VorliVI

System: Vorli VI

Hex Location: 1631

Star Type:  Single K9 V

Number of Worlds: 7

Gas Giants: 3

Planetoid Belt: Kuiper and asteroid belt

Starport Type: D poor quality port

World Size: Earth-sized

Atmosphere Type: Earth-like

Surface Water: 67%

Population: Tiny ~50,000

Political Affiliation: Dhangetan Cartel

Tags: Zombie plague, death world, ghost town

Notes: In the early years of the Revanchist Republic's expansion into the area, it clashed with Monarch worlds most keenly. Vorli VI was a world with a huge, thriving population; almost, if not completely, an ecumenopolis. The Republic has had a fair bit of success in this regard; the Carthen Colony worlds are mostly former Bernese worlds that have had their political allegiance flip in the last couple of centuries. Nearby Metium is an exception; the Bernese never settled there, and when the Revanchists put the early stages of a colony and military base in the area, the locals nearby were not happy. Vorli VI was the nearest neighbor, and their planetary governor decided to mount an expedition to sweep the Revanchists out of the subsector entirely, starting with Metium, deeming that having a hostile neighbor was unacceptable. He did not count on the pettiness and spite of the Revanchists, though—because they were funded and driven by Republic bureaucracy, the zealots of Metium and the Republic backing them would not allow defeat. The massive prototype Pacifier-class dreadnaughts Inclusivity, Equity and Diversity moved quickly into the region accompanied by carriers and fighter wings. Vorli VI endured a planetary bombardment that lasted for weeks, followed by a blockade that lasted for years.

The buildings of the cities were toppled to the ground. Billions of people were killed in the immediate attack, while most of the rest of them starved in the years during the blockade. While the Grand Duke of the Carrick and the rest of the Bernese Dukes in the sector rallied their own armies to drive off the dreadnaughts and destroy them in the weeks following the attack, the blockade proved harder to dislodge, especially when the diplomatic catastrophe between the Monarchy and the Republic drew the parties to the table to talk and orders came down from far away Dimidium to the colonists to stand down and let the central government handle the problem. The colonists felt betrayed by the central government, who while getting concessions from the Republic for the attack, did allow the world to pass into their hands. However, the Republic had turned the place into a ruin. Hardly anyone still survived there, and those who did faced the prospect of starvation and mutation under the radioactive waste leftover from the attack. The small numbers of original inhabitants devolved into subhuman savage cannibals called morlocks who hunt each other and anything else they can catch at night. Radiation, poison, and lack of anything left worth fighting over meant that the victory, if you want to call it that, that the Republic had here was Pyrrhic. In fact, it became a bit of a PR nightmare for the government back at home, as across multiple worlds citizens rebelled in anger at the harsh treatment of Vorli VI, which they could see even through the lying propaganda that the government allowed them to hear.

When a Dhangetan iconoclast named Desai offered to take the world off their hands, build a spaceport of sorts there, and allow them to use it, they were only too happy to unload the millstone around their neck that Vorli VI had become, even though there aren't any convenient spacelanes that Revanchists can use through Vorli VI to reach any of their Carthen world, most of the worlds within bulk jump range being Bernese colonies, Imperial colonies, or the trucculent Takach Kingdom populated by Janissaries. Desai integrated it into his own small demesne as the third system, although it is a far cry from what most expect from a Dhangetan world. There are few inhabitants, and little in terms of amenities. A few small settlements with rough space ports exist, and Reclaimers; mercenary scavengers and homesteaders looking to turn the ruined landscape into workable independent farmsteads, make up most of the few people that live here. Desai is patient, and believes charters for independent homesteaders will be a profitable business for him, but there are a few challenges yet to overcome on the planet, including the occasional political bickering between autonomous Revanchist and Bernese elements, who believe that their claims to the planet are more valid than Desai's own, and of course the morlocks who still plague any attempted settlements.

Rumors abound that the morlock's condition can actually be conferred, as if as a plague, which Desai and the Republic both wish to squash as they stand in contrast to their own goals with regard to Vorli VI. Desai's representatives offer bounties on 'locks, and there is some small traffic in adventurous and rough sorts coming to hunt them for profit, and a few come with genuine intentions of helping the settlers and homesteaders, but a good deal more come simply to loot the ruins of Vorli VI for whatever of value they think can be found there. And that's another rumor; that there is a good deal of scattered treasure strewn across the surface of the planet. While few people are finding much of high value, enough gems of either technology or ancient actual treasure or archival knowledge lost to the outside galaxy today do pop up that this run of smuggling, scavenging and outright piracy is becoming a bit of a problem. While the Dhangetans usually have a rather laissaz-faire attitude about smugglers and pirates, Desai sees them as an impediment to his plans for the growth of the world, and he has had an uncharacteristic crackdown on them when he can. To make matters worse, there are some discreet privateers hired by some of the Bernese dukes to bring back old Bernese heritage left on Vorli VI to the existing Bernese worlds, and these privateers usually launch out of Heastead. While of course the Bernese government at Dimidium can honestly say that they have no knowledge of this and that any such privateers would be a rogue element contrary to their official stance on Vorli VI, at a more local scale, it threatens to become a diplomatic crisis in its own right as well.

All that said, the difficulty of bulk jumping out of the Takach Nebula means that Vorli VI is still an important system, as going around means several weeks of travel through different alternative systems, so the possibility of a little stability here will go a long way towards reopening travel between the areas to the west and east of it respectively. The political reality of the systems on either side of it means that only travelers that have little or no political skin in the game between the Republic and Monarchy rivalry, however, are willing to brave it.