Lada

System: Lada

Hex Location: 1935

Star Type: Single K2 V

Number of Worlds: 9

Gas Giants: 5

Planetoid Belt: Two asteroid belts and comet belt

Starport Type: C standard star port

World Size: Earth-sized

Atmosphere Type: Toxic, but not fatal; can cause hallucinations and insanity

Surface Water: 55%

Population: Small ~1 million

Political Affiliation: Independent, but allied with the Seraean Empire

Tags: Death World, Sealed menace, Zombie plague

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.

The Death-Sages of the Voormellei worlds seem like a very strange, disturbing, unnatural and dangerous aberation in most of known space, but the reality is that they are not singular. The leader of Lada, who goes only by the name of Lada herself, was an Idacharian witch who somehow managed to train under the Death Sages. While the Death Sages of the Voormellei worlds all belong to the same ancient (and now nearly extinct) Voormellei xenohuman ethnic group, they are also pretty individualistic, and it appears that Lada managed to convince one of them, for some reason that only she knows now, to take her as an apprentice and eventually to make her one of them; the sorcerous and cybernetic rites, rituals and surgeries that allow a mortal to become a cyberlich were done on her. For reasons again known only to her, she then went to Lada and conquered it with undead/cybernetic troops that are similar in most respects to the dog-soldiers of Neferre or the cyber-corpses of Arsallum. That said, Lada seems to have had little interest in a conquered population really. She had not enslaved them, nor has she tried to exterminate them (although many millions died during her conquest, and the population remains low even today, several generations late), merely to instill in them the idea that her and her projects need to be left alone. In fact, she even takes an occasional interest in the well-being of her people, sponsoring some few potential warlocks, witches or psionic knights to go travel off-world and receive training, in return for a certain period of service to her ends. She has also allied with many of the Outremer conquerers, especially those of the Vorgan Than Viceroyalty and the Kingdom of Phatoru Shdor, which are the most nearby (although under the standard that a three-hex jump is the only one that can safely and routinely be attempted, she is not reachable by either without a stop somewhere; often Fenebruck or Fotta Zonai.

In fact, her interest in the latter world is particularly intriguing, especially given the strange, alien sealed menace mentioned in that planet's data sheet. Lada has been attempting some "re-terraforming" experiments of her own on her planet, and although they are smaller in scope and scale than the truly massive terraforming that was done in the early days of colonization many thousands of years ago, which technology has been lost since before the rise of the long-gone Marian Empire even, it is the closest thing to that which anyone else has successfully undertaken. Technology and/or thaumaturgy from Fotta Zonai's quarantine zones seem to be the basis of this effort.

Lada today still resembles the world it was before this experimentation started, in most respects. A temperate, Earth-like climate pervades over most of the world, although the combination of hazy particles in the air and the cooler K-class sun gives the sky and the landscape a strange and dimmer orange glow rather than the golden yellow light that we are used to on Earth. Lava rocks like basalt and obsidian are common, although often fairly fresh; the result of terraforming experimentation. Luckily for the inhabitants of Lada, this has not manifested in the form of violent eruptions, but many cracks and seeping, viscous lava lakes, rivers, falls and flows dot the surface in many areas. Strange, exotically alien and cancerous growths, tentacle-like formations, and odd shapes that resemble nothing so much as pulsing, disassociated flesh grows as a direct result of the terraforming, and they release a great many strange effects into the atmosphere nearby, turning wildlife (and human life) extremely feral, qualifying as a zombie plague, even if its root cause is somewhat different in nature, and they aren't the shuffling, moaning type of zombies, but rather ferocious and aggressive corrupted zombie-like entities. Areas near any of these terraforming zones are extremely dangerous, and the people who live on Lada have had to develop a nomadic lifestyle so that they can avoid them as new ones crop up across the surface. That said, pirates, spies, unstable and sociopathic warlocks and more sometimes risk heading straight for these zones, hoping to unlock the secrets of Lada's terraforming processes, turn it into a form that is more palatable to their needs, and industrialize it on a planet-wide scale, as opposed to Lada's dabbling in small areas here and there.

Otherwise, there is at least one stable area, in a city built by Lada herself, where visitors and passers-by can stop, refuel, and prepare to jump on to other, probably more profitable and certainly more attractive destinations. Lada city is relatively small by Colonial world standards, with only a quarter million people at most living there, but it offers everything that a traveler might need. As long as he is careful to not venture beyond its borders into the hinterlands beyond...