When I came up with the idea for Iridium Moons four years ago, the concept was to create a world that is a blend of Cyberpunk and Dune, with the only fantastical elements being hyperspace travel and artificial gravity. Other than that, everything was meant to remain plausible under conventionally understood physics, biology, demographics, and economics. But this year, I’ve really gotten invested in a much more space fantasy style, more similar to A Princess of Mars and early Star Wars. In that context, many of the planets and factions I had created for the Esekar Sector no longer really make much sense. And since I picked up 3D modelling and rendering in Blender as a new hobby, and very much entertaining the possibility of expanding from that into videogame development with Blender at a later point, focusing on a smaller number of planets with fewer different kind of aliens would be a significant reduction on the asset creation workload. So I created a new sector for Iridium Moons, that’s more in line with the new vision. Reusing many of the aliens and other concepts, but also replacing or throwing out others.
Starting with the history of the Foross Sector doesn’t feel like a particularly good way to introduce the new setting, but it still seems to make more sense to cover this background before going deeper into the description of the individual planets and factions.
The Start of the Interstellar Age
700 years ago, the first working hyperspace drive engine was constructed by the vhen. This marked the beginning of the Interstellar Age, and is conventionally treated as the start of interstellar history. Though for the first century, this history is the story of vhen space exploration alone. Traveling out into space, they explored hundreds of star system and established a number of small outposts on habitable planets, though most of these were constructed to primarily serve as supply stations for expeditions deeper into space.
After having previously encountered only a few very small populations of intelligent species with early stone age cultures, vhen explorers discovered the homeworld of the enkai in 104. The enkai were already a technologically very advanced species, but their planet was highly divided and at that time in the grip of several major conflicts. With no side having a technological or military edge over the others to risk a full out global war, the conflicts had been largely frozen for many decades. While the arrival of aliens in their star system did have a great cultural impact on all of enkai society, the possibility of interstellar expansion through hyperspace travel was primarily seen by many of the warring governments as an unprecedented opportunity to gain major economical and military advantages over their rivals. Several of the most powerful enkai states did have the technological and economical capacities to build shipyards for the production of hyperspace capable ships and begin construction within 20 years of gaining knowledge of the physics behind hyperspace drives from the vhen.
The Enkai Space Race
While the vhen had undertaken space exploration as a primarily as a scientific effort, for the larges enkai states, falling behind in the race to gain and secure access to valuable resource in other star systems was seen as an existential threat to their survival. Throwing their entire industrial might behind the effort to beat their military rivals, the enkai space race accelerated the exploration of new systems and the establishment of major colonies to a pace far beyond anything seen before.
Of the four largest enkai colonies, one would eventually be largely abandoned after 60 years, failing to become self-sustainable after being a huge drain on the state’s economy. The other three turned out to be extremely successful, and by the year 300 each had grown to population sizes over 100 million people, due to massive state-sponsored migration and very effective social policies to encourage high birth rates. However, the great war on the enkai homeworld never actually materialized. And with communication between the colonies and the homeworld being delayed by weeks, and the colonies having become economically fully self-sufficient, two of them gained full independence as sovereign states during the 4th century. While the last colony had become very successful, its establishment and very high support costs during the early decades had played a major part in ruining the government on the home world. With several regions breaking off to become independent minor nations, the colony eventually outpaced the state that had founded it both economically and in population, ultimately leading to the capital being moved to the colony. This effectively makes it sovereign state that has a colony on one of the homeworlds. A unique case in all of interstellar history.
Further Expansions
During the enkai space race of the 2nd and 3rd century, several other large civilizations were discovered in the exploration of habitable planets and became part of interstellar society. The enkai discovered the chosa in 197, who also had already developed limited space travel within their own system.
In 274, vhen explorers discovered the homeworld of the tubaki, who did have quite advanced steam power technology but no electrical infrastructure.
In 312, the vhen also discovered the mahir, who turned out to be the descendants of enkai who had been settled on a far away planet and genetically altered by an unknown lost civilization tens of thousands of years ago. Mahir technology was already quite similar to that of the vhen, except having never discovered the means to produce hyperspace drives.
In 381, enkai discovered the firax, who had just begun to develop electronics 50 years earlier.
In the early 5th century, the major enkai colonies had become significant powers in their own right and began to establish new permanent mining outposts on more resource rich planets that had been discovered after their own founding. During this time they discovered the genya in 442. The genya had discovered electricity, but due to their planet’s scarcity of coal and almost complete lack of oil had never been able to make use of it industrially. The introduction of fusion power by the enkai led to an incredibly fast industrialization that happened in all parts of the planet simultaneously, leading to an enormous population explosion.
Settlement of the Foross Sector
One of the regions of space that was of great interest to enkai colonies on Turik and Parakarat was the Foross Sector. The first Turikan outpost to be established in 478 was on Halon, an inhospitable and barren planet covered in near permanent haze and dust storms, but with breathable air and being home to several rich deposits of Iridium and Paladium from asteroid impacts, which made it very attractive for mining.
Parakarians founded a settlement on Kion in 503, which became the main food producer for the mining operations in the sector. By this time, the genya homeworld was reeling from a six times increase in global population numbers, and severe economic hardship for working class clans, leading to several hundred million people taking up offers for work in alien colonies, with large numbers of them ending up in the Foross Sector.
In 547, new rare metal sources were discovered on Sarhat. With the most abundant deposits on Halon having been mined decades ago, and the environment being much more hospitable, the main mining operations in the sector were almost entirely moved from Halon to Sarhat, leaving the first settled planet in the sector mostly abandoned.
At the same time, the vhen fuel refinery in orbit around the moon of Palan was greatly expanded, with extensive support structures and housing facilities being build on the surface of the habitable planet. In time, Palan became home to the main spaceport of the Feross Sector, with the Sarantal colony growing into a city of 9 million people. A majority of them being genya.
The Decline
By 7th century, mining on Sarhat declined significantly and had already mostly ended on Kion. The enkai colonies that had been funding the new settlements greatly reduced their budget for maintenance and upkeep and completely pulled out of the sector in 617 and 623. Palan followed in 635. Over a third of the sector’s population left in a span of 25 years, most of them taking up contracts in the new mining operations in neighboring sectors.
Whatever, by that point largely worn out and outdated, industrial equipment and infrastructure remained on the planet was quickly auctioned off to the highest bidders. As the vast majority of people in the Foross Sector had been government employees who received most of their wage in the form of housing, food, and social services, the only people rich in cash tended to be criminals. Who now in control of the remaining industry and infrastructure, became the new oligarch class.
Without the regular supply of subsidized advanced technological components, and largely limited to what could be manufactured locally with existing industrial capacity, the technological level of the Foross Sector declined significantly. Large parts of the population on Sarhat and Kion turned to farming, possessing only a few small electronic devices, and often relying extensively on work animals. The oligarchs still maintain access to many advanced technologies by trading the resources from the greatly decreased mining operations to interstellar trade companies from the homeworlds.
Despite the massive industrial decline of the Foross Sector, a new settlement was set up by the firax on Meruna in 631. While the planet is highly habitable with a fairly mild climate, its lack of valuable resources had left it unclaimed by the industrial operations of the enkai and vhen. The firax, whose homeworld lies in one of the most remote frontiers of known space, wanted to establish a presence closer to the vhen and mahir, that would allow them opportunities to open relationships with other peoples than only the enkai. Attracting a large number of genya settlers and workers from Kion and Palan, the new colony managed to become economically self-sufficient, but remains the smallest of the populations in the sector by a great margin.
