Trakoi

**Trakoi** (pronounced [tɹəkɔɪ], truh-KOEE) is a sub-Earth sized desert planet located in the Federal Cluster. It is the homeworld of the Purlians. Unlike other capital worlds, Trakoi is rather poor, and has been increasingly ignored as the Purlians expanded outward into interstellar space.

### Geography

Over 99% of Trakoi's land is classified as hot desert. The terrain is quite flat due to erosion. The only steep areas are the continental shelves and the remaining mountains. These deserts alone vary greatly, ranging from vast sand dunes (like the Sahara) to expanses of jagged canyons (like Bryce Canyon). Some small swamps, forests, and grasslands can be found around the few lakes and seas scattered around the planet.

### Atmosphere

Like other life supporting planets, Trakoi has an atmosphere of mostly nitrogen. Because of the lack of abundant plant life, a significant fraction of the atmosphere has become carbon dioxide: upwards of 2% depending on altitude. Trakoi's oxygen content is around 19%. Although the lack of plant life would normally result in much lower percentages, chemotrophic life has flourished in the desert, and produces the majority of oxygen in the atmosphere.

### Ocean remnants

A distinctive feature of Trakoi compared to other planets that bear macroscale life it that Trakoi lacks significant ocean coverage. Water currently covers only about 15% of the planet. Evidence suggests that 36 million years ago, the oceans had largely drained underground for unknown reasons, creating mass extinctions unparalleled by other planets.

### Life

Biodiversity on Trakoi is very low, both due to the recent mass extinctions and the lack of many ecological niches associated with deserts.

#### Plant life

Ever since the great extinctions 36 million years ago, complex plant life has been significantly reduced in diversity. Algae and microscopic plants adapted for hypersaline waters still flourish around the last remaining bodies of water. Around the coasts of these seas land lakes, large plants filling the same niche as Earth trees can be found in abundance. Adapted to filter the hypersaline water, they often have a "crust" of salts secreted from their bodies. Other plants include species comparable to Earth cacti, which even these are still quite rare.

#### Thermotrophs

Thin sheets of plantlike lifeform be found scattered throughout the deserts. They produce simple nutrients from the sand and other compounds. Their means of harvesting energy vary, from photosynthesizing to absorbing the desert heat.

#### Animal life

Animals on Trakoi can be classified into two phylums.

##### Invertebrates

Like most other worlds bearing complex life, there are a wide variety of animals similar to Earth invertebrates. Since the extinctions, almost all invertebrates with soft bodies had become extinct, and now are mostly found as parasites or rarely found in hypersaline waters. Hard-bodies organisms have greatly recovered since the extinctions, and have been found everywhere on the planet.

##### Vertebrates

Animals that are analogs to Earth vertebrates have again diversified around Trakoi. The most common form is a bilateral body, six limbs, and a head in the front with the brain and sensory organs. They have a three-part jaw, but some species have fused the bottom two to have a two-part jaw. Pulians and their ancestors are a common exception, having their backmost limbs reduced in size and almost vestigial.

### History

*See also: Purlians*

Modern Purlians evolved on Trakoi roughly 670,000 BIT in the Eastern Mountains. They gradually expanded outwards into the desert, eventually building homes out of sand and sandstone, and domesticating hardy desert plants and animals. Even with this agricultural revolution, large-scale government and society didn't emerge until the discovery of the Greater Equatorial Aquifer around 3,500 BIT. Despite intense challenges in the environment, the Purlians were in an early information age while other species with abundant resources had spacefaring technology, which is impressive.

After being assisted in developing space and interstellar travel, the level of valuable resources accessible started an era of prosperity never before seen on the planet. Its net worth skyrocketed, technological development soared, and poverty plummeted. Briefly, Trakoi was the wealthiest planet in the Diploma Cluster, a status maintained by manufacturing FTL ships. In the 130's DIT, Trakoi was effectively unified under one government by economic takeover by spacefaring polities.

The Tibo-Estean War had little impact on Trakoi and the rest of the Purlian race, as they had mostly been on the defensive. As they had few planetary colonies, enemy invasions were scarce.

The Seventy Despairs, on the other hand, had wreaked havoc on Trakoi. The Reapers Blood outbreak had killed millions, but much less compared to other capital planets. The Industrial Horrors caused chaos on their technologically advanced but poorly regulated structure. Famine, unemployment, and poverty soared back to pre-space age levels and more. It was around this time that Trakoi, a fully unified planet, had begun to split into several different nation-states, the first time a planet had done so. Eicheron, homeworld of the Ghar'Taera, would follow shortly after.