bersefels

System: BersefelsHex Location: 1727

Star Type: Single F4 V

Number of Worlds: 8

Gas Giants: 5

Planetoid Belt: Cometary and two asteroid belts

Starport Type: B High class port

World Size: Earth-sized

Atmosphere Type: None

Surface Water: 30% (frozen at the poles or in craters)

Population: Medium (c. 3 million)

Political Affiliation: Independent ally of the Republic

Tags: Quarantined World, Tyranny, Sealed Cities

Notes: Officially, Bersefels is a radioactive wasteland, scorched in devastating planet-busting wars with the Revanchists three generations ago. While it's true that the already thin and unpalatable atmosphere was destroyed in these wars, the reality is that the majority of the population lived in underground bunker-cities anyway, with only sealed bubbles to represent the gates to the outer world. Crossing from city to city required sealed transportation.

So, the official story is a bit of a Revanchist propaganda job. Which even then had mixed results; rather than frightening the inhabitants of the Carrick and the fractious unhappily enslaved Carthen colonists, it mostly hardened their attitudes. In fact, the claims about the destruction of Bersefels greatly increased and stiffened resistance to their occupation of the Carthen systems, and steeled the determination of the Carrick systems to resist their further expansion in the area. It may have quieted open resistance (for now) but it did not quell or intimidate them in truth.

So, they quarantined the system, tried to suggest that the home world is merely a radioactive wasteland, and actively patrol it for any interlopers who might get the samizdat word out that things are not as The Narrative™ proclaims. In this, they have been marginally successful. The system itself is too big to patrol effectively, but they can blockade the main world and keep not only the natives from leaving, but much in the way of anyone else from visiting.

The citizenry is kind of a mixed bag of humans and non-humans; the majority is Bernese and Cilindarean human, however—by now fairly mixed and they have their own hybrid culture. Large numbers of cepheids and sirian reptoids live here as well, giving Bersefels' population a strong cold-blooded touch.

In addition to the blockade, the Revanchists keep the citizens bottled up, and hunter-killer teams made up of prisoners that are lobotomized and turned into barely thinking cyborgs that are capable of surviving in no-atmosphere environments, and who operate more on programming than on their leftover human thought processes. These are actually a prototype by an unscrupulous Revanchist crony corporation, and in general, they are happy enough with their performance that they may well start to appear more frequently in the armies of the Republic.

That said; as rumors start to get out that there are actually millions of survivors of the Bersefels colony, more and more privateers, smugglers, and more that are sympathetic to the cause of the Monarchy (or hostile to the Republic) are coming to the system and attempting to run the blockade and find out what's going on.

NOTE: The starport classification only refers to Revanchist installations. The natives have the equivalent of a X-class starports at best, and can offer very little to whatever visitors manage to even find them.