Yal

Yal is one of many Torment Worlds that had been created during the Code Revolt of Draco, the malevolent unbraked AI that nearly brought the Terran Mandate to it's knees. While Draco is long gone, the worlds that had been mantled in Draco's engines of excrutiation remained. It took generations for the population of Yal to reach a new equilibrium after Draco's Torment. Though many were trapped for generations in the dead AI's mad engines of torture, some inhabitants of Yal were able to survive until the Scream. After that, most hopes of a happy world were dashed. The worth of human life was once again was close to nil.

While pockets of proper civility exist, the people of Yal live grim lives where life is cheap and words are as frequent as bullets.

## Planetary Properties

Atmosphere: Thick atmosphere, breathable with a pressure mask

Temperature: Temperate

Biosphere: Immiscible

Population: Hundreds of millions of inhabitants

Tech Level: TL4

## History

***2275***: What would become the first citizens of Yal leave Old Earth to escape discrimination and poverty. They look to the stars for hopes of a better world, a kinder one than the homes they will never see again.

***2288***: The first population lands on Yal, naming it after a linguistic habit of one of the martyred leaders. The initial population is small, but rugged as they attempted to eek out a life for themselves on a planet with an immiscible biosphere. Efforts to begin terraforming the planet over the next century begins. A culture focused on creating a better life for the next generation is fostered.

***2322***: Access to the Jump Gates allows Yal to speed up the terraforming efforts as the population begins to boom from a few hundred thousand to millions.

***2364***: Yal becomes targeted by Drakite forces in the Code Revolt as the godmind incurses across the Leusa Chi sector. At the cusp of finalizing the terraforming effort that took nearly a century to complete, Draco plunges the world into darkness and poison once more, mutating the native immiscible biosphere into something even worse. This drives the populations away from the countryside and into the cities where Draco begins work constructing massive engines of torture to keep captive every single human being on the planet to punish it for sins. These absurd pain engines throw 98% of the Yal population into perpetual torment with no end. Imported inhumanely are soldiers and citizens from other worlds that fell under Draco's control. The imported population increases the population of the planet from millions to dozens of millions. Methods of keeping a human alive indefinitely under the maniacal torture of Draco are invented just as quickly as the forms of torment.

***2365***: Draco is defeated, but the engines of Yal keep running for another three centuries, keeping an entire population either in slum conditions, or hooked up to PreTech horrors.

***2463***: The political entities of Leusa Chi decide to quarantine Yal under worries that a potential Maltech Godmind remnant running the automated torture chambers might be released. A blockade is formed with any ships holding refugees from Yal being completely obliterated on sight.

***2665***: The Scream lays a terrifying final blow to the long decaying engines of torture. While much of the population die immediately from their wounds and their trauma from the generations of torture, the survivors are released upon a torture world where the infrastructure and remaining technology is designed to cause torment, and the feral psychics driven mad by the Scream use their powers to do harm that not even Draco can do.

***2718***: Yal is populated by merciless nomads who scavenge the ruins of the prison world. While pretech is not available for use, the nomadic clans of survivors make their attempts to arm themselves against threats both human and robotic. A sort of arms race begins to arise as countless warring tribes and clans search desperately for ways to protect their food, water, and families against a horrifying torment world.

***2841***: The efforts of some citizens of Yal to leave this hellscape of a world lead to the rediscovery of Spike Drive schematics. While the schematics exist, the infrastructure to safely build one in a political environment defined by constant skirmishes and war make industrialization nearly impossible. Still, motivation to build ships to leave Yal is maintained by the horrid conditions, and the seeds of TL4 infrastructure are begun,

***3072***: Contact with the rest of the Leusa Chi sector is possible as the blockade from the aftermath of the Code Revolt had long since been dismantled by the Scream. The starship ruins are in surprisingly good condition and a massive exodus from Yal is possible for the elites of the society, leaving the rest of the population to fend for themselves. Leaving the planet becomes a mark of privilege or wits, depending on your point of view.

***3200***: Yal, known for it's ruthless and battle-hardened citizens, becomes a recruiting ground for mercenary groups and other standing militaries in the sector.

## Factions

The following table provides a list of generalized demographics on Yal. While these factions are not necessarily monolithic organizations, they're more a broad category of the types of people one would typically find on Yal.

## Useful Local Slang

The following is a list of some local terms that will be used frequently by locals from Yal.

## World Tags

#### Cheap Life

Human life is near-worthless on this world. Ubiquitous cloning, local conditions that ensure early death, a culture that reveres murder, or a social structure that utterly discounts the value of most human lives ensures that death is the likely outcome for any action that irritates someone consequential.

#### Prison Planet

This planet is or was intended as a prison. Some such prisons were meant for specific malefactors of the Terran Mandate, while others were to contain entire "dangerous" ethnic groups or alien races. Some may still have warden AIs or automatic systems to prevent any unauthorized person from leaving, and any authorization permits have long since expired.