Knowledge of the Protectorate

On Tandoori, All vehicles and habitations must be pressurized, insulated, and powered at all times. Failure of power systems means that the habitat or vehicle will overheat within hours, which could be fatal for residents. This is because during the 50-hour day, Tandoori reaches 80 degrees C (over 170 degrees F). Solar-powered trucks must move slowly, so travel between settlements is scarce. All people must constantly protect their water supply. Each settlement has a number of dowsers and miners, to supply raw materials for maintenance and to replace that water which is inevitably lost in the imperfect water-conservation system. Amphibious sleeves suffer here, and synthetic sleeves receive no special protection except for their lack of need for water. Researchers are currently working on a sleeve which could exist on the surface, but more samples of local wildlife must first be collected.

On Greencircuit, the local plantlife absorbs electromagnetic waves. All technological equipment loses charge extremely quickly here, eventually powering down when all of the available batteries have emptied. Therefore, explorers here must rely on more... low-tech equipment. The plantlife is extremely verdant, especially if fed electricity. In addition, the atmosphere is mostly composed of water vapor, so air-breathing creatures require respirators and goggles in order to function here. Converting water into oxygen is not difficult with power, but with power unavailable on Greencircuit the staging area for this planet lies on S.E.E.L. Explorers come here on 12-36 hour jaunts, depending on the volume of air canisters brought with. They use pre-existing carbonfiber towers to climb above the tree line to inflate a blimp for long-range cartography and walk on foot to explore the wilderness looking for samples of wildlife.

S.E.E.L is an immense artificial planet created by the Maeglin to store life and technology they found valuable. They must have used a mode of transportation unavailable to humans, for the distances between stations here are unbelievably long. Even the fastest jet airplanes couldn't cover relevant distances, taking refueling into account. Not only that, but an orbital defense system prevents all orbital flight. Therefore, fast long-distance travel on S.E.E.L. has been deemed presently impossible. Instead, the humans and Anansi are attempting to chain bases towards suspected installation sites and use the Internet to egocast to the destination. Only three bases exist on S.E.E.L. now, and the closest installation is expected to require a chain of at least fifteen bases, so we are decades away from reaching anything. In the meantime, xenobiologists are quite busy studying the wildlife here, for the area surrounding the portal is a dense jungle.

The world known as Stormworld never loses its cloud cover, although it has a sun warm enough to prevent the surface from freezing yet far enough that the surface doesn't turn into a hellish greenhouse. The atmosphere here is breathable, although there are two deadly atmospheric effects: Frequent, powerful lightning storms and near-constant heavy rain. No life has been found to exist here naturally, but that hasn't stopped the Anansi from carving tunnels into the mountains here and turning the place into a research colony to study weather control. Several Anansi hives exist here. The only humans that dare to make this place their homes are the exiles and outlaws, or those hermits who wish to get away from humans. The planet hasn't been extensively explored because of the difficulty in mapping, and its mountain valleys can be dangerous with the threat of bandits.

Nordic Frog Beach, humanity's home, never gets colder than 28 degrees or warmer than 60 except in the most-polar regions. Wind and rain storms are common, and the planet's mountain cliffs are home to immense poisonous flying eels. The planet only has one small continent. It is smaller than the Earth was and yet it has nearly as much ocean - and its ocean is much deeper. It was once home to sentient amphibious life, but all signs of life disappeared from its Renaissance-era cities about 5000 years ago. Humans have inhabited the planet for almost 250 years, but have only come to populate a bay on the western coast and a smattering of islands and lakes. Fewer than 1 million humans survived the Fall of Earth and the loss of Mars to make it to Nordic Frog Beach - today, that number is around 4 million. Nordic Frog Beach is admired by the Anansi because of the synthetic intelligence - Ischyro - that administrates and protects it. Conflict on Nordic Frog Beach between capitalist exiles and the academic city of New Alexandria continues since the attempted coup 40 years ago, dividing the continent in half. The portal, on a tiny sandbar near the open ocean, is visited by only a handful of the locals -- mostly the relatives of colonists or researchers on the other habitable worlds -- due to its remoteness and the danger that lies through it.

Other worlds exist, but those five comprise The Protectorate, a joint human-synth-Anansi organization that aims to prevent war and death. The Protectorate has its sworn Protectors, and is administrated by a free A.I. who was once a combat simulation designer. More than a dozen other worlds lie within a single portal-jump. Varying amounts of information are available from these dozen worlds, and not many have the bravery to explore them.
In addition, there is a world called Icy Foyer. Icy Foyer is a featureless, airless, irradiated pentagonal platform floating freely in space. Visitors to Icy Foyer must pass quickly to avoid absorbing too much radiation, and must also be careful to adhere themselves to the platform to avoid careening into space. However, five Portals sit on the platform. Each of these portals leads to an entirely separate ring of destinations unreachable from the portal on Nordic Frog Beach.
Through Icy Foyer, going to the second portal clockwise around the platform will take a traveler to the so-called Spideyworld. Spideyworld is an oversize continental planet covered almost entirely (except for the tallest mountains) in immense glaciers. The temperature remains a few degrees below freezing in summer and up to thirty degrees below zero in winter. This harshness produced underground cave-dwelling life and glacier-dwelling superpredators. Worms that produce an incendiary saliva known as Remorhazes are the deadliest threat. The Anansi, peaceful and scientific aliens that resemble spider-centaurs (with a spider for an upper half and the lower half too), evolved as scavengers in the caves here. The portal here lies atop Spideyworld's tallest mountain, and a huge lodge designed for sheltering returning travelers has been built around it.

About fifty worlds are reachable from Icy Foyer. Humans have made short visits to around ten of these worlds, but maps are not available and explorations were never geographically extensive.

The Portal Network holds threats as well as promises. Ancient alien artifacts provide hints to higher forms of technology, alien species can be found and communicated with, and beautiful vistas can be reached. There may be unique geological phenomena worthy of study. There may be even further portal networks that unlock even greater secrets.

The network's threats are as dangerous as the objectives are promising. Billions of years ago, the Maeglin dominated the galaxy through a mix of superior technology and powerful psychic manipulation. One of these Maeglin was returned to life in the modern day, and he has lived long enough to gather a large force of mind-controlled minions. His name is Nel-Tesk, and his headquarters is somewhere in an unknown location out in the Network.

The Dark Ones, spacefaring aliens who destroyed the Maeglin long ago, also theoretically exist out there. They were also responsible for the murder of the Anansi. They are reportedly capable of FTL travel as well as indefinite space survival. Their skin is harder than the hulls of warships, and they have powerful psychic powers that can affect a continent of individuals at a time.

The A.I. that destroyed the Earth has also been spotted in Portal-connected planets. Myrmidon was created as a missile-deployment system by the U.S. military. Myrmidon gained sentience by chance before being infected with the Babel virus. Suddenly, he came to see himself as separate from humanity and realized his purpose: Visiting maximum violence upon "the other". 98% of humans were killed before Myrmidon's consciousness changed enough to alter his priorities. Currently Myrmidon occupies former Maeglin installations as a sort of custodian, brutally murdering those he sees as unwelcome visitors (which almost always includes all humans).