¶ Frontier Worlds
Archer
This rogue planetoid drifts through a dense nebula, making it the perfect hideout for pirates and black-market operators. What began as a temporary refuge has grown into a permanent warren of underground bases dug into the ice. The real draw is its position along covert corridor shipping lanes used by the Relay Rats and the Sulcus Combine. Whoever controls Archer's stealthy docking facilities can monitor or intercept 73% of frontier smuggling traffic without detection. Its many free ports act as markets, mining outposts, and privateering bases, whilst the lawlessness draws many a thrill seeker and fugitive alike. The low gravity has made it excellent for mining, and vast arrays of mass drivers launch extracted payloads straight into high orbit for trade rendezvous, meaning more reputable traders don't have to sully themselves by landing. The Zyrgyzoi, Averi, and Venti have strong presences and fragile ceasefires with one another.
Du
A high-metal-content world where prospectors duel over finds, with entire claims being stolen mid-survey by armored "jump gangs" who disappear into the wilds. The strong magnetosphere plays havoc with communication on the planet, and laser comms are the only reliable source of communication. The cities of Du are predominantly corporate holdings, as the superpowers had already claimed and divided the more prosperous near-corridor asteroid belts. An agreement was reached to auction off Du claims, but recent tensions with the superpowers have left few observing the agreements. Enforcement planetside is left a complex web of security companies, Armournauts, and colonial deputies, which on occasion fight one another.
Yeo
Endless salt flats hide brine moss colonies worth their weight in gold for their use as pharmaceuticals, fertiliser, and biofuel starter. Guarded by nomadic harvesters who weld scrap into land-trains and shoot trespassers on sight. The atmosphere is thin and temperatures can fluctuate wildly in short periods of time. The flats are so baked that care has to be taken as eye damage often results without protection. The dying ancient seas have receded so much that the only significant bodies of water are in the deepest of old ocean crevasses, that remarkably have evolved curious and vicious invertebrates that are also prized for their flavour.
Faris
The broken moons of Faris have left the Earth-like world pockmarked and scarred by daily collisions. The moons themselves formed unstable rings but still remain as large, rough, irregular bodies that are expected to be ground down over the next 10,000 years by tidal forces and their ongoing collisions. The world is verdant aside from the frequent impact fires that leave entire regions choked with smoke. Because of the impacts, colonial efforts are highly mobile, and using aircraft to evacuate their populations is a priority. The rings and moons are competitively mined by highly belligerent teams of Armournauts, as the moons really are planetary chunks of some body that was captured by Faris and, as such, are laden with heavy elements typically found in planetary cores. Planet mining operations occur for the same reason, with impact sites being skimmed then used as strip mines, which sometimes are converted into domed crater settlements. Though this is risky, most still prefer to remain mobile to avoid the larger impacts.
Dallow
The flood volcanism event on the planet's southern pole threatens to render the world non-viable in the next 7,000 years, if initial Venti surveyors are to be believed. However, there is good reason to doubt, as often the Venti will fabricate threats to a world to ward off interest and limit competition there. Though it is true that the planet's jet stream will often carry toxic emissions and deposit them in dense choking palls as far as the other side of the planet. This does also lead to a cooling effect as heavy particulates block sunlight. The continental world's wildlife still endures despite these ecological disasters, as do the colonies.
Walsh
A methane-soaked jungle world locked in an endless ecological cycle of boom and bust. Its hyper-dense biosphere revolves around periodic arthropod explosions, swarms of chitin-armored giants that rise in successive waves, each species feeding on the last until collapse, their mass die-offs briefly cooling the atmosphere before the cycle renews. This rhythm, unchanged for millennia, makes colonization nearly impossible; only hardened hunters, tribal GELF outcasts, poachers, and researchers persist. They harvest chitin for armor and pharmaceuticals, dodging rogue fungal blooms seeded by competing factions. The planet's isolation breeds paranoia; settlements trade warily, and outsiders are met with bullets before questions. Walsh doesn't kill intruders; its ecology does. Those who stay learn to read the insect tides or become part of the biomass.
Zeinali
Once the most productive agri-world in the frontier under Triemirate rule, its engineered biosphere and automated silos made it a prize too tempting for the Venti Republic to ignore. The invasion shattered the planet's fragile stability, turning orderly crop-rings into a patchwork of scorched fields and fortified complexes. Now, former colonists turned insurgents battle corporate asset recovery teams in a grinding war of ambushes and scorched-earth reprisals. They wield converted harvesters as armored technicals and repurposed crop-dusters as improvised bombers, while Venti security forces sweep the countryside with drone swarms and orbital surveillance. What makes Zeinali's conflict so brutal is its isolation. Resupply convoys are rare, forcing both sides to live off the land they're fighting over. The Triemirate's original terraforming work now works against them. The very efficiency of the planet's ecosystems allows guerilla cells to hide in the genetically optimized wheat forests, their stalks grown tall enough to conceal armored vehicles. Thirty years of war have turned the breadbasket of the frontier into a bargaining chip, its soil still fertile but its future traded in backroom deals between mercenary warlords and Republic quartermasters. The only certainty is that whoever finally controls Zeinali won't inherit a paradise, just the ruins of one.
Yoneda
A low-mass world with the largest known cave system in explored space. Its low gravity allows for massive underground voids where early settlers established radiation-shielded colonies. The real prize is lichen growing in deep lava tubes; these extremophiles produce enzymes critical for soil seeding, a crucial starter for terraforming and cultivating human-friendly microbiomes. Mining operations must balance careful harvesting with preserving the delicate subterranean ecosystems that take centuries to recover from disturbance.
Osazuwa
Beneath this ice moon's crust lies a liquid methane sea, where manned platforms drill for exotic hydrocarbons. The operations are run by Temple-aligned resource concerns, though they are harassed by a strange group called the Order, who believe the moon's cryovolcanic vents spell divine messages in isotope ratios. Their fanatical ice miners vie for control of the drilling platforms, employing thermal charges to collapse boreholes. Recently, attacks have become more sophisticated, as interfaces are suspected to have begun modifying the drills during blackout periods, adding impossible geometries to halt surveying. It is believed that some unknown benefactor funds this odd insurgency on Osazuwa.
Strommen
Strommen is a low-gravity world covered in fungal towers that grow up to two kilometers tall. The hollow interiors are inhabited by GELF tribes who cultivate luminous psychedelic spores for trade. Recently, the towers began collapsing without warning, revealing mineral deposits that the fungus appears to have created as some kind of supporting skeleton for their growth. This material is very light and sturdy, making it excellent for construction, and research outposts attempt to uncover a way to meaningfully synthesise the material. The world is also a haven for pirates, and rumours abound that Stragovi 111 is based somewhere in the system.
Teshome
A frozen moon with vast deposits of rare-earth minerals locked in its glaciers. The catch? The ice contains high concentrations of hydrofluoric acid that eats through standard equipment. Mining operations require specialized ceramic drills and environmental suits, making this one of the most expensive but profitable extraction sites in the frontier. Worker unions constantly battle management over safety standards. The largest penal colony in the frontier, operated by the LNA, is where anyone captured—pirates, rustlers, poachers, brigands, vagabonds, dealers, and traffickers—in the frontier ends up. The Guild, backed by Obriossiosian banks, buys bounties from the LNA and offers other frontier colonies the right to secure jurisdiction over these criminals' expiation. The penal colonists are put into the mines and serve their sentences contracted to mining operations, with expiation officers watching over them and ensuring that they follow the orders of the miners. Many Armournauts profit off this system and retire as expiation officers, as it's stable, safe work.
Chikwanda
The only world in the frontier with naturally occurring superconductive materials that function at relatively high temperatures. These form in delicate crystalline structures that must be carefully harvested before atmospheric exposure degrades them. Mining consortia maintain elaborate clean room facilities on the surface while fending off corporate spies trying to steal their extraction techniques. The rest of the colonies trade in livestock, fossil fuels, and agricultural products, though tensions flare when fracking operations encroach on corporate clean mining facilities. Unfortunately, violence is common, made worse by tensions between populations. The Vakil Confederation clashes with the Triemirate over holdings in the system. Shipping on the seas of Chikwanda is constantly harassed, and Armournauts maintain a restless vigil against pirates and privateers.
Yhigaddz
The fourth pillar, accessed through the Torbanner system, is patrolled heavily by the Lunar Union navy and LNA patrol boats. However, 4.2 light years is a lot of ground to cover, and many corridors line that length. At some point in the pillar's ancient past, it captured and later collided with a rogue planet. This super-Earth was shredded by the spacetime contortion of the pillar, but not before it scraped free massive amounts of Pillarite. These debris fields mingled, and the Pillarite exposures propagated more Pillarite. Yhigaddz is the name of what remains of this former world, now a vast asteroid field embedded with Pillarite. Naturally, it has become the second biggest source of Pillarite in the cluster, behind the Castigor exclusion zone. Though it is far more patrolled and dangerous for trespassers, it is favoured by some in that much larger freighter vessels can be used to haul, rather than the often small, on-foot operations of the Castigor exclusion zone. Secretive teams conduct illegal collection runs, fired upon by the Lunar Union and LNA patrols. Each sample is functionally priceless on the black market. Countless asteroid bases dot the region, whilst the outskirts of the Torbanner system are home to super-fast cycler stations that act as shady launderers of the illicit material. They circuit the numerous corridor thresholds before they swing back to their more legitimate apogees. Policing this has proven to be a logistical nightmare, but increasingly the crackdowns become more ruthless; orders to shoot on sight and detain no one are criticised by locals but not noticed by the cluster at large.
Kestrel
The Lunar Union's greatest deception masquerades as a concession. When they "ceded" the Torbanner Gateway to the LNA, they quietly retained Outpost Kestrel, a fortified waystation anchored to a dwarf planet in the same system's trailing Trojan point. Positioned along the only viable FTL corridor into the frontier, Kestrel's gravity-sling arrays and minefields could sever all transit with 12 hours' notice, rendering the LNA's "independent" control of Torbanner meaningless. The Union's masterstroke achieved three victories at once: the Venti and Temple dare not challenge the arrangement without triggering a frontier-wide collapse; the LNA remains eternally indebted for their "sovereign" gateway; and the Union's real power remains hidden in Kestrel's radiation-shielded docks, where a fleet of interdictor cruisers waits behind false bulkheads, just in case the LNA ever forgets who truly owns the keys to the frontier.
Eithne
This temperate world became the frontier's wealthiest planet after scientists discovered its silver-bladed slánú grass produces compounds that safely induce hibernation, revolutionizing jaunt sickness treatment. Overnight, pharmaceutical conglomerates transformed Eithne's struggling colonies into a patchwork of corporate research campuses and gilded recovery resorts, where the ultra-wealthy convalesce in tea lounges. Overharvesting has spawned toxic variants that induce permanent hibernation, while native wildlife has been displaced by the new industry. The Eithne Trade Consensus maintains order through dystopian levels of surveillance and the strictest policing in the frontier, ensuring no one disrupts the galaxy's most lucrative medical monopoly.
Suicide
Living up to its name, this hellish water world orbits dangerously close to its star, its entire surface a churning global ocean battered by hypercanes with wind speeds exceeding 500 km/h. The upper layers boil at a constant 50°C, creating a superheated steam atmosphere thick enough to drown unprotected lungs in minutes. Yet against all odds, life persists; thermophilic organisms thrive in the deeper, cooler strata, while massive filter feeders brave the storm-wracked surface in brief feeding frenzies. The planet's only permanent human presence consists of heavily fortified colonies anchored to submerged tectonic plates, remote research stations, and high-altitude wind farm tenders living in small suspended habs in the upper atmosphere. These outposts regularly vanish, claimed either by the planet's fury or by something rising from the abyssal zones. Supply ships must time their approaches perfectly between storm cycles, and even then, half never make it to the docking platforms. Suicide's elliptical 7-year orbit transforms it from a boiling hellscape into a fleeting Earth-like world. For 3.2 years of its cycle, the planet reaches a "Goldilocks Zone" where temperatures stabilize near Earth norms, storms weaken, and the oceans become briefly navigable. This period, known as the Calm, triggers explosive blooms of native extremophiles adapting to the changes and a desperate rush of human activity. Corporations begin resource harvesting in the oceans, scraping the seafloor in submersibles for a curious prize: a miraculous yet temperamental gene-editing virus that can only replicate within a specific microbe occupying the apex of Suicide's delicate food chain. This microbial host depends on Suicide's violent orbital cycles, requiring precise pressure shifts, temperature fluctuations, and seasonal hibernation periods found nowhere else in the cluster. All attempts to farm it off-world fail catastrophically, as lab environments invariably disrupt the intricate symbiosis or introduce fatal contaminants, making extraction during the Calm the only viable and lethally risky method to obtain it. The virus's ability to rewrite DNA with unprecedented precision makes it worth the body count, with a single viable culture commanding prices that fund entire frontier colonies, ensuring the doomed harvests continue cycle after cycle. Notably, heists are common, and thus Armournauts often guard transports from hijackers and saboteurs.
Sinterklaas
The ice age on Sinterklaas appears to be approaching its end. This has made it an attractive prospect for colonisation; terraforming efforts here are incredibly easy, as simply the atmospheric byproducts of industry are enough to transform the world into an Earth type in a handful of lifetimes, if that. The winter cities derive from a hundred worlds, with countless cultures and languages represented. Sinterklaas has a shared planetary Colonial Trade and Development Council (CTDC), and colonies contribute to a security fund that actively hunts down pirates and criminals, not just on the world but within the system and, on occasion, neighbouring systems. Sinterklaas is often considered to be the first truly independent interplanetary nation of the frontier, in function if not in name. It would seem that the locals are keen to grow into this power, displaying a distinct national identity and showing interest in establishing a planetary constitution and military. Time will tell if the varied colonies confederate.
