Ktep

System: Ktep

Hex Location: 1834

Star Type: Single Exotic (black hole)

Number of Worlds: 11

Gas Giants: 7

Planetoid Belt: Two rocky belts and one icy belt

Starport Type: E

World Size: Artificial ship-world; no planetary surface

Atmosphere Type: Normal, inside the ship

Surface Water: None, but there are reservoirs and icy-bodies that have been tugged and attached, so water supply is abundant

Population: ~125,000 Tiny Outpost

Political Affiliation: None; independent

Tags: Pilgrimage world, forgotten, outpost world

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.

All of the other three have serious issues, and are not welcoming to visitors. The Ktep system would be more welcoming, except that hardly anyone knows about it, and it is not listed on any standard star chart; only those who are aware of it and have manually added it even know where it is. Nearby New Titania is a generational prison planet, with a hostile AI manifested as an army of droids to keep everyone contained, Lada is the playground of a cyberlich who is experimenting with small scale (so far) terraforming, meaning that the population has to be nomadic and decentralized just to survive the chaos on the surface, and Annon is the source of some kind of unusual machine plague that gradually turns the inhabitants into artificial beings. Ktep was founded, it's believed, by a small group who managed to escape New Titania, but it also has some few inhabitants who can trace their ancestors to all three of the nearby worlds. One of their major, almost religious imperatives is the freeing of their fellows from the conditions on those three other worlds. Ideally, they'd like to see the warden AI of New Titania overthrown and destroyed, and the same to the cyberlich of Lada. (They're a little less clear on what to do about Annon.) But given that those goals are well beyond their means in the short term, they rather attempt to help some few hundreds or thousands in a very good year, escape one of the three planets and make their way into the larger galactic realm. They do this in such a way that the rescued don't know where they were when they passed through the Ktep system, so they are unable to guide anyone else back there.

Curiously, Ktep, even though it's location is unknown, has a bit of a rumored mystique to it, kind of like an El Dorado or Shambala. Both those who have been rescued, and those who have heard these deep underground whispered rumors often look for Ktep, although few find it, or even know where to look, or would ever suspect that there is a habitable place to be found in the system where the only "star" is a black hole, with a spinning and glowing disc of matter slowly and inexorably being drawn beyond the event horizon.

Ktep isn't a planet, or even an asteroid; it appears to originally have been a large freighter of some unknown and very old class that had its engines decommissioned and the whole thing was turned into a space station. Since that time, other ships have gradually been added to the assemblage; bolted or welded together, so that the whole looks like a rather ratty space raft the size of a medium sized town. Food is grown in hydroponic greenhouses and water is replenished from the icy planetoid belt about once every other year or so.

Ktep also has a number of very secret and quiet alliances with a few individuals in governments or other organizations, although no government officially recognizes it (and for the most part aren't even aware of it.) The Founder and leader of The Temple (Hex 1730) has a relationship with the "mayor" of Ktep, and sometimes helps him relocate rescued individuals from the worlds that Ktep raids for people to rescue.