Annon

System: Annon

Hex Location: 1735

Star Type: Double (distant) White dwarf, B6 V

Number of Worlds: 10

Gas Giants: 7

Planetoid Belt: Two rocky belts and one icy belt

Starport Type: E

World Size: Earth-sized

Atmosphere Type: Earth-like

Surface Water: 30%

Population: Large (~6 billion)

Political Affiliation: Independent

Tags: Genetically modified population, Quarantined world, Alien ruins

Notes: This is one of four neighboring worlds that all have a similar settlement pattern, albeit for different reasons. In spite of that, all four of them have gone dramatically different directions in terms of their political and social order, and their allegience and alliances with various other systems differs drastically. The four worlds are 1735 Annon, 1834 Ktep, 1934 New Titania and 1935 Lada. All four have a majority (or at least strong plurality) population of Psarian xenohumans, which is unusual because that ethnicity hails originally from deep inside the Revanchist Republic's space, and they are strongly associated with the Republic. None of these four worlds has any affiliation with the Republic, and most in fact exhibit various degrees of hostility to the Republic. There are additional minority populations across these worlds, although in all four cases, the next largest plurality is the Idacharian xenohuman race, which is more weakly associated with the Empire.

Annon is marked as a no-go zone in most star charts, and they are not friendly to visitors. This isn't due to any genuine unfriendliness, but rather the fact that the inhabitants of Annon all have a techno-virus encoded in their DNA that slowly turns their cells into silicate chips. When this reaches its full apotheosis, the Annonite will have become a fully mechanical rather than biological being, made of of silicas, glass, and other circuit-like parts. When this happens, this is usually considered the death of the being, as their individuality is lost and they become part of the hive-mind of the planet for a time, before being absorbed into the techno-biological matter of the planet. The more that this happens, the more the technical part of the planet replaces the organic biosphere. Most of the plant and animal life remains—still—natural, but the day will come some time far in the future when that balance will shift, at which point a rapid techno-virus takeover of the entire planet is expected to happen. What happens at this point is a mystery, although it is the belief of some of the inhabitants that it will give birth to a new god-like superintelligence made of up of the entire matter of the entire planet. At which point, I dunno, it'll go conquer the galaxy or something and absorb it. There is, in fact, a widespread cult or religion among the inhabitants that is a kind of techno doom day cult specifically organized around this premise.

The cool white light of the white dwarf main world's star is neither very bright nor warm, and while it isn't nearly as cold of a place as the ice planets, the world is both dimly lit and fairly cold almost all of the time, with frost usually being ubiquitous on the surface, especially in shaded areas or slightly higher than average elevations. Heavy glacial ice covers higher elevations, which traps much of the water—of which there isn't a ton anyway. As the population has grown, industrialization of ice-melting and canal-building to get water to the populous areas of the planet has become widespread, and is the most important industry on the planet. Sometimes there's a little more warmth when the distant blue companion star of the white dwarf comes closer in its rotation, but this is relative; it's never all that warm, and never all that bright. Conversely, it's never too cold or too dim because of this companion star, however.

The techno-virus has an unknown contagion rate for outsiders. Everyone from Annon has it already built into their genetic code before birth because of it's ubiquitousness in their environment, but it affects outsiders as well, sometimes. Some people seem completely immune, others show various degrees of resistance, and others will catch it nearly as readily as the natives. However, when outsiders catch the techno-virus, it advances much more quickly through their system than the natives. Natives usually live to middle age before techno-apotheosis, but in outsiders, it tends to happen in weeks or months at best; sometimes even just days or even hours in some extreme cases. Unfortunately, outsiders are not integrated into the hivemind properly because of their differing genetic code than the natives, although the circuits of their new bodies are still trying to do so. This causes what are sometimes called "runtime errors" where the technified being will react violently of this failure of their primary directive, making them extremely dangerous until they can be destroyed. These runtime error episodes make them also extremely contagious to others, as in their attempts to connect with the hivemind, they will spread their techno-virus plague around them to an extreme degree.

There are no enforcers of the quarantine, so individuals can land on the planet, and the inhabitants are not necessarily unfriendly or inhospitable. Some knights have found their psionic abiltiies have made their bodies immune, or at least nearly completely so, to the virus, and there are even a handful of knights from outside who occasionally spend time on or even live among the Annonites, but they are very rare, and usually are much more unfriendly; driving to get all other outsiders off the planet before they can become infected.