Zorga

System: Zorga

Hex Location: 1432

Star Type: Single star, B2 VI

Number of Worlds: 13

Gas Giants: 9

Planetoid Belt: Asteroid and comet belts

Starport Type: B good star port

World Size: Earth-sized

Atmosphere Type: Earth-like

Surface Water: 80%, but almost all of it is frozen.

Population: Medium (2 million)

Political Affiliation: Independent and Balkanized, but usually considered an ally of the Duke of the Emerus Marches

Tags: Alien ruins, Mining world, Balkanization

Notes: The frozen world of Zorga should be a mere blip on the stellar maps, but it does have just enough strategic and political importance to get a bit more attention than it otherwise would. As with some frozen Earth-like worlds, sytor gas lingers in vast pockets between the glacial ice and the rocky crust far below due to microbial action, and sytor gas is like nitrous oxide for star ships. While hardly a standard equipment on any starship, military or otherwise, there are a few specialized military operations as well as smugglers and a few other hot rods that love the stuff, and there's a steady if niche market for it throughout the region. Although raw fuel is easily available on the surface (if you're willing to melt and scrub the ice) and in the system generally with its many gas giants, the starports on Zorga are of fairly high quality and refined fuel is used by most. This is also seen as a positive given that the gas and dust clouds of the Takach Nebula impede bulk jumps out of the system and make them both less efficient and more risky. Refined fuel counters that risk somewhat, of course.

The greatest ally of the Zorgans is the Duke of the Emerus Marches, who has dedicated a considerable amount of effort to keep them nominally independent, although some cynics point out that this has largely made him a de facto client of the system. However, the region in which Zorga is found make it most unusually surrounded by a variety of differing larger space polities. The Emerus Marches (settled by the Bernese) and the Takach Kingdom (a pseudo-Janissary state) are the most obvious, as immediate neighbors, but Cilindarean Pentase is nearby, the Desai Worlds with their Dhangetan capo, and Revanchists can jump into the system from Metium although they must make a stop through Vorli VI on their way back because of the Nebula's interference. It's a little out of the way for the Imperials, but both Outremer and Phatoru Shdor are within two jumps of the system too, and the Sereans tend to have more of an appetite for sytor gas than the others. The population and settlement patterns are unusual, because the population is quite diverse with various ethnicities of humans living here (albeit few aliens) but they don't mix well or provide a cosmopolitan experience; rather they tend to have homogenous enclaves, and there are settlements of janissaries, Bernese colonists as well as smaller settlements of Cilindareans, Sereans and even a hopeful settlement built by Altairans who were originally refugees from either the Galaide Worlds or the Altairan Ascendency but who fled the political turnover in those systems in order to live a frontier life according to (so-called) traditional Altairan virtues.

While there are, of course, numerous culture clashes at a small level between these various settlements, and none of them recognize the sovereignty of each other to rule the planet overall, they do tend to get along fairly well and live in relative peace with each other. Some of this may be due merely to the harsh conditions on the planet. It's so cold that much of their machinery will fail if not protected overnight, and gathering and farming enough to eat is not a trivial task either. Most of the settlers are too busy making a living to worry about what another group of settlers of different origin are up to, and luckily, those other settlers are in the same boat.

However, a persistent rumor is that the infamous Nebula Corsairs pirate gang is located somewhere in the Zorga system. These mysterious rogues prey on shipping throughout the nebula, waiting patiently and quietly, with an extremely minimal scanner profile, and when ships arrive in the systems, they disable and board them, jumping out again before anyone can intercept them. They keep their depredations to a level that none of the major powers in the nebula have felt sufficient anger to go find and snuff them out entirely, although none of the powers in the nebula are happy about them either, of course. If anything, the major powers are more intrigued by the apparent technology that these pirates possess; every ship appears to have at least a partial cloaking device, and their ability to navigate the nebula unimpeded by the conditions that make everyone else's ships have to make smaller, more cautious bulk jumps is something that they'd love to get their hands on. But even that is merely rumored; nobody can confirm for sure that the pirates have this technology. They may just be really cunning and careful with standard technology for all that the governments of the Takach Kingdom, the Emerus Marches and Pentase know. The pirates' raids have even extended to 1030 Anat in the Machesk Frontier and 1034 Koschei Prime and 1135 Veile of Outremer, which are in the edges of the nebula on the galactic west side.

When boarding, the pirates are all careful to wear uniform suits with masks so that neither their identity nor even their ethnicity can be ascertained by any survivors. Nobody seems to know who they are or where they strike from, but a hidden base somewhere in the Zorgan system is the most common theory.

A final note about the system is that there are two archaeological curiousities that occasionally bring scholars from far afield to study. The first is a series of ancient ruins on the planet; some have been found on the occasionally bare rocky parts of the surface, and some have even been located in pockets between the surface and the miles thick glaciers. Some theorize that were the planet to lose its thick icy blanket that innumerable more ruins would be revealed. And there is also a massive ship graveyard located in a remote corner of the planet, where the wrecks of a number of massive ships crashed to the surface following a battle in the sky above. This includes the wreck of the massive Revanchist Republic dreadnaught Inclusivity which along with it's sister ship, Diversity, was responsible for the orbital bombardment that destroyed the population and ecosystem of Vorli VI. The outrage of the neighbors of this Republic reprisal meant that the dreadnaughts and their escort ships were chased from the system before the blockade that later could be put up around Vorli VI could be established, and the dreadnaughts were destroyed. Inclusivity crashed here, and the destination of Diversity is a mystery; nobody knows for sure what happened to it, merely that it disappeared. Technology used to build those ships has been lost; the Republic, because their focus is on social issues rather than technological or military ones, no longer has the capability of even replicating those dreadnaughts, even if they would want to, and they would be considered cutting edge by any power today, in spite of their age. Nobody has ever found much of any technological value in the graveyard of the Inclusivity or the other ships that crashed nearby, but hope springs eternal, and many also hope to find clues in the region to what happened to its sister ship and where it may have gone. Many, in fact, believe that it most likely is floating quietly as a derelict somewhere in the system itself.