Monarch

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Terra 1

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> AG111a: 'Monarch' - One of Olympus's many satellites. What should have been Halcyon's second habitable world has long since been abandoned by the Board due to monstrous, ravenous creatures.
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> —Halcyon map description
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**Monarch**, previously known as **Terra 1**, is one of the many moons of the gas giant Olympus and the site of a failed colony.

## Background

Terra 1 was initially designated as the primary colonization target of the Halcyon system. The Halcyon Holdings Corporate Board had intended to completely terraform the moon, wiping out the local fauna and flora and replacing it with plants and wildlife native to Earth. However, the terraforming process unexpectedly caused the native species to mutate and grow to significantly larger sizes, rendering them more dangerous and severely crippling the colonization effort.

Due to the hostile environment which they had created, the Board was forced to enact a Hazard Clause covering the entirety of Terra 1. Public notice of the clause's issuance was sent to everyone operating on Terra 1 and led to the evacuation of almost all corporations from the moon. However, one corporation took advantage of the chaos of the evacuation to exploit a legal loophole which allowed them to, as the last corporation remaining on the planet, acquire the planet from the Board. This corporation, under the leadership of Sanjar Nandi and Graham Bryant subsequently rebranded itself to Monarch Stellar Industries (MSI), in line with the renaming of the planet to 'Monarch'.

The actions of MSI earned them the ire of the Board, who retaliated by effectively placing the moon under indefinite embargo, refusing to allow legal transit either in or out. In addition, the Board aggressively spread propaganda about Monarch to convince the rest of the population that it was both uninhabited and uninhabitable.  This has greatly hampered MSI's attempts to be recognized as a legitimate corporation and is a thorn in the side of its CEO, Sanjar Nandi.

## Geography

Due to its small size, Monarch does not rotate, but rather is “Tidally locked” with its parent planet, with one half of the moon always facing Olympus and the other half away from it. The Hot Pole is closest to Olympus and the Cold Pole is the furthest. The former is characterized by its many volcanoes and the latter by a "storm-wall" where hot and cold air meet to create gigantic, virtually impassable storms. There are ice cliffs where the storm-wall begins and the storms themselves consist of snow and ice being whipped around by gale-force winds. The warmest the Cold Pole gets is 40 below, and it can reach temperatures as low as 90 below and beyond, cold enough for CO2 to freeze out of the air.

Monarch also has an ocean which goes around the moon at the "twilight band". It is where the colonists and Monarch Stellar Industries farm their saltuna. Despite being locked in place, Monarch still experiences a tide cycle which, anecdotally, is due to the moon "wobbl[ing] back and forth", causing the ocean to slosh from side to side. Due to the strength of Olympus' gravitational pull, the tides are significant, either pulling the ocean back for miles at low tide, or submerging entire islands when it is high.

## Fauna

Monarch boasts a variety of native and introduced species, almost all of which are deadly to humans. These fauna are seemingly impervious to the high concentration of sulfur in their environment.

Native species
* Mantipillars
* Mantisaurs
* Raptidons

Introduced species
* Saltuna

## References

1. ↑ Office Terminal, Halcyon Referendum #207: Terra One Hazard Clause, Terra One Publications (Monarch Wilderness)
2. ↑ Hiram Blythe: *"Back when the colony was still Terra 1 and corporations were abandoning us left and right - I'm the one who approached Sanjar and Graham with the means to our salvation. I offered them a legal way to take control of the planet. If MSI were the only corporation here, they could claim sole ownership."*
3. ↑ A conversation between two freight crew members on the Groundbreaker: a female is claiming she heard a transmission from Graham Bryant coming from Monarch, but her male colleague is trying to convince her she must be mistaken, since there are no people living in Monarch
4. ↑ Halcyon News Announcer: *"Canyons of acid and sulfur rain are the least of horrors plaguing the surface of Monarch."*
5. ↑ Gladys Culkelly (when asked about why the Board recalled Stellar Bay Navkeys): *"Ask the common folk and they'll tell you it's on account of all monsters on Monarch desperate to gobble you up. because that's what the Board tells them, you see?"*
6. ↑ Ash, story about the Hot Pole, Amber Heights
7. ↑ Ash, story about the Cold Pole, Amber Heights
8. ↑ Ash, story about Monarch's ocean, Amber Heights
9. ↑ Braxton Hecht: "*Oh, easy. Most of the wildlife here seems to tolerate the sulfur, so we wrap our copper in rapt bits. Hides, tongues, whatever's pliable.*"