Palan
Palan is a mostly barren planet, but has sufficient microbial life in its numerous small seas to maintain an atmosphere dense enough and sufficiently high in oxygen to be fully breathable for most species. However, the radiation from its sun is dangerously high across most of the planet, and all settlements are located near the south pole, where due to the planet’s low axial tilt, the sun always stays low above the horizon all year. Creating the impression that each day consists of only a very long morning and equally long evening. The most striking feature of Palan’s sky are the planet’s large rings that are visible over the northern horizon during the day and most of the night. What plant life exist on the mostly barren rocks that make up most of the land surface consists mostly of lichens and a few simple shrubs. No animals are raised on Palan, and there are no native land animals larger than 1 cm in size.
Palan is home to two main settlements. Sarantal was founded in 497 by a the Askal Directorate from the neighboring Askal sector to serve as workers’ housing for the construction of a large fuel and repair station in orbit around Palan’s moon. As commerce in the Foross sector greatly increased in the mid-500s, both the station and the settlement were greatly expanded, and gained a large new population of genya workers. At 9 million people, Sarantal is now the single largest city in the entire sector.
A consortium of mahir corporations established the Usomi colony in 579, some 200 km from Sarantal. Over the following century, it gained a population of 4 million mahir and genya.
Meruna
Meruna was the last planet in the Foross Sector to be settled. Even though it is one of the most habitable planet in the entire sector, second only to Kion, its lack of valuable mineral resources had made it completely irrelevant to any of the mining companies that originally drove the development of the sector. The Keritika colony was founded by firax in 631, after most of the large colonial companies had already ceased operations in the sector and sold off most of their remaining assets. The purpose of Keritika had never been to become economically profitable, but to primarily to serve as a self-sustaining embassy of the firax states closer to the regions of space inhabited by the vhen, mahir, and tubaki. The only direct neighbors of firax space are the enkai and chosa, and they considered it in their collective best interest to have direct contact and establish relationships with other peoples as well.
Meruna is a largely oceanic planet, but home to several groups of large islands that cover about 8% of its surface. Most land is relatively flat and covered in a wide variety of grasses, though there are many types of native shrubs and scattered clusters of small trees as well. This makes the planet very suitable for raising introduced farm animals. While animal life in the sea is extremely abundant and diverse, land animals consists mostly of small birds and burrowing animals, with no large predators that could pose a threat even to firax children.
Though the planet’s 5 million population consists mostly of equal numbers of firax and genya, various enkai and vhen oligarchs from other planets in the sector have been trying to take control over the major private businesses on Meruna for years, and have recently been pressuring the government in Keritika to privatize several state-owned companies to take over.