The Veejer System
Veejer:
Veejer is a blue main sequence star of about eight times the sun's mass. It has the dubious distinction of being the coolest known blue star, although still quite a bit hotter than most orange or yellow stars. The star is remarkably stable, with little in the way of solar prominences or temperature variation over the four centuries that it has been observed.
Veejer a, b, c, and d:
The first four planets in orbit around Veejer are large balls of molten iron, their silicates having long since evaporated. None of them are interesting or important enough to have gotten official names, and the only standout feature of any of them is that Veejer A is very large and has geysers of molten metal large and bright enough to be seen with an optical telescope, even from the rings of Mangrea.
Veejer e: "Decker" Decker is a large, rocky world weighing in at about three Earth masses. This makes it uninhabitable to humans, despite possessing abundant liquid water and an atmosphere consisting partially of oxygen. It is, however, fairly comfortable for Togronnamoka, who originated on a world with two and a half times Earth's gravity. Veejer e1: "Ilia"
Ilia is a lovely blue-green Earth-like moon, home to a mix of industry and agriculture. It is also a popular destination for tourism and relaxing vacations by people with busy lives on the moons of Mangrea; you can see the gas giant's rings at all times of the year from the surface of Ilia, and many say that looking at the place you work at from someplace far away helps you to understand that now isn't the time for work.
Additionally, Ilia is the home of the systemwide government and the Veejer Systemwide Constabulary (VSC for short). Everyone who learns about this finds it odd, but no vote to move the government to one of the moons or stations orbiting Mangrea, where most of the people live and where everything important happens, has ever succeeded.
Veejer f: "Mangrea"
The final object in orbit around Veejer short of the system's Oort cloud, Mangrea is a planet of roughly thirty Jupiter masses, orbiting Veejer at a radius of 6.5 AU. Despite its immense mass, there is no trace of fusion to be found in it, likely due to the presence of heavier substances such as neon, methane and iron. The intense magnetic field generated by the planet is enough to partially shelter many of its Earth-sized moons, and also has the interesting characteristic of pushing neon to the outer edges of the planet's atmosphere, whereupon it is set aglow by lightning, resulting in the planet emitting pink and purple light.
Mangrea has several shepherd moons that create and occupy gaps in its vast ring system, which is nearly 1 astronomical unit in radius. Most of the moons are inhabited, and the rings are home to tens of thousands of habitats either out in space or burrowed into the side of one of the larger moonlets that make up the ring. The particles of the ring can be anywhere from roughly the size of a grain of sand to 100km across. The composition of the rings is varied and seems to contain a variety of rare resources, including an abundance of phosphorous, rare earth metals and even occasional pockets of post-transuranics such as orihalcite. Even magical materials such as mithril and adamantine are found among the rings on occasion, in what appear to be natural deposits. The availability of vast mineral wealth has brought droves of miners, and the availability of miners has brought merchants to trade with them, as well as pirates to prey upon both the miners and merchants. When the lawyers arrived to prey upon miner, merchant and pirate alike, the ecosystem was complete.
NOTABLE SATELLITES AND STATIONS IN ORBIT OF MANGREA
Cloudwatcher stations:
The first notable things in orbit of Mangrea are a collection of manned and autonomous research stations that orbit the gas giant as close as they can without falling so deep into the gas giant's gravity well that station keeping thrusters can no longer keep them from falling into the planet's gorgeous but profoundly dangerous synthwave atmosphere. About one in seven of the stations are actually manned, and these tend to orbit a fair bit farther away than the unmanned stations for safety reasons. The stations collect data on the planet's atmosphere and magnetosphere, as well as conducting experiments to see how things behave differently under the extreme conditions that the gas giant offers. Perhaps more importantly, they observe the occasional ejections of exotic matter from the gas giant's skies - and when they're lucky, they even manage to collect some, after which they do everything they can think of with the stuff before it decays into something that science is more familiar with.
Mirror Arrays:
Mangrea's rings are home to a number of enormous, ancient mirror arrays that reflect the light of the system's primary onto the inhabitable moons of Mangrea. Without this the moons would be frozen for 3/4 of their rotational periods, given that they have orbits that change their distance from Veejer by as much as two full astronomical units, or roughly twice the distance between the Earth and Sol. The arrays are maintained by autonomous robot networks that are aloof and a bit cranky, but don't bother anyone who doesn't bother them, with the sole exception of occasionally fishing some asteroids out of Mangrea's rings to use as raw materials when repairs are needed.
A side effect - supposedly - of the mirror array's arrangement is that Mangrea is always clearly visible in the skies of its moons, looming larger than life despite being too small and far away, and with far too much of the ring's material in the way, for this to be possible without the mirrors. People are prone to thinking this is deliberate on the part of the robots that maintain the rings, however, with this view being especially common on M4 due to people having to occasionally deal with Maintenance.
Mangrea 1: "David"
The first large moon of Mangrea is barren and lifeless. Contrary to the first impression that might lend, however, Mangrea 1 has quite a few people living on it - or rather, on its sub-moons. Mangrea 1 has six satellites, dubbed sub-moons, that orbit it in a single circle that is perpendicular to the moon's own orbit around its primary. This is noted to be contrary to the way gravity and orbits are generally understood to work, and it's not the only oddity about the moon; it's too close to Mangrea's gravity well and should've fallen in, for instance. There's also the fact that it seems to be far too good at its job as a shepherd moon, seemingly redirecting other bits of the ring in a very calculated and deliberate manner. All of this has lead to a tremendous number of research stations studying the how and why of it, not to mention prospectors seeking the precursor ruins that some believe must be the only plausible explanation for the anomalous orbit. While Mangrea 1 is too dense to be easily colonized, the moons all have rather comfortable gravity averaging .5g, and most of the habitats will rotate so as to provide whatever gravity is ideal for its inhabitants. Each moon is home to about a half-million people, mostly researchers, but there is also a strong tourism sector. People come to the six moons of David for religious reasons, for the amenities, or just to get one of the best views of the neon storms of Mangrea that one will find anywhere; while most people refuse to put major habitats this close to Mangrea's own gravity well, the numerous gravitational peculiarities of David make it much safer and more suitable for casual observation of the gas giant.
Mangrea 2: "Cabochon"
The second and largest moon of Mangrea is a barren and lifeless rock, although it is visually appealing; Mangrea 2 is a perfectly spherical body roughly thirty times Earth's mass, with a glassy appearance and a noticeable gleam from the 'seas' of obsidian that cover most of its surface. Like most of Mangrea's moons, 2 is geologically active, and the shores of the obsidian 'seas' gleam more or less constantly with volcanism. While rich in minerals, the moon's steep gravity well and proximity to the radiation and magnetic interference generated by Mangrea make it very unappealing for mining, especially when everything it's rich in is also easy to find (and much easier to exploit) in the gas giant's vast rings.
Mangrea 3: "Inari"
Inari is an idyllic world of mountains, plains and rivers, with a large continent that wends its way along the moon's equator in a snakelike fashion, flanked occasionally by other land masses. It is a lush and green world, its land and ocean both replete with life. This life is familiar, too, and there is abundant evidence that it was transplanted here from Earth in the distant past, although unusual evolutionary pressures have shaped some of the creatures in strange ways, perhaps most famously shown in the enormous, four-horned 'giga-cows'. One of the larger islands is also home to tribes of a friendly species of humanoid lizard folk. These people, called Jhozz, practice druidic magic religiously, and while they are delighted to have neighbors and are happy to engage in trade, they refuse to partake in human society or to live in or near cities, saying that they cannot live as one with a concrete forest.
M-34-11: "Junction"
A trade station cluster that has grown continually over time, Junction is easily the largest and most populous of the stations in orbit of Mangrea, being some 200 kilometers from one tip to another as of the last census - and it's likely grown more since then. The station is the permanent home of some twenty million people, and a temporary residence for tens of millions more besides. Junction is home to a number of vacation, gambling and showbiz establishments that cater to ringers looking to blow off steam in ways that they can't while on their own little mining habitats without descending into an uncomfortable planetlike gravity well. Many of the various establishments like to bill themselves as exotic and thrilling, but they can't get too wild and crazy due to Junction also being home to a branch port for the Veejer Systemwide Constabulary.
Mangrea 4: "Ebisu"
Usually referred to as 'M4' by denizens, which is sometimes pronounced 'Ma'. A moon home to a single large continent which is covered entirely by urban development, over which looms an artificial strata housing farms and forests. All of this was already here when the humans arrived, as were the robots that maintain everything. Surrounding the continent is a vast lagoon roughly the size of the Pacific Ocean, ringed by volcanic islands covered in wild greenery. The rest of the moon's surface is deep ocean that supports little in the way of life. While there is no wildlife on the continent (the parks are home to animals but they are considered domesticated), the islands have flora and fauna reminiscent of what can be found around the northern half of the Pacific Ring of Fire on Earth, albeit with roughly a half-million years of evolutionary divergence. For more information, see the main page on M4.
M-45-1: "Lothraine"
Lothraine is a large Elven habitat station, or 'star-garden' as they call them. By human standards it has a very strange layout; it looks like an enormous glass flower whose petals are covered with forests, lakes and rivers. As an Elven construction, the station is powered entirely by magic, so there's no solar panels or radiators, and nothing has to spin to provide gravity. It is also, as is typical of Elven habitats, very sparsely populated by human standards, with only fifty thousand people living on a station 200 kilometers across.
Mangrea 5: "Bishamonten"
Craggy, rocky, and loaded with military bases. Semi-arid; pockets of water in isolated valleys support enough flora to allow for limited agriculture and, more importantly, an atmosphere breathable by humans. There isn't a lot to recommend Bishamonten other than lots of land that nobody else cares about.
Mangrea 6: "Susanoo"
Rocky, actively volcanic, and home to a tropical hurricane season that never ends, Susanoo got its name from its many storms and natural disasters. However, the areas outside the tropics, where the atmosphere is somewhat more stable, are scenic and lovely, attracting both tourists and permanent residents.
Mangrea 7: "Suijin"
The seventh moon of Mangrea is entirely covered in water, with no land whatsoever. It is uninhabited, but bears some signs of an abortive attempt at a fishing industry. While the moon has a rich biosphere, centered around an abundance of thermal vents at the bottom of the four kilometer-deep ocean that covers every inch of surface, none of what lives there is suitable for human consumption, and it's difficult to obtain besides. The portions of the water closer to the surface have no life more complex than plankton, which does exist in abundance. Some have floated the idea of using Suijin as a nature preserve for whales, but everyone is quick to point out that moving a population of whales via space ship is ridiculous.
Mangrea 8: "Omoikane" Named after the Japanese god of intelligence, Omoikane is devoid of natural life and held to be off-limits to visitors. This status is enforced by a blockade in orbit and a single military base that is the sole recognizable structure on the moon's smooth stone surface.
Mangrea 9: "Kanayago"
The final shepherd moon of Mangrea, and the outermost celestial object orbiting the gas giant, Kanayago is tidally locked, with one side always facing its primary. This is odd, given the distance from the gas giant, but not unheard of; scientists are quick to note that the greater oddity isn't that Kanayago is tidally locked, but that the other eight shepherd moons aren't (especially David, they will note while hair falls from their scalps).
Kanayago is massive, but not as much as it once was; over the last three centuries, the side of the moon facing away from Mangrea's rings has been stripmined to the point that the moon's mantle is left exposed in a circle roughly a thousand kilometers across. Massive metal armatures produced from the bounty of the moon's metal reach out into space, serving as the galaxy's largest ship production facility, as well as a customs point for trade coming from out of system. On the surface, Khergs and Tragronnamoka work to dredge up molten metals from the moon's mantle and to refine them into useful alloys. In the upper reaches of the lattice extending off of the moon, where the gravity is gentler, humans, barcalid, dwarves and gnomes work to assemble these materials into ships for a dozen races, many of whom like to have human-made backup systems to get them out of trouble in case their main drive is taken down by anti-magic.
Veejer is a blue main sequence star of about eight times the sun's mass. It has the dubious distinction of being the coolest known blue star, although still quite a bit hotter than most orange or yellow stars. The star is remarkably stable, with little in the way of solar prominences or temperature variation over the four centuries that it has been observed.
Veejer a, b, c, and d:
The first four planets in orbit around Veejer are large balls of molten iron, their silicates having long since evaporated. None of them are interesting or important enough to have gotten official names, and the only standout feature of any of them is that Veejer A is very large and has geysers of molten metal large and bright enough to be seen with an optical telescope, even from the rings of Mangrea.
Veejer e: "Decker" Decker is a large, rocky world weighing in at about three Earth masses. This makes it uninhabitable to humans, despite possessing abundant liquid water and an atmosphere consisting partially of oxygen. It is, however, fairly comfortable for Togronnamoka, who originated on a world with two and a half times Earth's gravity. Veejer e1: "Ilia"
Ilia is a lovely blue-green Earth-like moon, home to a mix of industry and agriculture. It is also a popular destination for tourism and relaxing vacations by people with busy lives on the moons of Mangrea; you can see the gas giant's rings at all times of the year from the surface of Ilia, and many say that looking at the place you work at from someplace far away helps you to understand that now isn't the time for work.
Additionally, Ilia is the home of the systemwide government and the Veejer Systemwide Constabulary (VSC for short). Everyone who learns about this finds it odd, but no vote to move the government to one of the moons or stations orbiting Mangrea, where most of the people live and where everything important happens, has ever succeeded.
Veejer f: "Mangrea"
The final object in orbit around Veejer short of the system's Oort cloud, Mangrea is a planet of roughly thirty Jupiter masses, orbiting Veejer at a radius of 6.5 AU. Despite its immense mass, there is no trace of fusion to be found in it, likely due to the presence of heavier substances such as neon, methane and iron. The intense magnetic field generated by the planet is enough to partially shelter many of its Earth-sized moons, and also has the interesting characteristic of pushing neon to the outer edges of the planet's atmosphere, whereupon it is set aglow by lightning, resulting in the planet emitting pink and purple light.
Mangrea has several shepherd moons that create and occupy gaps in its vast ring system, which is nearly 1 astronomical unit in radius. Most of the moons are inhabited, and the rings are home to tens of thousands of habitats either out in space or burrowed into the side of one of the larger moonlets that make up the ring. The particles of the ring can be anywhere from roughly the size of a grain of sand to 100km across. The composition of the rings is varied and seems to contain a variety of rare resources, including an abundance of phosphorous, rare earth metals and even occasional pockets of post-transuranics such as orihalcite. Even magical materials such as mithril and adamantine are found among the rings on occasion, in what appear to be natural deposits. The availability of vast mineral wealth has brought droves of miners, and the availability of miners has brought merchants to trade with them, as well as pirates to prey upon both the miners and merchants. When the lawyers arrived to prey upon miner, merchant and pirate alike, the ecosystem was complete.
Cloudwatcher stations:
The first notable things in orbit of Mangrea are a collection of manned and autonomous research stations that orbit the gas giant as close as they can without falling so deep into the gas giant's gravity well that station keeping thrusters can no longer keep them from falling into the planet's gorgeous but profoundly dangerous synthwave atmosphere. About one in seven of the stations are actually manned, and these tend to orbit a fair bit farther away than the unmanned stations for safety reasons. The stations collect data on the planet's atmosphere and magnetosphere, as well as conducting experiments to see how things behave differently under the extreme conditions that the gas giant offers. Perhaps more importantly, they observe the occasional ejections of exotic matter from the gas giant's skies - and when they're lucky, they even manage to collect some, after which they do everything they can think of with the stuff before it decays into something that science is more familiar with.
Mirror Arrays:
Mangrea's rings are home to a number of enormous, ancient mirror arrays that reflect the light of the system's primary onto the inhabitable moons of Mangrea. Without this the moons would be frozen for 3/4 of their rotational periods, given that they have orbits that change their distance from Veejer by as much as two full astronomical units, or roughly twice the distance between the Earth and Sol. The arrays are maintained by autonomous robot networks that are aloof and a bit cranky, but don't bother anyone who doesn't bother them, with the sole exception of occasionally fishing some asteroids out of Mangrea's rings to use as raw materials when repairs are needed.
A side effect - supposedly - of the mirror array's arrangement is that Mangrea is always clearly visible in the skies of its moons, looming larger than life despite being too small and far away, and with far too much of the ring's material in the way, for this to be possible without the mirrors. People are prone to thinking this is deliberate on the part of the robots that maintain the rings, however, with this view being especially common on M4 due to people having to occasionally deal with Maintenance.
Mangrea 1: "David"
The first large moon of Mangrea is barren and lifeless. Contrary to the first impression that might lend, however, Mangrea 1 has quite a few people living on it - or rather, on its sub-moons. Mangrea 1 has six satellites, dubbed sub-moons, that orbit it in a single circle that is perpendicular to the moon's own orbit around its primary. This is noted to be contrary to the way gravity and orbits are generally understood to work, and it's not the only oddity about the moon; it's too close to Mangrea's gravity well and should've fallen in, for instance. There's also the fact that it seems to be far too good at its job as a shepherd moon, seemingly redirecting other bits of the ring in a very calculated and deliberate manner. All of this has lead to a tremendous number of research stations studying the how and why of it, not to mention prospectors seeking the precursor ruins that some believe must be the only plausible explanation for the anomalous orbit. While Mangrea 1 is too dense to be easily colonized, the moons all have rather comfortable gravity averaging .5g, and most of the habitats will rotate so as to provide whatever gravity is ideal for its inhabitants. Each moon is home to about a half-million people, mostly researchers, but there is also a strong tourism sector. People come to the six moons of David for religious reasons, for the amenities, or just to get one of the best views of the neon storms of Mangrea that one will find anywhere; while most people refuse to put major habitats this close to Mangrea's own gravity well, the numerous gravitational peculiarities of David make it much safer and more suitable for casual observation of the gas giant.
Mangrea 2: "Cabochon"
The second and largest moon of Mangrea is a barren and lifeless rock, although it is visually appealing; Mangrea 2 is a perfectly spherical body roughly thirty times Earth's mass, with a glassy appearance and a noticeable gleam from the 'seas' of obsidian that cover most of its surface. Like most of Mangrea's moons, 2 is geologically active, and the shores of the obsidian 'seas' gleam more or less constantly with volcanism. While rich in minerals, the moon's steep gravity well and proximity to the radiation and magnetic interference generated by Mangrea make it very unappealing for mining, especially when everything it's rich in is also easy to find (and much easier to exploit) in the gas giant's vast rings.
Mangrea 3: "Inari"
Inari is an idyllic world of mountains, plains and rivers, with a large continent that wends its way along the moon's equator in a snakelike fashion, flanked occasionally by other land masses. It is a lush and green world, its land and ocean both replete with life. This life is familiar, too, and there is abundant evidence that it was transplanted here from Earth in the distant past, although unusual evolutionary pressures have shaped some of the creatures in strange ways, perhaps most famously shown in the enormous, four-horned 'giga-cows'. One of the larger islands is also home to tribes of a friendly species of humanoid lizard folk. These people, called Jhozz, practice druidic magic religiously, and while they are delighted to have neighbors and are happy to engage in trade, they refuse to partake in human society or to live in or near cities, saying that they cannot live as one with a concrete forest.
M-34-11: "Junction"
A trade station cluster that has grown continually over time, Junction is easily the largest and most populous of the stations in orbit of Mangrea, being some 200 kilometers from one tip to another as of the last census - and it's likely grown more since then. The station is the permanent home of some twenty million people, and a temporary residence for tens of millions more besides. Junction is home to a number of vacation, gambling and showbiz establishments that cater to ringers looking to blow off steam in ways that they can't while on their own little mining habitats without descending into an uncomfortable planetlike gravity well. Many of the various establishments like to bill themselves as exotic and thrilling, but they can't get too wild and crazy due to Junction also being home to a branch port for the Veejer Systemwide Constabulary.
Mangrea 4: "Ebisu"
Usually referred to as 'M4' by denizens, which is sometimes pronounced 'Ma'. A moon home to a single large continent which is covered entirely by urban development, over which looms an artificial strata housing farms and forests. All of this was already here when the humans arrived, as were the robots that maintain everything. Surrounding the continent is a vast lagoon roughly the size of the Pacific Ocean, ringed by volcanic islands covered in wild greenery. The rest of the moon's surface is deep ocean that supports little in the way of life. While there is no wildlife on the continent (the parks are home to animals but they are considered domesticated), the islands have flora and fauna reminiscent of what can be found around the northern half of the Pacific Ring of Fire on Earth, albeit with roughly a half-million years of evolutionary divergence. For more information, see the main page on M4.
M-45-1: "Lothraine"
Lothraine is a large Elven habitat station, or 'star-garden' as they call them. By human standards it has a very strange layout; it looks like an enormous glass flower whose petals are covered with forests, lakes and rivers. As an Elven construction, the station is powered entirely by magic, so there's no solar panels or radiators, and nothing has to spin to provide gravity. It is also, as is typical of Elven habitats, very sparsely populated by human standards, with only fifty thousand people living on a station 200 kilometers across.
Mangrea 5: "Bishamonten"
Craggy, rocky, and loaded with military bases. Semi-arid; pockets of water in isolated valleys support enough flora to allow for limited agriculture and, more importantly, an atmosphere breathable by humans. There isn't a lot to recommend Bishamonten other than lots of land that nobody else cares about.
Mangrea 6: "Susanoo"
Rocky, actively volcanic, and home to a tropical hurricane season that never ends, Susanoo got its name from its many storms and natural disasters. However, the areas outside the tropics, where the atmosphere is somewhat more stable, are scenic and lovely, attracting both tourists and permanent residents.
Mangrea 7: "Suijin"
The seventh moon of Mangrea is entirely covered in water, with no land whatsoever. It is uninhabited, but bears some signs of an abortive attempt at a fishing industry. While the moon has a rich biosphere, centered around an abundance of thermal vents at the bottom of the four kilometer-deep ocean that covers every inch of surface, none of what lives there is suitable for human consumption, and it's difficult to obtain besides. The portions of the water closer to the surface have no life more complex than plankton, which does exist in abundance. Some have floated the idea of using Suijin as a nature preserve for whales, but everyone is quick to point out that moving a population of whales via space ship is ridiculous.
Mangrea 8: "Omoikane" Named after the Japanese god of intelligence, Omoikane is devoid of natural life and held to be off-limits to visitors. This status is enforced by a blockade in orbit and a single military base that is the sole recognizable structure on the moon's smooth stone surface.
Mangrea 9: "Kanayago"
The final shepherd moon of Mangrea, and the outermost celestial object orbiting the gas giant, Kanayago is tidally locked, with one side always facing its primary. This is odd, given the distance from the gas giant, but not unheard of; scientists are quick to note that the greater oddity isn't that Kanayago is tidally locked, but that the other eight shepherd moons aren't (especially David, they will note while hair falls from their scalps).
Kanayago is massive, but not as much as it once was; over the last three centuries, the side of the moon facing away from Mangrea's rings has been stripmined to the point that the moon's mantle is left exposed in a circle roughly a thousand kilometers across. Massive metal armatures produced from the bounty of the moon's metal reach out into space, serving as the galaxy's largest ship production facility, as well as a customs point for trade coming from out of system. On the surface, Khergs and Tragronnamoka work to dredge up molten metals from the moon's mantle and to refine them into useful alloys. In the upper reaches of the lattice extending off of the moon, where the gravity is gentler, humans, barcalid, dwarves and gnomes work to assemble these materials into ships for a dozen races, many of whom like to have human-made backup systems to get them out of trouble in case their main drive is taken down by anti-magic.
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