Welcome to Sector Hades Zeta
Part 4 of 4, The Holy Cluster
Cartography by Nikita Zuev. Thank you, Nikita!
The Holy Cluster contains almost half of the planets with breathable atmospheres in the sector within its borders. It is also home to the growing Guevaran Hegemony whose impressive fleet, the Most Holy Navy, could be the hammer that bends the sector into a shape that can be ruled by a single, unified theocracy. These next few years will tell if Guevara has over-reached or if this will be the tipping point during which they seize the entire sector for a thousand years of rule.
Al-amri [Salimah System]
The Holy Mines
Atmo: Invasive
Temp: Warm
Biosphere: Miscible
Population: Outpost
TL: 3
About: This is a planet only occupied by a small community of intrepid colonists sent by a mining corporation preparing the planet for strip mining. Seizing the minerals necessary to create capital-sized ships and their complicated circuitry is costly and dangerous from a world with atmosphere that burn through oxygen supplies so readily.
Al-jurr [Salimah System]
Orbs
Atmo: Breathable
Temp: Temperate
Biosphere: None
Population: 100K+
TL: 4+
About: Al-jurr accepted the Guevaran Hegemony’s rule when their information from loyal Preceptor Archive Adepts from Samihah unlocked the floating orbs that drifted over the planet’s greatest cities. Al-jurrans worshipped those spheres and saw any who could unlock their secrets as the planet’s rightful rulers.
Al-jurran mechanical engineering is second-to-none, allowing them to build computers and machinery that is known from one side of the sector to the other as bearing uncommon quality and precision.
Anaya [Yasmeen System]
Husk, the Unbraked World
Atmo: Airless
Temp: Temperate
Biosphere: Immiscible
Population: 100K+
TL: 0
About: Anaya was once a bountiful garden world with millions of inhabitants until the Scream. In those isolated days the Anayan people turned to an unbraked AI to administer over the planet. None are sure what exactly went wrong but the atmosphere was destroyed, leaving the planet an airless shell with eerily preserved cities ripe for scavenging.
Anayan survivors huddle around underground bunkers, treating their technology as if it was magic; they are dangerous and often kill scavengers.
Astrid [Sicilianos System]
Apocalypse
Atmo: Breathable
Temp: Cold
Biosphere: Miscible
Population: Outpost
TL: 3
About: Astrid was the victim of a nuclear war during the isolation brought on by The Scream. Those who still survive in the radioactive tundras of Astrid are vehement pacifists, allowing no weapons, nor ships with weapons on the surface of their planet. Few, if any, have any reason to visit Astrid, so the point is usually moot.
Campos [Mariam System]
Psychic Paradise
Atmo: Thick
Temp: Cold
Biosphere: Immiscible
Population: 100K+
TL: 4
About: Campos believe that psychics are an evolutionary step beyond humanity and should therefor be elevated. Camposite Voung are sent to Orithya to be trained and when they return, they take up their place among the ruling class. Psychics not born on Campos can often find work with a liberal Voung and though they won’t be given a princely title, if they have a knack for cuthroat psychic politics they can live a dangerous, machiavellian life in lavish luxury.
Campos is in diplomatic negotiations with the Guevara, possibly agreeing to join their hegemony peacefully, adding their humble navy to the Most Holy Navy’s fleets.
Gudrid [Shobhna System]
Bloodworld, Hunters-home
Atmo: Breathable
Temp: Variable Warm
Biosphere: Miscible
Population: 1M+
TL: 3
About: Gudrid is a world that turned to brutal ritualistic cannibalism after the Scream, when their eugenic cults took a turn for the bloody. They have bred a type of human who is an unparalleled killer, feared throughout the sector and prized by any mercenaries or armies that are able to motivate them and unleash Gudridim Hunters on their enemies.
Not all Gudridim are killers, most are just trying to eke out survival on the cannibalistic hellscape that the planet has become. The cannibal kings and queens on Gudrid offer their hunters to the Most Holy Navy and the Guevaran Hegemony, seeing anyone taken off-planet by the theocrats as being blessed and assured a place in their blood-spattered version of heaven.
Guevara [Shobhna System]
The Garden, The Purity
Atmo: Breathable
Temp: Warm
Biosphere: Immiscible
Population: 1M+
TL: 1
About: Guevara willfully took down its technological infrastructure, creating a population who know about the universe around them but elect to live a life they see as more pure and more human. The planet is ruled by a holy caste who deliver hand-written orders to the Most Holy Navy, who traverse the stars, dealing out violence ordered by Guevaran Prophets, Judges and Templars.
Landing on the planet without holy writ and smuggling any kind of technology onto the planet’s surface is punishable by death, a sentence that is dealt out by a zealous navy who blockade the planet, wanting to keep its inhabitants pure.
Hajiyanni [Hafsah System]
Dune, Desert Planet (yeah, they’ve read the book)
Atmo: Breathable
Temp: Temperate
Biosphere: Miscible
Population: Outpost
TL: 4+?
About: This desert mini-planet will never be a garden world but still holds life and water. Every so often colonists try to do their best to survive near one of the seasonal oases but the planet’s storms eat them and anything they manage to build within a few years. There are legends of a tribe of nomads deep in the Hajiyanni storm plains but none have ever been documented.
The council that oversees the nomadic tribes that claim this world have shown glimpses of staggering technological expertise. Some say that the Old Woman who rules over the tribes has the finest pretech collection in all of the Sector.
Jayanni [Ismail System]
Squid-world, Steamworld
Atmo: Breathable
Temp: Temperate
Biosphere: Miscible
Population: 100K+
TL: 3
About: When a Celaph bites a human, the human’s bones begin to dissolve and their limbs turn into tentacles, sometimes splitting into more than one as they become another Celaph, another squid-like cannibal in Jayanni’s charnel oceans. Celaph’s plague Jayanni and have turned this once proud technological marvel into a back-water world that can only boast of a network of steam-powered ships and floating plastic cities.
This planet is best avoided despite its atmosphere and delicious ocean-going amphibians.
Kaphandris [Arnora System]
Kaph
Atmo: Breathable
Temp: Temperate
Biosphere: None
Population: 100K+
TL: 4
About: Kaphandris was once considered the gold standard of successful terra-forming and transplanting Terran crops being transplanted onto an alien world without any life. Some say there were microbes that were not noticed or that the storm seasons hid something the first colonial scientists did not notice.
During a third of the year when the planet is evacuated to its satellites and storms destroy anything human-made left on the Kaphandrishi surface. Any planet-life left on the planet takes on a toxic quality, becoming hallucinogenic, causing anyone who ingests it to dream of terrible storms.
Laodice [Yasmeen System]
The Sleeping Planet
Atmo: Breathable
Temp: Temperate
Biosphere: Miscible
Population: 100K+
TL: 4
About: Through complicated bio-tech at-birth Loadiccians are networked with altered senses in ways that are shocking, to other TL4 or evenTL5 worlds. The plutocrats who rule the world use back-door access to their population’s senses and data-streams to keep the truth about off-planet life a secret, causing Loadiccians to believe that they live on an isolated space colony with no other examples of humanity anywhere nearby. Some suspect the truth about life beyond Laodice but the rank and file Laodiccian does not even know that they came from Olde Earth.
Mecisteus [Radhwa System]
The Holy Mines
Atmo: Inert
Temp: Temperate
Biosphere: Hybrid
Population: 1M+
TL: 3
About: Mecistite Spike Drive capabilities and navy were destroyed when they were taken over by the Guevaran Hegemony’s Most Holy Navy. Now Mecisteus is a mining world, where the minerals necessary for the Most Holy Navy’s hulls and computers to be built are mined. As such, the city’s biosphere is being irrevocably damaged by the push to mine its core, to the point where the atmosphere is no longer safe for humans to breathe.
Nafpliotis [Hafsah System]
Blood Garden
Atmo: Breathable
Temp: Warm
Biosphere: Miscible
Population: 10K+
TL: 4
About: Nafpliotis is a planet in open rebellion, with armed rebels claiming land in defiance of the planetary government who have surrendered to and become part of the Guevaran Hegemony. There are said to be 13 Nafpliotan warlords, 1 on each of the planet’s tropical continents.
Samihah [Ismail System]
The Blessed Archive, the Rings
Atmo: Airless
Temp: Frozen
Biosphere: None
Population: 100K+
TL: 4
About: This is a cold lifeless rock surrounded by vibrant rings of satellites that surround the planet, each easily housing tens of thousands of humans. Its citizens zealously claim that the Great Archive their satellite-cities safeguard shows why the Guevaran Hegemony will lead this sector’s people back to Olde Earth and keep the human population safe from the dangerous unbraked AI that threaten human existence.
The Preceptor Adepts from Samihah are in open conflict with the Adepts from the Preceptor Archives on Eriphyle. Samihans have little patience with anyone who denies the primacy of the Guevaran Hegemony.
Sana [Ismail System]
Home of the Smart Clouds
Atmo: Breathable
Temp: Temperate
Biosphere: Temperate
Population: 10K+
TL: 3
About: Sana fell into difficult times during its Scream-induced isolation and only the patient wisdom of the local species, the Than, got the human population through it. The Than are sentient clouds who float across the world’s skies. Their lightning has been compared to our own human brain’s synapses. Sanan folk adore the Than and are protective over their safety.
Sanan has been subsumed into the Guevaran Hegemony but have a reputation for being poor soldiers, as they look to their Than-filled skies for spiritual guidance.
Githyanki Diaspora 