Tarkine - SM1434 - District 268

Tarkine       1434 C466662-7  S Ag Ni Ri        A  310

UWP:	C466662-7	Location:	Spinward Marches/1434	System:	Tarkine
Starport:	C	Routine, unrefined fuel, small craft repair
Planetary Size:	4	Medium 6,400 km
Atmosphere:	6	Standard
Hydrosphere:	6	60 percent surface area covered by oceans
Population:	6	Moderate Population 3,000,000
Government:	6	Captive Government
Law Level:	2	Low Law Portable Energy Weapons Prohibited
Tech Level:	7	Pre-Stellar (mini electronics)
Base(s):		Scout
Zone:		Amber: Caution
# of Planetoid Belts:	1		# of Gas Giants:	0

Main World
Tarkine is an almost perfect world, from the point of view of human colonization.  It features a very pleasant atmosphere, moderate average temperatures, 60% coverage by H2O seas, and the gravity is only slightly lower than 1g normal.  The main world is the fourth planet in orbit around the primary star of a binary system.  The inhabitants have chosen to keep most of the world pristine, and have limited development outside of a few urbanized areas, with an artificially depressed local tech level (import of technological manufacturing means is limited to TL7, although they will import much higher TL agricultural equipment, if it is ready-built).  Outside contractual labor have built most of the cities and structures, but while they may reflect higher technology levels in their design and infrastructure, the means to repair or replace that technology is limited (requiring a constant influx of specialist labor and the means of repair/upkeep).  This is not a problem for the Tarkines, however, as they are an extremely wealthy planet. What the Tarkines lack in industrial might and dense population, they make up for with amazing agricultural products.

The world is classified as being an Amber Zone by the Imperial Scout Service - this is due to the extremely harsh wind storms that wrack the surface of the mainworld on a periodic basis.  The local wild life (plants and animals) are adapted to the storms (many of the taller trees feature extremely flexible trunks, considering their size, for instance - much like Earth palm trees in tropical areas).  One of the reasons the Tarkines, who are especially proud of their limited technological advance, allow higher technology to be imported into the population centers, is to ensure safe and durable high technology is employed in shelters and other buildings.

The government, such as it is, is run by a corporate council (the "Tarkine Affairs Council" or TAC) dominated by interests from nearby Dallia.  Tarkine is part of the Agricultural-Worlds Combine, along with Motmos,  and Tarsus.  These three worlds produce the majority of the agricultural products of the subsector, and as such are heavily supported in their "independence" by both Forine and Collace.  Worlds, such as Dallia, however are so desperate for food, that they are willing to exert extreme pressures on Tarkine, in order to get the lion's share of the agricultural exports.  While Tarkine agricultural output is across the board (grains, fruits, vegetables, animals and animal products, etc), one of the chief money makers are the exotic spices from Tarkine.  One of the spices - something similar to cinnamon, but with a sharper bite (especially when used in concentrated form, as the Tarkines prefer in their moon-lily tea), is known simply as "Tarkine" to the offworld market.  It can sell in markets on Forine and Collace for as much as 120cr per gram.

Around 160 years in the past, Dallia attempted to conquer Tarkine, but the move was rebuffed with help (especially) from Collace.  What replaced that outright conquest, however, was a council that would manage Tarkine interests, but also with the agricultural needs of surrounding worlds in mind.  The council is dominated by factors from the Hives of Dallia.  Although it may at first sound suspicious, the council seeks to improve the life of the Tarkine agricultural collectives, while giving them a ready market for their output.  The agricultural collectives are very large farming and herding operations, dominated by centuries-old compound/complex family units.  The control wide swathes of land, sometimes across multiple biomes, and even on different continents.  These collectives are what pass for individual states, or provinces, on the world - but all answer to, and are somewhat protected by, the TAC.

The Tarkines, although fiercely independent, willingly accept the presence of the Tarkine Affairs Council (TAC), as the defacto government that provides basic inter-Collective legal affairs, and controls off world marketing of goods, as well as controlling incoming technology and immigration.

Tarkine Agricultural Collectives often make use of high tech equipment from the TAC

The Imperium is keeping an eye on the situation, with eyes towards longterm development of Tarkine as an Imperial world.  Their presence in the star system consists of the very large Gazhnia-Raskoff Scout Base (called, simply, Arthur-GR), in orbit around an iceworld (Arthur) of the secondary star of the binary system. Delina Gazhnia-Raskoff is the name of the Imperial Scout (from Mora) that originally surveyed the world, 700 years ago.  She was killed in one of the amazingly powerful storm systems that plague the great plains on one of the six continents of Tarkine.

Arthur-GR Imperial Scout Base (40t pinnaces leaving for planetary survey)

Animal life on the main world seems to follow two very different biological paths.  There is a large group of different animal species that have curious gas bladders, which can render them very bouyant, and capable of a strange bounding hopping motion, these are all called "Tarkine Hoppers" although there are many varieties.  The strange gas bladder of the hoppers has meant that they are not really suited for herding, however they have been part of the Tarkine landscape for so long, they are widely tolerated (usually being either filters or herbivores, they don't pose a threat to the domesticated animals).  Keeping them out of croplands, however, is somewhat problematic, and there are often "rangers" that get employment hunting the larger hoppers (which, in small herds, can destroy acres of cropland per week) from the air, using electric powered hover-copters.

Two related species of hoppers worth noting are the Grass Wherry and the Cloud Wherry.  Both have a curious fur growth that has curious light reflecting properties.  Grass Wherry fur absorbs light, and retains it, so that the fur glows in the dark for some time after it is removed from the light source (out on the open prairies of the Great Central Continent, seeing glowing Grass Wherry herds bounce along the surface is a sight not be missed by tourists, if a safari can be managed).  The Cloud Wherry, on the other hand, has a fur that is similar, except the strands of fur are slightly more tubular, and light is passed through, so that in a bright light, the Cloud Wherry becomes very difficult to spot against a bright background.  Since they tend to float rather high, and in long bounding arcs (reaching several hundred meters, and sometimes remaining aloft for as many as 20-30 minutes at a time), they pose a navigational threat to low flying electronic hover-copters.  A Cloud Wherry is several meters across, so it is quite a hazard to a small hover-copter.

Tarkine hopper (grass wherry) investigating hillside wind farm.

The other group is a wide variety of different land mammals, that have developed a curious sensory organ that is in tuned to the magnetic fields of Tarkine.  These fill many different food chain niches, but a large variety of them are docile, and now domesticated, herbivores.  Due to their reliance on the magnetic fields of Tarkine, which they use for a sort of homing, when in the wild, for migratory purposes, they have not adapted well to life off the planet.  With proper preparation, their agricultural products (both dairy products as well as meat) are quite digestible and palatable.

Tarkine Magneto-Llamas (image from http://drombyb.deviantart.com/ )

The planet is divided up into (roughly) five continents (Northern Continent, Western Country, Great Western Continent, Middle Continent, and the Southern Continent).  There are two major oceans (Western Ocean, and the Great Middle Sea) and a number of smaller "seas", as marked on the map.

There are four main urbanized areas, although large compound-family dominated agricultural collectives are spread all over the planet.  The four main cities are:

• Shasta (pop. 600,000) - home of the Tarkine Affairs Council (planetary government), and also site of Port Fiver (the ground starport).
• Boller (pop. 400,000) - Boller Stockyards is the main livestock market
• Crown (pop. 300,000) - Seaport, home of huge sea-harvester ships
• Far Town (pop. 200,000) - Home of Tarkine Agricultural College and Technical University

The mainworld has a downport (Port Fiver, located at Shasta), and a high port (Port Hazel, a large dispersed space station, in high orbit).

• Port Hazel (high port - Star Port Authority offices, customs, and an unrefined fueling facility)
• Port Fiver (downport - 80 landing pads, startown, TAS, hotels, mall, transportation services)

Surface map of Tarkine - Each hexagon is 128km across

The Spires of Tarkine
One of the amazing details about the world of Tarkine is the presence of the Spires.  These exist in four different spots of the world, and in each spot there is a collection of these structures, ranging from a few dozen of thick, heavy spires in the Airtree Forest, to hundreds of narrow spires, spouting phosphorescent streams and springs in the Black Desert.  The commonality among the spires is that they are all artificial, and hollow, and once served as shelter or structures for some purpose.  All have been overgrown for some very long time, but still stand erect because of their (curious) materials and construction techniques.  The four known locations are:

• Forest of Tears (A on the map)
• Mist Jungle (B on the map)
• Black Desert (C on the map)
• Airtree Forest (D on the Map)
  

The Forest of Tears, in the center of the landmass just north of the Great Middle Sea, is composed of 
an incredibly rich, dense layer of vegetation, with many interlocking and interwoven branches and limbs, wound about and kept tight by the voracious creeping vines of the forest.  That layer of dense vegetation is about 50 meters in the air, and is called by Tarkines the Floor of Heaven.  Underneath it, very little grows except lichens, fungus, and an artist's palette of different colored mushrooms.  The dense level of vegetation is thick and solid enough, that it can be walked on.  The Forest of Tears is home to a race of primates, just barely pre-sentient, called Jacob Apes, about the size and mass of a Terrestrial Orangutan.  They gather water and fungus, and do some hunting, on the forest floor, but dwell up above the Floor of Heaven, in lean-to structures made from gathered dead wood and branches.  Some of these are quite large and elaborate.  The Jacob Apes do not work with stone or metal, but fashion all sorts of simple tools from wood and bone (which they gather from already dead animals, being mostly vegetarian).  The males are quite territorial, and will fight fiercely, and to the death, to protect a favored female, hut, or young.  The spires in the Forest of Tears are slender, and many of them are connected with bridges.  Most have not been explored.  They extend up into the sky 100-200 meters above the Floor of Heaven.  Several groups have large platforms attached to them, quite up high (above the Floor), which are sturdy enough to park vehicles and small craft (up to, and including a 100 ton scout vessel).  The Jacob Apes are the only one of the Tarkine animal species to have developed the curious magnetic field sensor, but which are also a sort of upright primate in body type.  Other primates exist on the world, but none have the magnetic sensor.  And all other animals that have the magnetic sensor are four legged herbivores.

Spires in the Forest of Tears

The Mist Jungle is located in the southwest corner of the Middle Continent, where it joins up to the coastline along the edge of the Sea of Mystery.  The prevailing winds across the Sea of Mystery mean that the Mist Jungle is almost always wet, under a constant threat of heavy, heavy thunderstorms, and often quite misty and foggy (hence the name).  A number of different species of Hoppers live in the Mist Jungle, including one called the River Skimmer.  It gets somewhat large, about the size of a hippopotamus, and can frequently get around using its curious "hopping" motion.  When it comes to a body of water it wishes to cross, however, it floats out on the river or lake, and does not lose its "hopper" gas accumulation (that render it somewhat buoyant in the atmosphere, and give its distended bottom its rounded hopper shape).  Instead, once floating on the water, it uses a very slow release of its gas to jet across the surface.  The spires in the Mist Jungle are massive, in diameter, compared to those elsewhere on Tarkine.  Discovery (rumored, at least) of some working artifacts in the Mist Jungle spires has started a practical gold rush of investigators and treasure hunters.  Again, there are some platforms built into the outer edge of the Mist Jungle towers (which are sometimes as many as 400 meters high, and 150 meters across), and these are, again, strong enough to warrant holding up a ship's boat (or smaller).  The search for artifacts has brought out a gold rush, and frequent outbreaks of violence and claims jumping are the order of the day.  It is a rough and dangerous frontier, far from the placid farms to the east and north of the Mist Jungle.  Boller, the nearest city, is almost 700km away.

Spires in the Mist Jungle

The number of spires in the Black Desert is very large, and may not have ever been counted.  The spires individually are not as massive of those of the other three regions, but they do have a one curious factor, that warrants investigation.  Each spire has a deep, deep well dug down underneath it, to the incredibly deep water table under the desert.  Some method - machinery, magnetics, etc - draws up a water from deep down, that has a strong concentration of phosphorescent material in it.  This phosphorescent quality is not particularly dangerous, and does not affect the water it is found in.  That water runs down, finds other streamlets, and eventually forms into rivers crossing into marshy lakes, throughout the Black Desert.  The lakes are formed when, on occasion, the flowing river, when it stops moving, does not immediately get sucked up by the dry desert.  Frequent, violent wind storms keep many casual investigators away from the Black Desert spires.

Spires in the Black Desert

At the continental neck, where the Northern Continent comes down and meets the West Country, there is a very large hilly forest called the Airtree Forest.  The Airtree Forest is a forest that is composed of a wide variety of very lush, thickly growing tall trees.  One, the Airtree, has a curious byproduct of its own photosynthetic process.  It seems that the same lighter-than-air gasses that form in the flotation organs of the Tarkine Hopper animals, also form into some seed sacks under the leafy branches of the Airtree.  In the relatively strong windstorms that blow north from the West Country, and down from the central plains of the Northern Continent, the lighter than air branches of the Air Tree will break off in large clumps, and float through the air for many miles, before settling down as the gas eventually dissipates or escapes the seed sacks. In this way, the heavy, conical seeds of the tree are spread around.  The spires here are as tall as the largest on the planet, but not quite so large in circumference as the giants of the Mist Jungle.  What makes the ones in the Airtree Forest unique, is that they have the remains of columned buildings and structures, built on the top of them.  Casual explorers are warded off by the strong storms, as well as the swarming tactics used by the Airtree Dragonfly - a large, segmented gargantuan insect (reaching sometimes 9-12 meters in length) with a large wingspan, live reasonably sedate lives clinging, with a very low profile, to the barky skins of the Airtrees, only being disturbed by invasive noises (such as machinery or vehicles).  They are quite dangerous, having hard chitinous plating, and a vicious stinger at the end of their long centipede-like body.

Airtree Forest Spires

It is not known who built the spires, or when (they are old, really old, but definitely artificial), as no serious advanced study has ever been made of them.  Rumors of artifacts and working features being discovered come up in the popular press on Tarkine all the time, but this is mostly just sensationalism.  Nothing has ever been established as fact, only local legend and urban myth.

System Details

Primary Star - Zes Dort 1434
Sheffield - IZ - Size 2 Radiation World
Penguin - IZ - Size 2 Radiation World
Ulverstone - IZ - Size 5 Storm World
Leven - HZ - Size 6 Storm World (1 moon, size 4, Buttons)
Tarkine - HZ - Size 4 Main World (1 moon, size 2, Corinna)
Burnie Belt - HZ - Asteroid belt
Stanley - OZ - Size 19 Big World (3 moons, sizes 5,3,3, Pearse, Hale, Wharf)
Smithton - OZ - Size 15 Big World (4 moons, sizes 6,4,2,2, Montagu, Nelson, Geldie, Britton)

Secondary Star - Minim Dort 1434-Alpha
Arthur - OZ - Size 2 ice world
Marrawah - OZ - Size 3 ice world, (1 moon s2, Harcus)

(IZ - Inner Zone; OZ - Outer Zone; HZ - Habitable Zone)

Key system facilities -

Orbital Research Station - Laskurne Institute - in orbit around Pearse - from University at Collace - studying "telepathic" communications of large creatures that live in the oceans under the ice of Pearse. Population 500 (scientists, administrators, and family).

Asteroid Research Station - Chambers Metallurgical Laboratory - built into asteroid Ghiza-288 - from Sternmetal Horizons - studying curious magnetic properties of ores in asteroid.  Perhaps natural "null" gravity? Population 100 (10 scientists, 25 tech's, 65 security)

Orbital Training Facility - Eccentric mystic, Gar Garmin, has parked his Garden Ship (an aged type-R subsidized merchant ship, full of hydroponics gardens, no longer functional as a jump capable ship) in orbit around Harcus.  There he takes on students and trains them in his technique of "Empty Focus".  Garmin uses his (still functional) 20 ton launch to visit the GR scout base at Arthur, for supplies and life support parts for the "Garden Ship".  Population 1 (Garmin). Usually up to a dozen students, living in the Garden Ship, learning mental and physical techniques of focus and martial arts.

Moonbase Communications Station - Ransom Station on the surface of Corinna.  The Dallia government operates a "support facility" to serve their interests in the Tarkine Affairs Council (the group controlling the Tarkine government).  Population 60 permanent staff, although there is a spaceport on the moon, and Tarkine to Dallia traffic is often landed at the spaceport, or in orbit around the moon.  Officially this is a communications station, that monitors and enables communications between Dallia interests and the TAC.  Unofficially, they are keeping any eye on the Tarkines, and making sure they don't get any ideas about self-rule, and that offworld agitators and interests are kept in hand.

Orbital Corporate Facility - Tarkine Wherry - This is an orbital trade, warehousing and shipping facility.  It's purpose is to facility massive shipments of agricultural products off world, and trade goods down to the surface.  It was originally built as large circular base, housing 10,000 corporate employees and family members, with distributed and dispersed platforms for small craft, and for "cargo barges" - towing special, large (100,000 ton) baffled cargo containers, out to other distributed docking facilities in orbit.  Operated by a company called Ag-Star, a food shipping operation owned by the megacorporation General Products.  Supported by the other planets of District 268, as a balance against the Dallia operation here.  They are not friendly to the control that the TAC has over the local economy, but have not openly challenged it.

Orbital Security Base - In orbit around Leven - the Dallia Star Patrol maintain this forward base, called the "Tarkine Interest Station" - home to a number of interceptors (small craft, fighters), several large troop transports, and 6,000 Dallia security personnel.  Population of base - 8,000.  Watched closely by observers from the Imperial scout base at Arthur-GR, and also by General Products security personnel from "Tarkine Wherry".

Nature Preserve - "XB Ranger Station Buttons" - The surface of the planet Buttons has been declared a nature preserve, and is overseen from and protected by planetary wildlife rangers from the "Xenolife Bureau" - a non profit conservancy group.  The Tarkine government granted permission to the group, long ago, and they have kept all corporate development off the moon of Buttons for decades and decades, while they observe the curious megafauna of the moon.  Population 2000.