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Halcyon (20 Leonis Minoris)
Galactography > Regions of Space > Inner Sphere
Galactography > Civilized Galaxy - Sephirotic Empires > Mutual Progress Association
Galactography > Systems and Worlds > Systems & Worlds G - H
Galactography > Civilized Galaxy - Sephirotic Empires > Mutual Progress Association
Galactography > Systems and Worlds > Systems & Worlds G - H
 Image from Steve Bowers |
Inner Sphere G2 star located some 48.58 light years from Sol. First colonized by the First Federation in 1402AT. After the collapse of the Federation, Halcyon civilization initially enjoyed a long phase of cultural independence. Eventually this system declared for the early MPA and has been a solid member system ever since.
Although the love of grand engineering projects the MPA is so famous for is evident throughout the system, the scale of the various macrostructures is rather muted by modern Mutual Progress standards. The Halcyonese prefer reliability and style over sheer scale and their worlds reflect this, projecting a sense of Old World charm and craftsmanship that many, visitor and native born alike, find particularly appealing.
Worlds and Habitats
Halcyon is an old system with a long history that has witnessed the birth and development of many clades and races. Its worlds reflect this.Rama: Innermost of the Halcyon planets, Rama is a hot, airless world, rich in heavy elements. It is home to a population of some 620 million, mostly vecs and hi-temp vacuum adapts, living on the surface. An additional 300 million nearbaseline, sapientchimp and free-fall adapted bionts make their home in the Halo, a small smoke-ring habitat completely encircling the planet at geosynchronous altitude.
Cronus: Second planet in the system. Cronus originally was a hot, carbon dioxide covered planet similar to Venus or the To'ul'h homeworld. Rather than undertaking a standard terraforming operation on the planet, working to contain or eliminate the excess atmosphere as the first step in creating a working biosphere, Cronus was instead converted into one of the largest examples of angelnet technology in the Inner Sphere.
A massive, multiply redundant angelnet system circulates the planetary atmosphere (which has been converted entirely into breathable air by a combination of volatile importation and nano conversion) and extends standard atmospheric pressure up to an altitude of 300 km. Within the extensive habitat volume thus created, an artificial 'zero-G' environment is maintained. Artificial islands, rivers and even small seas are all 'floated' above the planetary surface at varying levels, existing within a gravity field but supported by the angelnet. A large and complex artificial ecosystem, crafted from gengineered and neogenic species, maintains itself across the entire planetary volume. Most species are either able to fly or make use of the various 'flying rivers' to move about the planet.
 Image from Steve Bowers | |
| 'Floating' cities on Cronus | |
The planetary population of Cronus has remained stable at 2.5 billion for several centuries. The majority of the population consists of Superiors, Aioids, Superior chimp-provolves and Superior enhanced-dolphins as well as a significant minority (5% of planetary population) of nearbaseline merpeople and free-fall adapts. The planetary population is able to 'fly' using the angelnet system.
Bright: The last of the inner planets, Bright has been completely terraformed into a comfortable terran standard ecosystem. The planet itself has no permanent population, rather all inhabitants live in the vertical cities and extensively developed Anchors of a dozen high capacity skyhooks that have been constructed around the planet. Bright itself is used as a planetary park and recreation area, the population coming down to camp, hike or attend various cultural and sporting events on the planetary surface, but living far above. Total population of the Bright complex is about 3 billion.
Beyond the three inner worlds lies an extensive ring of computronium banks (once the site of a rich asteroid belt) supporting a population of SI:2 and SI:3 po, various aioids and a-life entities and several hundred billion virtuals.
The fifth planet of the system, Tiamat, is a large, jovian class world. While a long established Mirrored Owl community inhabits the planet itself, the moons of the world are mostly home to automated volatile mines and low-g and cryogenic factory complexes.
The last two planets of the Halcyon system have been converted to wormhole termini. Gate Leonis (800m) links to the red dwarf system of Tesseract, a Deeper Covenant crossroads system (6 tramlines) which also links to Relay001 and the rest of the Wormhole Nexus, while Portal Minoris (600m) provides an express route to the nearby resource rich system RN-36-24-b, site of several deep-well industrial zones and an exotic matter factory. The majority of RN-36-24-bs output is transported via space-time catapult to nearby systems, however the occasional need for priority shipments or system maintainance makes the Minoris gate a profitable operation for the Halcyon community mindmerge.
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Development Notes
Text by Todd Drashner
Initially published on 30 January 2003.
Initially published on 30 January 2003.
