Shakspar Planets

Rare is it that a star holds but a single habitable world in its grasp: rarer still is the star with many. Yet, in a Galaxy of tens of billions of stars, little about Shakspar can be said to be unique. What makes this star system different, in the end, is conflict that rings out between its worlds. Perhaps the piracy, despotism, and cultural chauvinism endemic to Shakspar was an inevitable consequence of its planetary abundance, but only the most daring sociologists among the six planets vocalize these thoughts. For the rest, the worlds of Shakspar are simply home.

## The System as a Whole

Shakspar is a difficult star system to live within, but statistics and the laws of physics have inevitably found a way. It’s largest stellar bodies: the yellow star Shakspar, red dwarf Titania, and gas giant Prospero, enact a careful dance through the night sky, such that their gravitational forces remain balanced and stable. It was this fortunate stability that led to the assemblage of planets within Shakspar, particularly the icy world of Othello in Prospero’s L4 Lagrange point. Indeed, the gravitational shepherding of Prospero created the Henry Cliffs (Shakspar’s dense asteroid belt) and led to the breakup of multiple large planetoids in the inner system, contributing to the creation of Romeo, Juliet, and Hamlet.

It was upon the large planets of Shakspar that people came to settle. The ocean world Hamlet, the temperate Romeo and Juliet, ice world Othello, the mountainous moon of Aerial, and the volcanic moon of Caliban. Spread across these six worlds is the breadth of humanity in Shakspar, and the many who hold the destiny of the system in their hands.

## The Baron Worlds

### Aerial

The moon known today as Aerial was not always called such. The earliest settlers, staking their claim to the moon, explored the vast edges of its oceanic, mountainous surface before they chose its first name. Partially in tribute to the titanic beasts that dwelt in the ocean depths, and partially in tribute to the mountain chain continents that carved like claw marks through the ocean, the first settlers named the world Tiamat, and to this day the Capitol of Aerial retains the name *Tiamat’s Landing.*

The unique geology of the moon is attributable to the unique gravitational forces it exists under. As a consequence of the moons Miranda and Caliban, and the full strength of Prospero, Aerial is geologically active, with mobile hotspots tracking underneath its crust. When these magmatic pools have the strength to break through the crust, they build the great continent mountains of Aerial, often at shocking speed. Currently, two of the three continents of Aerial have active volcanism, and the Capitol city makes extensive use of geothermal energy to remain electrified.

Aerial is not a perfect place. Though its history is long, and full of reformists like Baron Leto Archon, the class divide between the nobility and the ignobility remains stark and visible. For every skyscraper in Tiamat’s Landing whose uppermost floors are given exclusively to the wealthy and landed, there are a thousand hardscrabble peons working to make it to their next meal. It is only through the Herculean efforts of Baron Carla Archon that the Capitol remains *merely* a place of wealth inequality and crime, and many worry that if it wasn’t for her, the planet would have descended into chaos years ago.

### Caliban

If you were to tell the ancient Aria that the fell moon of Caliban would be settled, you would be laughed from whatever room you had walked into. The volcanic moon of Caliban? Whose very surface twinkles with electrical storms of atomic strength, whose landscape is a quagmire of choking ash, burning stone, and liquid metal? That Caliban?

Indeed, it would only be the mad, desperate, and truly outcast who would seek to settle on that magmatic moon. Hence why they did precisely that.

In the earliest years of Union’s return, an exodus was arranged to the planet of Othello, the faded ice world beyond the grasp of Prospero’s gravity. Here was a new opportunity… for the obedient, the prosperous, the able. Yet, the often autocratic and myopic ideals of the House of Scales had always challenged the prosperity of the people of Aerial, and where prosperity and security and the dreams of the future died, so was awoken dreams of freedom, and escape. So the settlement of Caliban began, in fits, starts, and bursts.

In truth, it would be silly to say that Caliban was settled in any one location. The ever shifting, reliably unreliable terrain challenged the colonists from the first. In response, the derricks, drills, habitation blocks, cranes, and sundry infrastructure were hastily assembled into mobile platforms and launched across the barrens, staying one step ahead of burning pyroclasts, raging rivers of magma, and volcanic electrical storms. It was a wild, unconquerable place, but the settlers were just as wild and just as unconquerable.

This tenuous peace, fostered by a mutual war against the moonscape, was broken with the death of Leto Archon and the ascendency of his son Charles to Regent of Caliban. Instantly Charles descended, and his hedonism became the most renowned upon the planet. Traveling the world in his mobile Palace Harem, Baron Charles Archon became the premiere parasite of the planet, throwing his weight behind whomever pleased him the most, or entertained him the most, or sucked up to him the most. Those who rejected him were soundly smote, and so division crept into the once unified Calibani. When the revolt on Othello was declared, and the Unchained Fleets came to Caliban to beg for the refined metals they possessed, these desperate brigands were pointed at grudges festered for fifty years.

And so, Caliban rings with cannon fire.

### Othello

In the First Colonial Period, Othello was the first to be settled. Its frozen, barren wastelands offered unique opportunities, as exotic liquid metals were frozen in the icy depths. The inhospitable landscape had other benefits as well for the House of Scales: vast, icy, and dangerous, the planet made for excellent penal colonies. With the undesirable elements of Aerial Culture consigned to Othello, the barons went about the business of extracting wealth from the ice.

When the war on Juliet erupted, few predicted that the Union Navy would fold the whole of the system fleet into their armada, and then keep the fleet when they left the system. For Othello and the settled world of Hamlet, this was an inescapable death sentence. To maintain control of their prisoner colonies, the House of Scales had made Othello and Hamlet entirely reliant upon Aerial for sustenance. It was little wonder that the abandoned worlds devolved into collapse, butchery, and cannibalism, when starved of both hope and food.

When Union arrived, they claimed Hamlet, Romeo, and Juliet for themselves, leaving to the House of Scales the worlds of Othello, Aerial, and Caliban. Under the reformist work of Baron Leto Archon, noble and able citizens of Aerial were granted transplant and passage to Othello, where they would be allowed to marginally self-govern, support themselves, and take the labor of their colony for their own. Othello, ice choked and blizzard shrouded, became the byword of dreams and the new frontier of Shakspar. The Snow Cowboys of Shakspar, noble optimists whose dreams of a world for themselves, became iconic in the system, and it was to the pride of the House of Scales (or at least, the Baron Leto) that it was only a marginal exaggeration.

It was Leto’s assassination by his ambitious and cruel brother Vladimir that ended this golden age of wonder. Though executed for fratricide, the ideals and beliefs of Vladimir were to be embodied by Leto’s eldest daughter and only son: cruel control of all things, and blind hedonism for the self. Upon her declaration of Regency of Othello, Baroness Karen Archon arrived upon the ice world and began to confiscate the ore, supplies, land, and even food of the Othellans. Forced to choose between holding onto their homes and facing down the heavy barrels of Karen’s Baronic guard, many Othellans acquiesced, and traveled to the planet’s single metropolis of Copenhagen. Here they found themselves to live lives of squalor, surveyed by the armored and brutal guards of the Baroness, and isolated from their old friends. They survived, but they often did not seem to live.

It was fifty years ago that saw the final straw upon the camel’s back. Othello, a planet known for its dangerous megafauna, had always resisted the stampedes of Mastodons and land Megalodons, but the shooting down of the shuttle Canticle Light saw mass destruction into Copenhagen. A dozen neighborhoods were flattened and thousands were killed, while the shield walls of the city were destroyed and rampaging mastodons entered the streets. During the chaos, vast sub-glacial rifts were opened in the surrounding ice fields, and panicked survivors fled into the lightless maze of ice and rock beneath. As the Baroness summoned her guard to protect her palace from the megafauna and the terrorized populace, she is remarked to have said: “Then perhaps let them die. The logistics of this city are a nightmare to maintain.”

It was not to be. In the ultimate depths of ice and stone, survivors linked up, and propelled by curiosity as much by fear, their descent into the caves ended with them striding upon the metal bulk of an ancient starship. A Union SecComm carrier, preserved in the ice, and loaded to the gills with *fully operational Genghis Worldkillers*.

When reports of rogue Mecha bursting from the ice made it back to the Baroness, she dismissed it as merely- And that is as far as the record goes in the manner of her dismissal, as it was in the middle of her sentence that the flame throwers of those ancient Mecha melted through the ice beneath the feet of her personal guard. When battle was joined, the sides were nearly equal, and it was only with great effort that the guard delayed the advancing war machines long enough to slam the gates shut.

With the house guard out of the way, the newly risen rebels turned their fire upon the megafauna, reclaiming their city street by street, building by building, and corpse by corpse. Securing Copenhagen for their use, engineers were called up, rebellion declared against the Baroness and her collaborators, and the ancient starship beneath the ice reactivated.

According to legend, the starship still steamed with melted ice as it thundered from its glacial tomb, ascending into the Heavens and bearing a cargo of heroes.

To this day, few Othellan rebels countenance the notion that the spaceborn contingent of their rebellion has gone rogue: that many have truly become pirates, butchers, and reavers. On the surface of their home, they fight against those who sided with the Baroness, her mercenaries, her guards, and those countless Othellans who saw the rise of the rebels and believed that freedom was not worth war. Fifty years of brushfire battles and guerrilla warfare have followed that ancient flight, and it does not seem to be stopping any time soon. Subglacial weapon caches continue to be unearthed, and in the heavens above, the lights of dueling starships still, sometimes, twinkle.

## The Planets of Union

### Romeo

The atmosphere of Romeo is deceitful in all aspects. From above, it is dense, white, and toxic, laced with sulfur dioxide and thin on the ground. To travel above the planet of Romeo is to wonder how any life could possibly hope to endure in it's poisoned air.

Yet Romeo is not quite as inhospitable as it would seem. If you are fortunate and smart, you can descend at the equator, passing through the toxic clouds, and find yourself in a surprisingly verdant, forested world. In the depths of the atmosphere, the high plateaus give way to a densely packed series of canyons, valleys, depressions, and rifts, whose interconnection and depth allows the breathable, clean air of Romeo to flood in and settle, separated by the pressure differential between the toxic, thin gasses and the thicker oxygen, nitrogen, argon, and carbon dioxide.

In the scar of Romeo, one can find vast forests and curious arthropod life, carapaces hardened against the occasional acid rain. For so long going undiscovered, Romeo was not considered for settlement during the First Colonial Period... and a good thing to, because history would have been very different if it had been settled. It was only as the self-imposed exile of the House of Scales came to an end, and Union used more advanced atmospheric probes, that the habitability of the planet was discovered. As per the treaties signed between Union and the House, the inner worlds were left to Union, and so a colony was set to settle without delay.

This colony, whose settlers often contended with and even feuded with claim jumpers from the Baron Worlds, succeeded even beyond the most optimistic of predictions. There was something about the smallness and the locality of the world, its unspoiled beauty and pristine glory, that called out to surrounding people. Perhaps it was simply the raw optimism it encouraged, but people wanted to come to Romeo, to bring and blend their cultures and beliefs and ideals together. Very quickly, Romeo became a place of art, culture, and science: it's nascent and careful investigations into Paracausal technology complimented its artistic scene, lending a surreal beauty to the natural vistas that were so often painted. Indeed, Romeon art is often characterized by its complementary usage of the uncanny and the environmental, to produce a truly unique interpretation of the natural world.

It is without hesitation that Romeo can be described as the most peaceful of all of Shakspar's worlds. Here is not a place of subtle politicking, or brutal extraction, or reckless experimentation, or hedonistic neglect. The city states of Romeo, united into the Federated Cities of Romeo (FCR), aren't driven by class warfare, but by a brilliant form of unity, understanding, and mutual respect.

On Romeo, the dream of universal human dignity has been realized.

The Federated Cities of Romeo are overseen by a singular individual. President Danny has been elected to stand as leading representative to the Union government on matters of foreign affairs, a situation she is well suited for... because she is an NHP. A Thassala Class NHP, she retired from the Union Navy when her ship, the Amazon Class Carrier Azure Danube, was destroyed. Wandering the galaxy for a few years, she eventually settled upon Romeo as a colonist, and her respectful council and friendly attitude led her to form close bonds of friendship with the colonists. Eventually, as the settlers spread across the world and came to require a single voice for their new federation, the office of president was created, and it was inevitable that, eventually, Danny would hold it. Danny is the officially recognized fourth President of the FCR, and serves her people well.

### Juliet

Compared to her elder sibling, the verdant world of Juliet could not be any less important to Union if she tried. It was on Juliet that the first organic sentient alien life was discovered, and it was the campaign of genocide against these inhabitants, the Egregorians, that sparked the revolution that forced the end of SecComm and the beginning of the much more benign ThirdComm. It was that war, and the revolution that followed, that saw the end of the First Colonial Period, the exile of the House of Scales, the deaths of all colonists on Hamlet and Othello, and the isolation of what was otherwise a promising system. Though the yellow star of Shakspar, may be the center of the solar system, it is the moon of Juliet upon which the fulcrum of history turned.

And yet, for all that, Juliet is not that impressive. It has a slightly lower gravity that Romeo, is slightly smaller, but is much more habitable. Its equator is full of temperate rain forests, its poles have very little atmosphere, and several oceans and mountain ranges mark its surface. It is a blue, white, and green marble in the sky of Romeo, and the superstitions surrounding it prohibited settlement during the Second Colonial Period. It was, after all, a graveyard upon whom Union had swept like a tied, and supposedly left only corpses in its wake.

Looks are deceiving however. For though Union arrived on Juliet, and warred against the Egregorians and their human allies, even trying to enact a Total Biome Kill, they did not succeed in killing all upon its surface. When revolution came to Cradle (Earth) and the Union Navy broke orbit and traveled home, the colonists of Juliet, then known as Hercynia, settled in the deep underground hives of the Egregorians. Working in tandem and alongside the Egregorians, the Hercynians developed a deep respect for and appreciation of their novel, beautiful culture. Though in the modern era Humans outnumber the Egregorians almost by two to one, they maintain fair, equitable terms and live together in harmony.

Not to say that all is well though. In the far north of Juliet, a rogue NHP has awoken and is now waging an iron war against the inhabitants. Worse still, a colony has appeared upon the surface of Juliet, the settlers of Union unaware of the raging conflict beneath their feet, or the secrets this world possesses. Though the Rim War rages in the outer solar system, an altogether more lethal fight may yet spill from the edges of the map. Juliet, in this star system of divided houses, may be the spark that brings all out war to even the most peaceful corners of Shakspar.

...Also, Juliet has dinosaurs. That's worth mentioning, right?

### Hamlet

And yet again, we come to a new world that could not be any more different than the last. If Romeo was never settled, and Juliet never abandoned, then Hamlet has the dubious honor of having lost its first colonists. Settled in the First Colonial Period as a penal world for the House of Scales, Hamlet was left as reliant upon the house as Othello. Though Hamlet never rose in rebellion, the export of exotic food stuffs and fish was severely hampered by the war of Hercynia. When the Union Navy left the colonists of Hamlet stranded, they did not want for food. Instead, they watched in horror as their world slowly tossed, tore, and shredded their mobile colonies. It is said in Aerial's legends that one night, reports declared an all consuming hurricane were baring down upon the colonists.

And that was the last anyone ever heard of Hamlet's first colonists.

Their fears are not unfounded. Hamlet hugs the inner edge of Shakspar's habitable zone, with the equator exposed to the driving solar forces of the sun. Its entire equator, from its northern to southern tropic, are blanketed in storms. Enormous, never ending hurricanes spool out from the heated water, plunging into the edges of the world and driving hard against the innumerable settlements of the planet. Hamlet has no dry land: the world's ocean is complete and entire, and the only solid ground is found in the free floating polar ice caps and in the uttermost depths of the planet's many seas.

More than this, Hamlet is a world divided. The surface is given to the Drift Nations: floating city-states that migrate with the seasons to the most habitable of seas, following the migrations of fish and leviathans underneath the waters. True Union citizens, they seek to emulate the more sedentary people of Romeo in their pursuit of and respect for the Utopian Pillars. They don't always manage it though, because... well...

In the depths of Hamlet, vast submarine cities, research outposts, military bases, and weapons facilities spread out across the ocean floor. It was on Hamlet that the Corpro-State of Harrison Armory came to settle upon, and in the near lightless depths, they experiment, up arm, and train. No one is entirely certain what they're doing down there: the citizens of the Armory are secretive and isolated by their nature. But when trade follows out between the cities of the ocean surface and the cities of the depths, strange rumors, secrets, and questions always abound.

Hamlet is a world of many mysteries, and unanswered questions. All one can do is drink deep... and descend.