
• Bone Squids - The taxon Osteoteuthis, locally called "ostoots," descends from the megaciliates. Their skin bears bony plates, which may be numerous and fine enough to resemble fish scales or, at the other extreme, fused into a single casque. Four tentacles extend from the mouth and may replace cilia as the means of propulsion.
• Slug Fish - The taxon Leimaconicthyes, locally called "leemacks," look a lot like Terran fish, but have neither scales nor bones nor rays in the fins.
• Oil Salps - Ennetvans have adapted the oil salps of the Aliquine standard ice-age biome, harvesting them, not for oil lamps, but for bio-mass to feed the biogeneration industry and as precursor for the nanotech a material designs industries.
• Broceliande - Some of the vegetative mats produce forests of trees, growing straight up from the water. Each such forest is normally a single kind of tree, though many other organisms live among them. The leaves of this taxon are shades of blue-green, and many colorful fruiting bodies, sessile animals, and secondary growth add variety to the color. The wood is not generally useful as timber, but see Graft Orchards under Settlements.

Settlements:

• Timber Reefs - Ennetva needs a lot of wood for construction. They grow it the aquatic broceliande forests, in groves genetically engineered for the purpose.
• Graft Orchards - After heroic efforts involving symbiosis across four different biospheres, the Ennetvans have mastered the art of grafting Terran and Terran-edible fruit trees onto the native broceliane forests.
• Corkbergs - These are floating reefs introduced by the Ennetvans, like great mats of brain-coral but based on fast-growing plants. Most are sawed up for construction materials at a steady rate, but some have been made into the foundations of communities.
• Gyre Farms - Ennetvans farm fish, weed, and plankton in gyres, circles of current, that confine the crops or stock, or at least sufficiently concentrate them. These are patrolled at the edges by the flowboats that guide and repair the gyre and keep it from unraveling. Most of the stock is genetically engineered.
• Biogeneration Industry - Salp oil and plankton are fed into the biogeneration factories, where genetically engineered bacteria and similar organisms turn the organic materials into food, medicine, construction materials, and so forth. On Ennetva, these take the form of floating clusters of tanks amid raft buildings.
• Raft Cities - The commonest form of community is a raft city, largely made of organic plastic and wood, particularly the native-grown cork. A typical raft hosts one building or the equivalent of a small city block. A three-story building with a cupola is very tall. Basements are very common (as are sump pumps). Ennetva has developed a distinctive style of carving and painting all this wood: think sea-life expressed in Egyptian-style hieroglyphs.
• Fleets - Some communities are permanent fleets of ships. The main vessels sail around the planet on the steady winds, staying between storm belts, while smaller vessels go on travel, trading, fishing, or salping expeditions. The neo-dolphin populations almost always live in the fleets, where there is infrastructure to accommodate them on the undersides of the vessels.
• Aerostats - Lacking land, Ennetva has a lot of aerostats. Most are fleets of buildings forming aerial suburbs of raft cities, but some migrate regularly around the planet at the edges of the storm belts. During the recent wars, they sometimes sailed into the storm belts, to hide.
• Combos - The large cities are all combinations of raft, fleet, and aerostat communities.
• Forts - As a result of the Avras Rebellion and the Sratlanic War, Ennetva has forts. Most are in orbit, but aerostat forts attend all major cities, along with permanent naval fleets.
• Broceliande City - The capital city. It is a combo of rafts, fleets, and aerostats at the north pole, docked on the borders of the largest broceliande forest on the planet. The other broceliandes are named after it, and it is itself named after a sea-wood in Arthurian lore.
• The Week - Ennetva and Essetva circle each other every 28:18 hours, each tidally locked so that each always presents the same face to the other (not that Ennetva's face has any distinguishing marks). As a result, Ennetvans do not use Gresh time domestically. Instead, they use a week of six days, close in length to a standard week, the days named First, Second, Third... Given the unhandy division by hours, each day is measured in percentage, with 0% at midnight. Thus dawn is close to 25%, noon at 50%, and dusk at 75%. An hour is about 3.5%.
• Water Babies - Naturally, everyone can swim, even the tliggoes and AIs, who are not naturally buoyant. The voms and neo-dolphins are naturally aquatic, and the others take hypoxia scores to resist drowning. Various psi skills for water living are common, such as water-breathing and laminar swimming.

⇑ Go to top.

Essetva ●

Gravity: 0.87 g
Day: 28:18 hrs
Year: 335.69 days

Population: 1.2 million
Capital: Merredin
Spaceports: Merredin, Tulimbar
Other major cities: Wingarna, Mittagong

Planetography:

• Thin Air - Since Essetva is less massive than Ennetva or Earth, it holds less air. Newcomers should take oxygen pills until they adapt.
• Desert - The thin air also means Essetva holds less water. It is almost entirely desert and has no open water that the Aliquines did not put there. The Precursors and other earlier civilizations created lakes and rivers, too, but they dried long ago.
• Hot and Cold - Because of the thinner air and desert conditions, there is considerable temperature variation with season and latitude. At the equator, there is no seasonal variation, but days are hot and nights are cold.
• UV - Because of the thin air, the surface of Essetva receives a large amount of ultraviolet light. Residents compensate with cosmetic mutations for extra melanin, if they lack enough personally, and with skin bacteria engineered to supply sun-block.
• Aquafers - Earlier civilizations carved channels through the crust, below the sand, so that moisture could flow underground. The Aliquines now use these aquafers, dropping comets into the highland creater-lakes where the Precursors anciently dropped them, and melting the ice in summers with orbital mirrors and cultures of ice-loving antifreeze bacteria. Now wandering channels of greenery stretch from highlands to lowlands. Why yes, it does look a bit like the old pictures of Mars.
• Standing Moon - Essetva and Ennetva are tidally locked, keeping the same faces toward each other. As a result, neither moves in the sky of the other. Each is full at midnight and "new" at noon. Each is invisible from the outer hemisphere of the other.
• Eclipses - Essetva and Ennetva circle each other very close to their plane of orbit. As a result, they have daily eclipses through spring and autumn. This is the main seasonal change on Essetva's equator.

Biota:

• Air from Sand - Sands near aquafers bear photosynthetic bacteria that keep oxygen in the air. A casual observer would notice nothing. An informed observer would notice the sand is a bit coarser and a shade or two browner.
• Grasslands - Over the aquafers, the sand gives way to broad strips of grassland, dotted with occasional connifers and small woods.
• Little Birds and Bugs - Because of the thin air, flying is difficult, and harder the larger the animal gets. Flying birds are all small varieties. Terran insects have additional problems with their respiratory systems, so they are all of smaller varieties too.
• Big Birds - Diatrymas, huge and flightless, are good apex predators for Essetva, since their avian flow-though lungs lets them cope readily with the thin air.
• Air-Crabs - These ET arthropods have closed circulatory systems and lungs, so they have fewer limitations on Essetva than do Terran insects. Picture crabs with beetle-style wings. However, none are larger than a walnut, because the thin air is still hard to fly in.
• Dairy Bugs - Relatives of the air-crabs, called "Aphiclids" more formally. They are usually kept as domestic cattle, but feral populations exist. They are very like Terran arthropods, being truly exoskeletal, but have closed circulatory systems and bird-like lungs, allowing them to grow much larger. In particular, adult dairy bugs can weigh 15 to 25 kg. They look something like very large mantises, with beak-like mouths, four arms, four legs, and extra antennae. They range in color from bright green to gray-blue. Unlike mantises, they are fructivorous and can learn to do tricks. The females have very plump abdomens and give milk through four pipe-like teats. The males are smaller and more slender, with four antennae developed into gaudy plumes. Like the females, they lay eggs, but their eggs are more numerous, smaller, and sterile, used as treats to woo the females. Like the milk, the eggs of both sexes are edible by humans. Dairy bugs are used on many Tesserelios worlds.
• Sheep - Sheep are a popular stock to keep on the grasslands, since one animal can provide wool, milk, and eggs.
• Horses - Essetvans are proud of their desert horses, small and agile, descended from Arabians, living in both feral and domestic populations. Psychic skills have percolated from humans to domestic horses to the feral herds: telepathy with rider or herd is common; the favorite telekinetic tricks are extended leaps, running on sand as on firm ground, and "turbo boosts."
• Oases - Most Essetvan cities are located on oases, at the confluence of two aquafers or where an aquafer widens. The city proper is located at the edge, leaving more arable land for crops and orchards. Most oasis cities are under tents, which form part of a system for reclaiming water vapor, and which help regulate temperature and UV.
  Other Essetvan cities are by rivers, but these are limited to the mountainous areas, since the rivers soon sink into the aquafers.
• Bayagar - Symbiotic colonies that are the basis for a nomadic culture. Each colony is sculpted into a large hood- or helmet-like shell supported on three to five legs, standing about three meters high, the whole composed of green "bones" (ET plants) and black "muscles" (ET animals).
• Desert Spiralopes - Related to skoons, lightly built, with deerlike fore-bodies and powerful tails curling under like coiled springs. The heads are like those of earless deer, with a tuft of eyestalks. They are favorite hunting prey of azwars.
• Sarduns - ET, from Chaura, the azwars' home world. Bison-sized, with mauve fur, ivory hooves, and massive heads beaked and horned with ivory, like a triceratops without the frill. They have five silvery eyes, two big ones on the sides of the head and a triangle of little ones in front. They are the standard stock for azwar pastoralism.
• Hemmenin - A fungus-like organism that grows well in slightly dry sand under sunlight rich in ultraviolet. At intervals, the sand acquires a coating of thin white fuzz as the fruiting bodies develop. Then thin white sheets or flakes form over the fuzz, meant to be eaten by small organisms, which thereby spread the spores in the flakes. On Essetva, the flakes are harvested as spice. They are a prominent export, having a sweet-savory taste and a complex smell.

Settlements:

• Race Mix - Terrans share Essetva with azwars (especially in the high latitudes) and tliggoes (especially in the low latitudes). There are very few voms.
• Ruins - Essetva has more Precursor ruins than any other inhabited globe in the Tesserelios system. The largest is the Wingarna Complex.
• No Aerostats - The thin air means that the floats on aerostats would have to be prohibitively large.
• The Week - Essetva and Ennetva circle each other every 28:18 hours, each tidally locked so that each always presents the same face to the other (not that Ennetva's face has any distinguishing marks). As a result, Essetvans do not use Gresh time domestically. Instead, they use a week of six days, close in length to a standard week, the days named First, Second, Third... Given the unhandy division by hours, each day is measured in percentage, with 0% at midnight. Thus dawn is close to 25%, noon at 50%, and dusk at 75%. An hour is about 3.5%.
• Dogpacks - Essetvans favor greyhounds. These greyhounds have more well-rounded personalities, more general intelligence, and life-expectancies of 30 years (often extended by rejuvenation). A common social institution is a pack of greyhounds, led by a neo-dog, linked by telepathic skills all around.
• Bikes and Skids and Sleighs - In town, bipedal Essetvans are very fond of bicycles, collapsible and ultralight. Off-road, they use "skids," like bikes with a variable-friction runner in place of wheels, powered by tractor beam or personal TK. Scaling up, you have sand sleighs, with the same variable-friction runners, moved by beam or horse (or TK, for show-offs; a telekinetic azwar barreling across the steppe on a sled is quite a sight).
• Bayaga-Riders - These are migratory bands, living by sheep pastoralism, riding in bayagar. These bands consist of humans, tliggoes, or sometimes both in families linked by blood-sib relationships.
• The Sardun Masters - These are migratory bands of azwars, living by sardun pastoralism.
• Splicing - Avrasi as a whole have no problem with splice jobs, but they are particularly common with Essetvans—tails as fashion accessories, extra arms for the busy or neo-beasts, and wings with built-in lifters are the commonest.
• Bead-Baths - To conserve water, Essetvans often bathe in tubs of beads. You wipe down with a damp cloth, then get in and bestir yourself. The beads remove skin oils and do a little dermabrasion.

⇑ Go to top.

Eccome ●

Gravity: 0.98 g
Day: 16:08 hrs
Year: 419.62 days

Population: 88 million
Capital: Port Eucla
Spaceports: Port Eucla, Minnamurra, Bindoon, Girraween
Other major cities: Grong Grong, Kojanup

Planetography:

• Prime Earth: Eccome is very earth-like, with similar gravity, air pressure, and land/sea ratio. There are five major continents, none extending near the poles. This leaves the oceans free to circulate through the poles and makes global temperatures equable, though there is enough seasonal variation to bring snow in winter at the high latitudes.
• Many Moons: Eccome has three moons, all much smaller than Earth's, but also much whiter, so that they are very noticeable in the sky. They are, from dimmest to brightest: Echuca, Echinga, and Echanding. None raise noticeable tides.

Biota:

• Flowerless, Grassless - There are no local equivalents to angiosperms, flowering plants. Genetic exchange is by spores or underground rhizomes. There are still trees and herbage, green with a yellow or brown cast to it.
• Ciripedes - A taxon of insectile animals featuring four legs that branch various numbers of times, so the animals come in an effectively wide number of limbs. In some cases, the branches form feather-like structures that can be used as wings. Since the components of the features are jointed, the flight characteristics can be altered by the animal. Ciripedes have book lungs and closed circulatory systems, so they can reach large sizes.
• Xerechinoderms - A taxon of invertebrate animals with varying numbers of limbs, mouths, and eyespots, generally looking like animated branching corals. The body is supported by a layer of touch nodules or grains under the skin, serving as anchors for muscles and connective tissue. This is flexible system allows for the wide variety of xerechinoderm forms.
• Helicotheres - A worm-like group of xerechinoderms assumed semi-permanent helical shapes, letting them roll quickly. There are mouths and palps on the outer surface, eyespots and vents on the inner surface. Helicotheres range in size from almost microscopic to knee-high.
• Torotheres - a.k.a. "rollers." These are the developed from helicotheres. They are doughnut-shaped animals ranging in size from a few millimeters up to giant grazers ten meters tall.
• Great Expectations - The ciripedean and xerechinodermal groups seem to have great evolutionary promise. The Precursors and other predecessors appear to have left them quite alone, and the current civilization is following suit.

Settlements:

• All the Aliquines - There are voms in the oceans and rivers, voms and Terrans on the coasts and along the rivers, tliggoes and Terrans in low latitudes, azwars and Terrans in the high latitudes, azwars up in the mountains, and Ilden machines anywhere.
• Port Euclas and the Rest: At 3 million, Port Eucla is by far the largest, busiest, and most prominent city on Eccome. As with Paris and France, London and England, Chicago and Illinois, and New York City and New York State, it tends to cast the rest of Eccome into the shade. Lots of people know Port Eucla is a big, important city but aren't sure which planet it's on. Darrun? Brogen?
• Farms - Eccome is dotted with farms and ranches, carefully spaced within the local flora. This means a similar, wider grid of small farm towns.
• Limited Wilderness - The farm areas are partnered with patches of non-native wilderness, to supply pollinators and other symbiotic support. But mostly they supply buffer areas, since they can compete with the local biota better than the croplands can. But the alien wilderness just loses more slowly to the native. Both farms and Terran wilderness have to be maintained.
• Breadbasket - Eccome feeds itself and supplies staples to Avras vacuum habitats, notably the system capital Vazuthen Sel, in orbit around Agen. It sells non-staple foods everywhere and is even beginning to penetrate Vethas, Volluse, and Barudani markets.
• War Posture - As a major center of population, industry, and food production, Eccome was heavily attacked during the Avras Rebellion and the Sratlanic War. Every major city has cannon emplacements, force-field fortifications, and military landing fields, as have bases on all three moons. There are four large orbital forts, too. Most of these have been reduced to skeletal staff, but they have not been decommissioned.
• War Scars - Anti-Barudani feeling runs higher on Eccome than anywhere else in the Avras, and anti-Iahocho feeling runs higher yet. The idea that the Iahocho were victimized by Sratlan as much as anyone else is a hard sell on Eccome.
• The Week - Because of the 16:08-hour day, Eccomeans do not use Gresh time domestically. Instead, they use a week of 12 days in six pairs, close in length to a standard week, the days named First Up, First Down, Second Up, Second Down, etc. On Up nights, Terrans take a nap; on the Down nights, they sleep for several hours. (None of the non-Terrans care.)
  The days end at midnight, which is 16:00, and start with an eight-minute "timeslip" followed by 0:00. Times within the timeslip are written as countdowns in "T minus" format, e.g., "T – 5:22" is five minutes and 22 seconds before the end of the timeslip. The timeslip is a traditional time to sneak a kiss, a sip, a bite, a peek, a sniff, or other microscopic indulgence.
  Because of the staggered days, Eccomean Terrans often give a fair amount of attention to pills, drinks, and other methods for regulating their sleep. Many have learned to control sleep patharchically.

⇑ Go to top.

The Agen System

Year: 524.52 days
Population: 29.7 million

Agen is a warm, neptune-sized gas giant. Its satellites include three life-bearing worlds, Soln, Ossel, and Derrun. The system also contains Vazuthen Sel, the space station capital of the Avras Union.

The three moons are culturally similar, due to their proximity. Common points of interest:

• Lunar Skies - All three moons, like most moons, are tidally locked to Agen, their primary. Agen stands still in their skies, and is never visible in the outer hemispheres. In the inner hemispheres, there are eclipses every local day. Other moons are visible as brilliant stars or, sometimes, very tiny discs.
• Agen - The planet is a small gas giant, a warm neptune. In daylight, it is a banded crescent in white and blue, the colors masked by the shining air; at night, it's a gibbous shield striped in browns, reds, and oranges.
• Gresh time - Since all three moons have orbital periods of several days, everyone runs on Gresh time.
• Ice-Age Biome - Macroscopic life is all from the standard Aliquine ice-age selection.
• Industry - The Agen system has most of the heavy industry in the Avras Union.
• War Posture - The whole Agen system remains in a bit of a war posture, with battle fleets patrolling regularly, cities with force field defenses at the ready, military bases well-staffed and drilling. No particular battle is expected, but it's not that long since Sratlan's forces swept through, and the Barudani are in the next orbit out and claim much more space than the Avrasi recognize.
• All the Aliquines - Terrans, azwars, tliggoes, and voms are found throughout the Agen system, though tliggoes are not as common as on the warmer worlds.
• Terraforming Support - The Agen system supports the terraforming efforts on Toropei and Tharessa. They used to support the outer moons, before they became Barudani territory.
• Immigrants - Liandan and non-human Barudani compose a slow, steady trickle of newcomers. Most of the non-human Barudani were Aliquines before the Barudani arrived and claimed territory.

Agen system flag shows a disk with three smaller discs in a row across it.

Soln ●

Gravity: 0.92 g
Period: 8.7 days

Population: 9 million
Capital: Maralinga
Spaceports: Maralinga, Duranillin
Other major cities: Terrigal

Planetography:

• Dry Ice-Age: Soln is low on water to start with, and most of it is tied up in ice caps, leaving a broad equatorial band of temperate climate, mostly plains and deserts with a few small, salty seas.
• Thin Air - Because of the low gravity, the air is thinner and newcomers sometimes need to take oxygen pills or hemopoietic treatments. Some residents have hypoxia scores.
• Hot and Cold - Because of the thinner air and desert conditions, there is considerable variation between day and night, each lasting over 100 hours. There is little seasonal variation, though, in the settled territories, because these are all near the equator.

Settlements:

• Industrial Lead - The sparse biota, exposed minerals, and low gravity has made it easy to develop ground-based industry and ship out the manufactured items.
• War Posture - As the industrial lead, Soln was also the most militarized of the Agen moons. This made it the most often targeted of the moons, and all the major cities have force-field fortifications, though only lightly staffed.
• War Scars - A number of military bases have been rebuilt next to the craters that mark their former positions.
• Cities of the Plains - Settlements concentrate in the plains of a wide, dry equatorial band watered by meltoff from the glacial caps.
• The Ice Industry - Several small but important cities stand at the ice-line, based on the industry of melting the glaciers to supply irrigation to the plains. They use a combination of methods, including geothermal heat, orbital mirrors, and cryobacteria.
• Sand Voms - A community of voms has set up a system of pastoralism and trading between the desert rivers. They proof themselves against drying with lotions of their own secretion. They also often camp and sleep under the sand. Do not believe anyone who claims their name is "Shai Hulud"; they are only teasing.
• Bayaga Riders - A community of humans who practice bison pastoralism and ride bayagar. Each bayaga colony is sculpted into a large hood- or helmet-like shell supported on three to five legs, standing about three meters high, the whole composed of green "bones" (ET plants) and black "muscles" (ET animals).
• "Agen Hune" - You will sometimes see Soln referred to as "Agen Hune." This was the name given by astronomers when studying Tesserelios remotely, and was used for a while by the Aliquine, but soon dropped for "Soln."

Ossel ●

Gravity: 1.3 g
Period: 4.1 days

Population: 7.2 million
Capital: Arrino
Spaceports: Tolga, Gunyidi, Myaree
Other major cities: Nambucca, Nar Nar Goon

Planetography:

• Wet Ice-Age - The main land masses are at the iced-in poles, so most settlements are on the coasts and the islands, where the effects of being in an ice age are much reduced.
• Unseasoned - Ossel has very little axial tilt, and most settlements are on islands not far from the equator, so there is no noticeable seasonal variation. The cooling and warming of the 50-hour nights and days is much more significant.

Settlements:

• The Allagennese - This is a large archipelago distant from other settlements, set aside as a terraforming lab for small and mid-scale geo-engineering (climate change on the scale of continents or smaller).
• Gyre Farms - Osselians farm fish, weed, and plankton in gyres, circles of current, that confine the crops or stock, or at least sufficiently concentrate them. These are patrolled at the edges by the flowboats that guide and repair the gyre and keep it from unraveling. Most of the stock is genetically engineered.
• Salping Towns - Many coastal towns are home to fleets and processing plants for the oil salping industry, run by a mixture of humans and voms.
• Biogeneration Industry - Salp oil and plankton are fed into the biogeneration factories, where genetically engineered bacteria and similar organisms turn the organic materials into food, medicine, construction materials, and so forth.
• "Agen Tsfu" - You will sometimes see Ossel referred to as "Agen Tsfu." This was the name given by astronomers when studying Tesserelios remotely, and was used for a while by the Aliquine, but soon dropped for "Ossel."

Derrun ●

Gravity: 1.3 g
Period: 2.5 days

Population: 12.8 million
Capital: Jeparit
Spaceports: Jeparit, Monbulik, Gilgandra
Other major cities: Benjabbering, Dardanup

Planetography:

• Wet & Cool - Derrun is uniformly temperate, 90% covered in water, with no ice caps. All land is islands, though some are larger than Madagascar.
• Slightly Seasonal - Derrun's orbit is more inclined than that of the other moons, so it has noticeable, though mild, seasonal variations in the upper latitudes.

Settlements:

• The Chimerese - This is a small, isolated archipelago used as a field lab biotechnical and genetic experiments, run by the Institute of Life. It has a transilience terminal connecting it to the Institute offices on Vazuthen Sel (principally for cargo).
• Ice-Age Lite - Derrun is planted with the standard ice-age biome, but only the temperate part.
• Gyre Farms - Derrunians farm fish, weed, and plankton in gyres, circles of current, that confine the crops or stock, or at least sufficiently concentrate them. These are patrolled at the edges by the flowboats that guide and repair the gyre and keep it from unraveling. Most of the stock is genetically engineered.
• Salping Towns - Many coastal towns are home to fleets and processing plants for the oil salping industry, run by a mixture of humans and voms.
• Biogeneration Industry - Salp oil and plankton are fed into the biogeneration factories, where genetically engineered bacteria and similar organisms turn the organic materials into food, medicine, construction materials, and so forth.
• "Agen Derrun" - You will sometimes see Derrun referred to as "Agen Derrun." This was the name given by astronomers when studying Tesserelios remotely, but was soon shortened to "Derrun."

Vazuthen Sel ●

Gravity: 1.0 g
Period: 0.72 days (17:17 hrs)
Population: 670,000

The space station capital of the Avras Union. It circles inside the orbits of all three inhabited moons, at the L2 Lagrange point of the small moon Vazuthen, so that Vazuthen is always squarely between it and Agen. This is to protect it from Agen's nearby radiation belts.

The center of Vazuthen Sel is a ring 4 km (2.5 miles) in radius, 1 km (0.625 miles) wide, rotating one every 90 seconds. This is the original section of the city, made from the recycled hulls of the colony transports. The suburbs consist of freefloating towers with artificial gravity.

Vazuthen Sel, often called "V.S." for short, hosts ceremonial centers, museums, communications and data centers, arsenals, the leading military academy, and the Tesserelios chapter house of the Institute of Life, but is not really the home of the system government. The government offices are dispersed for security, joined by tangle-sealed communications. Still, it is often very convenient for the parliament to meet face to face, and they do so regularly now that the system is at peace again. Besides, the V.S. skies are very heavily patrolled.

An L2 point is not gravitationally stable, but normally there is no problem keeping the city poised in place. However, during an extended power outage during the Sratlanic War, Vazuthan Sel drifted off the L2 point. How much danger it was in is a matter of interpretation, but everyone always brings up the crash of Varuna Synchronous into the North Atlantic during World War Seven, causing a tsunami that flooded Reykjavik.

⇑ Go to top.

Brogen ●

Gravity: 1.1 g
Day: 11:12 hrs
Year: 524.52 days

Population: 14.7 million
Capital: Yerecoin
Spaceports: Yerecoin, Cowra, Narrogin, Wulkuraka
Other major cities: Narre Warren

Climates range from temperate to arctic. Extensive seas. Barudani terraformers have mitigated the ice-age by stimulating vulcanism. Residents include a full range of Terrans, tliggoes, voms, and azwars.

Planetography:

• Leading Trojan - Brogen rides the same orbit as Agen, but at the trojan point 60 degrees ahead. It, Agen, and Avras form an equilateral triangle.
• Evening Star - Agen is always an evening star in Brogen's sky, setting about two hours after Avras.
• Many Moons - Brogen has seven moons, all small. Three present visible discs; four appear as bright points of light.
• Permanent Ice Age - Brogen is in an ice age; both poles are covered by extensive ice caps. And because the planet is held firmly in its trojan position by Agen, it experiences no Milankovitch cycles; it stays in its ice age until such time as a round of vulcanism or continental drift alters the geology.
• One Sea, One Land - Almost all the land on Brogen that is not under sea or ice is a single large apron extending out from under the northern ice cap, called simple "the Mainland." The Mainland has a very irregular coastline, many sea-sized lakes, a well-irrigated plain to the south, and non-stop mountains to the north, marching into the ice cap.
• Practical Vulcanism - The Aliquine, and later the Barudani, have stimulated vulcanism on Brogen with rounds of tectonic missiles upping the carbon dioxide level. It hasn't ended the ice age, but it's mitigated it.

Biota:

• Ice-Age Biome

Settlements:

• Academia - Brogen Institute of Technology, [city-name name] University,
• Azwar Central - Brogen has the largest proportion of azwars of any world in the Tesserelios, living in the Mainland mountains.
• Friendly Neighborhood Lake Monsters - Voms are not usually associated with mountains, but here most of the mountain lakes have one or more vom families in them.
• War Posture - Because of its orbit, Brogen is always far from the military centers of Agen and often near the Barudani worlds of Daha and the Torril moons, so almost all its little moons have military bases on them; major cities are well-defended with their own bases and force-field fortifications.
• Politics -
• Salping Towns - Many coastal towns are home to fleets and processing plants for the oil salping industry, run by a mixture of humans and voms.
• Gresh time - The short 11-hour days aren't convenient for business, so the place runs on straight Gresh time, though domestic scheduling usually includes ephemeris about dawn and dusk.

⇑ Go to top.

The Torril System

Year: 655.65 days
Population: 2.8 million

Torril, originally called "Noi'ev," is a warm, neptune-sized gas giant. Its satellites include two life-bearing worlds, Hune and Tsfu. The system belongs to the Barudani Commonwealth.

The two moons are culturally similar, due to their proximity. Common points of interest:

• Lunar Skies - Both moons, like most moons, are tidally locked to Torril, their primary. Torril stands still in their skies, and is never visible in the outer hemispheres. In the inner hemispheres, there are eclipses every local day. Other moons are visible as brilliant stars or, sometimes, very tiny discs.
• Torril - The planet is a small gas giant, a warm neptune. In daylight, it is a banded crescent in white and blue, the colors masked by the shining air; at night, it's a gibbous shield striped in browns, oranges, and yellows.
• Gresh time - Since both moons have orbital periods of several days, everyone runs on Gresh time.
• Ice-Age Biome - Macroscopic life is all from the standard Aliquine ice-age selection.
• Farming Moons - Neither moon has much industry. Manufactured goods are largely imported from
• War Posture - Both Torril moons remain in a bit of a war posture, with battle fleets patrolling regularly, military bases well-staffed and drilling. No particular battle is expected, but it's not that long since Sratlan's forces swept through, and the Avrasi hold all the inner orbits and don't recognize Barudani claims to interplanetary volumes.

The Torril system flag shows a striped disc flanked by two smaller discs.

Torril Hune ●

Gravity: g
Period: 1.2 days

Population: 1.8 million
Capital:
Spaceports:
Other major cities:

Planetography:

A moon of Torril, a wet, ice-age earth. Often simply "Hune." Settlements are on the many islands scattered over the global sea. Residents are mostly Terrans, voms, and azwars. Member of the Barudani Commonwealth. ice-age biome

Torril Tsfu ●

Gravity: g
Period: 5.9 days

Population: 1 million
Capital:
Spaceports:
Other major cities:

Planetography:

A moon of Torril, a dry ice-age earth. Often simply "Tsfu." Settlements are in the wide forested belt, dotted with seas, between the glacial caps. Barudani and Iahocho terraformers have mitigated the ice-age by stimulating vulcanism. Residents are mostly Terrans and azwars. Member of the Barudani Commonwealth. ice-age biome

⇑ Go to top.

Daha ●

Gravity: 1.1 g
Day: 11:12 hrs
Year: 655.65 days

Population: 0.5 million
Capital:
Spaceports:
Other major cities:

A trailing trojan riding the same orbit as Torril, a wet, heavy, ice-age earth. Settlements are on the coasts in the narrow habitable belt of ocean. Barudani and Iahocho terraformers have mitigated the ice-age by stimulating vulcanism. Residents are mostly Terrans and azwars. Member of the Barudani Commonwealth. {Scene of several major battles of the Sratlanic wars.} ice-age biome

⇑ Go to top.

Telat System

Telat is a red dwarf and has a single one-face world, Volluse. The Telat system was wholly owned by the Republic of Volluse before the war, but the other Tesserelios nations now maintain military bases.

orbital period: 61.7 d
orbital radius 0.225 AU
stellar mass: 0.4 solar

Main Orbits

◄ = life-bearing world
● = Republic of Volluse
● = Barudani Commonwealth
● = Avras Union
● = Vethas Republic

• Volluse (one-face earth) ◄ ●
• Lamouine (mars) ● ● ●
• Fathatar (mars) ● ● ●
• Morril (neptune) ●
• Lorril (neptune) ●
• Kurril (neptune) ●
• Inside Belt (no dwarf planets) ●
• Outside Belt (featuring the dwarf planets Netri and Kisp) ●
• Chemmil (neptune) ●
• Jertim (ice planet) ●
• Preesil (ice planet) ●

Volluse ●

A one-face earth, mostly habitable on the dark side of the terminator. Settlements concentrate in tropical and semi-tropical climates. Residents are mostly Terrans. Independent planetary state.

Gravity: g
Day: perpetual
Year: 61.7 days

Population: NNN
Capital: Marrid
Spaceports: NNN
Other major cities: NNN

Points of Interest:

⇑ Go to top.

Vethas System

Vethas is an orange dwarf and has two live moons orbiting a warm jupiter. The Vethas system was wholly owned by the Vethas Republic before the war, but there are now some Barudani military outposts in the system.

Main Orbits

◄ = life-bearing world
● = Vethas
● = Barudani Commonwealth

• Ayen (mercury) ●
• Zain (mercury) ●
• Therain (hot mars) ●
• First Belt (featuring dwarf planets Demeth, Bestas, and Farras) ●
• Sartur (warm jupiter) ●
      Imnas (moon, cool earth) ◄ ●
      Eshas (moon, cool earth) ◄ ●
      minor moons ● ●
• Second Belt (featuring dwarf planet Heotha) ● ●
• Zaypen (jupiter) ●
• Hoidin (neptune) ●
• Mnayas (neptune) ●
• Third Belt (featuring dwarf planet Ossnim) ●
• Honezin (ice planet) ●
• Thonezen (ice planet) ●
• Taysett (ice planet) ●
• Last Belt (no dwarf planets) ●

Vethas Worlds

lunar periods: 2.7 d, 16 d
solar period: 206.3 d
orbital radius: 0.6 AU
stellar mass: 0.7 solar

Imnas ●

A moon of Sartur, an ice-age earth. Climates range from temperate to arctic. The Aliquine Terraformers have mitigated the ice-age by stimulating vulcanism. Residents are mostly Terrans and azwars. Member of the Vethas Republic. Capital: Valgriad. ice-age biome

⇑ Go to top.

Eshas ●

A moon of Sartur, a wet, ice-age earth. Climates range from temperate to arctic. Settlements are on the islands in the extensive ocean between the glacial caps. The Aliquine Terraformers have mitigated the ice-age by stimulating vulcanism. Residents are mostly Terrans, azwars, and voms. Member of the Vethas Republic. Capital: Toldevance. ice-age biome

⇑ Go to top.

Kamil System

Kamil has a few widely spaced orbits around the twin red dwarves East and West Kamil, and four live moons orbiting a warm superjovian. The Kamil system is wholly owned by the Barudani Commonwealth.

Main Orbits

◄ = life-bearing world
● = Barudani Commonwealth

• Virist (mercury) ●
• Kudro (warm superjovian) ●
      Bavil (moon, cold earth) ◄ ●
      Morve (moon, light earth) ◄ ●
      Renno (moon, wet earth) ◄ ●
      Karro (moon, cool, wet earth) ◄ ●
      minor moons ●
• Naksoran (neptune) ●
• Kasladan (ice planet) ●
• Belt ●

Kamil Worlds
The Kudro System

Year:184.75 days
Population: 67.7 million

Kudro is a warm superjovian, ringed. Its satellites include four life-bearing worlds, Bavil, Morve, Renno, and Karro.

The four moons constitute the core of the Barudani Commonwealth and are culturally similar.

Common points of interest:

• Lunar Skies - All four moons, like most moons, are tidally locked to Kudro, their primary. Kudro stands still in their skies, and is never visible in the outer hemispheres.
• Gresh time - Since all four moons have orbital periods of several days, everyone runs on Gresh time.
• Padded Population - The population figures include androids, even though these are not counted as people.
• Aliquine Minorities - Though legally Barudani, there are still Aliquine people left on the Kudro worlds, from before the arrival of the Barudani. In almost all cases, the Aliquine humans are classed as Agrio caste and the Aliquine neo-beasts as Therio caste. (There are virtually no Barudani neo-beasts.) ETs are officially Agrio, though people make unofficial reference to a "Xeno" caste. The Aliquines feel very little loyalty to the Commonwealth.

Bavil ●

A moon of Kudro, an ice-age earth with a wide habitable belt. Climates range from warm temperate to arctic. Residents are mostly Terrans. Member of the Barudani Commonwealth. ice-age biome

Gravity: g
Period: 42:29 h

Population: 53 million
Capital: Dinadan (Commonwealth and planetary capital)
Spaceports: NNN
Other major cities: NNN

Points of Interest:

Morve ●

A moon of Kudro, a light, dry near-mars. Settlements are in sea basins, near isolated briny seas. The Aliquine Terraformers have added to the water supply with cometary ices. Residents are mostly Terrans and azwars. Member of the Barudani Commonwealth. ice-age biome

Gravity: g
Period: 3 d 13:12 h

Population: 6.4 million
Capital: Coulan
Spaceports: NNN
Other major cities: NNN

Renno ●

A moon of Kudro, a prime earth, largely oceanic, with one major equatorial continent of temperate climate. Settlements are almost exclusively on this continent and nearby islands. Residents are mostly Terrans, azwars, and voms. Member of the Barudani Commonwealth. ice-age biome

Gravity: g
Period: 7 d 3:36 h

Population: 3 million
Capital: Carrawith
Spaceports: NNN
Other major cities: NNN

Karro ●

A moon of Kudro, a prime earth, largely oceanic, with land scattered in a global archipelago. Settlements are widely scattered. Residents are mostly Terrans, azwars, and voms. Member of the Barudani Commonwealth. ice-age biome

Gravity: g
Period: 16 d 16:34 h

Population: 5.3 million
Capital: Roch Hei
Spaceports: NNN
Other major cities: NNN

⇑ Go to top.

Ice-Age Biomes

Several Tesserelios worlds are in ice ages. Land life has been reduced to plants, microbes, and microfauna. In some cases, sea life has, too. The Aliquine Terraformers grew similar ice-age biomes on all of them. Near the ice sheets, land climates are steppe, tundra, and pine forest. In bands around the equators, width characteristic of the individual world, the climates are temperate prairies, grasslands, and forests, but no warmer.

Standard arctic land fauna:

• Musk oxen and bison
• Linguatheres (ET, shaggy, rhino-sized browsers with big prehensile tongues)
• Caribou and moose
• Wolves and foxes
• Kodiak and black bears
• Hawks and owls
• Frostworms (ET, furry, warmblooded snakes)
• Ice crabs (ET, furry, warmblooded beetles the size of coconuts)
• Mice, lemmings, etc.
• Misc. small passerine birds
• Midges (no mosquitoes)

In general, the land biome resembles Earth's Arctic, but may lack migratory birds, since there is no warm climate for them to migrate from, in some cases.

Standard temperate land fauna:

• Bison and antelope
• Linguatheres (ET, rhino-sized browsers with big prehensile tongues, more gracile than the arctic species)
• Moose and deer
• Spiralopes (ET, related to skoons, lightly built, with deerlike fore-bodies and powerful tails curling under like coiled springs. The heads are like those of earless deer, with a tuft of eyestalks. They are favorite hunting prey of azwars.)
• Sarduns (ET, from Chaura, the azwars' home world. Bison-sized, with mauve fur, ivory hooves, and massive heads beaked and horned with ivory, like a triceratops without the frill. They have five silvery eyes, two big ones on the sides of the head and a triangle of little ones in front. They are the standard stock for azwar pastoralism.)
• Coyotes, dingos, and foxes
• Black bears
• Hawks and owls
• Diatrymas
• Cougars (mountains) and sabre-toothed lions (plains) (Turns out some species of sabre-toothed cats had manes. Who knew?)
• Wildcats, lynxes, mustelids, etc.
• Mice, voles, etc.
• Misc. small passerine birds
• Bug assortment

In general, the land biome resembles temperate North America with some revivals and ET additions.

If the sea biota was really impoverished and there is a lot of coastline, the Aliquine often introduced sea fauna:

• Oil salps (ET, big black rubbery filter feeders)
• Small cetaceans
• Polar bears
• Seals and walruses
• Schooling fish
• Krill, etc.
• Gulls, penguins, and puffins

Megafauna, a mixture of revived and transgenic:

• Mammoths and mastadons
• Ground sloths
• Gasarduns (elephant-sized versions of sarduns, with shaggy black-purple fur)
• Macrohippus (3-ton horses)
• Dinohyus (a.k.a garadenes or devil-hogs) (one-ton wild boar, man-high, long-legged, and toothy)
• Dire bears
• Diatryma
• Ice camels
• Dire wolves (quarter-ton)
• Cryopithecines ("snow gorillas")
• Yeti (more bipedal)

Settlement adaptations:

• Solettas (orbital mirrors)
• Ground and aerostat sunlamps
• Geothermal, fusion, and horizon power
• Aircars rather than roads
• Meltworks
• Sealed architecture
• Sealed agriculture (for bugs, fruits & vegetables; not for grains, herds, or fishing)
• Megafauna ranching and pastoralism (notably mammoths and macrohippi)
• Big timber
• More azwars, fewer tliggoes

Return to Vaster
Return to Wind Off the Hilltop

Copyright © Earl Wajenberg, 2012