New Titania

System: New Titania

Hex Location: 1934

Star Type: Double (distant) G6 V and G1 V

Number of Worlds: 10

Gas Giants: N

Planetoid Belt: Rocky and icy planetoid belts

Starport Type: A

World Size: Earth-sized

Atmosphere Type: Earth-like

Surface Water: 60%

Population: Large (~9 billion)

Political Affiliation: Independent Bernese Ally

Tags: Hostile AI, Sealed cities, Psionic Knight academy

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.

Records aren't clear exactly why people came originally to New Titania or from where, because the histories seem to have been deliberately destroyed on world, and finding clues off world has been tedious and difficult. It is clear, however, that it was established as a prison world originally. Who exactly would have imprisoned a large batch of Psarians and Idacharians is unclear, because it is not associated with the spread of either the Republic or the Empire into the region, and ironically has a relatively strong alliance established with the Monarchy. The nature of this imprisonment is hidden, but locals from nearby systems, or anyone who knows about the world which quietly goes about its business, are full of conspiracy theories about this gulag world.

For a prison, the environment is quite pleasant, actually. With a wide variety of Earth-like habitats and a rich biosphere that makes simple living relatively easy for the prisoners, albeit rather low-tech and lacking in freedoms and amenities that most nearby people take for granted. There are no gas giants in the system; all of the planets are around the primary star, and the secondary one is distant enough to be a relatively dim companion keeping the nights from being very dark. This gives few people reasons to come here, but since the alliance with the Monarchy, the AI that runs the prison has allowed two concessions; a very modern spaceport, using cheap labor from the prisoners to construct modest-sized spacecraft (there are no true capital ships that are built here, nor military craft. Yachts, freighters and the like are the majority of the construction.) The main spaceport is located on a seashore, and water from the sea is converted into hydrogen fuel for craft that land here. The spaceport and surrounding city is largely populated by foreigners, especially Bernese foreigners, and if you stick to Spaceport City, as it's called, you may be excused for not even understanding that this is a prison planet of completely different ethnicities. Nothing about it is apparent in the main city.

The Bernese have also established a Knight academy to teach people to harness their psionic abilities, if they have them. This is not located in Spaceport City, but in a different complex many hundreds of miles away in an idyllic mountain setting. The Knights and their students also have relatively free run of the planet. One curious thing here is that the Knights' deal with the AI that runs the prison is that they have the ability to commute the sentences of anyone who they choose, who graduates from their academy, and the majority of the new knights that it mints are natives, who then become free men. Most leave the planet when this happens.

The prisoners themselves are carefully managed with subdermal implants (removed from those who the Academy makes free men of) and their movements and activities are considerably restricted by a central computer put in place specifically to monitor them. Armed humanoid security robots prowl the areas where the people live, and actually make up a significant plurality of the population, although they sometimes aren't counted because they are not independent sentients, but hooked into the central computer (there are at least three billion of them, ensuring that riots and rebellions are short-lived, if they happen at all.)

The dirty little secret here, of course, is that nobody knows what the prisoners were sentenced for and by whom. The central computer is of an alien design that is unfamiliar to everyone who has so far examined it (or been allowed to examine portions of it, I should say.) And on top of that, none of the current prisoners were actually sentenced here; they've all long since died off, and the current crop of prisoners are their descendents from at least two to three generations ago. There are some voices in the halls of the Monarchy's political machine (and similar ones occasionally cry out in the Republic and even among the Idacharians of the Empire) to swoop in, dismantle the AI, and free the prisoners, who by all accounts can't possibly be guilty of anything. However, such an endeavor would be extremely costly in terms of both finances and manpower, and dislodging the AI would cost many lives. There also seem to be failsafes built in to the subdermal chips that would kill the prisoners if such an attempt were made, so the efforts rarely produce much traction. For the most part, the centralized government's view is that independent worlds in far-flung colonial sectors can manage their own affairs, and its none of their business what they do or why, but this is one that sticks in the craw of co-ethnics of the psarian and idacharians, as well as the more freedom-minded Bernese, who hate seeing this type of tyranny on principle.