The Celestial Garden
| Mass Effect: Agents | |
|---|---|
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| GM | |
| Mark | |
| Game Time | |
| 4th Saturday of the month | |
| Characters | |
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Argyle Mann Rahl'Temo Nar Whal Tyrus Kieren MacLeod Koll'Rinn Nar Teema Lauren |
This cluster represents a heavy colonization effort from China and Chinese-led business interests via the Systems Alliance. The Celestial Garden is within Citadel space and is protected by the Alliance Navy. The cluster’s Mass Relay is in the Emperor Qin Shi Huang system and is linked to the Exodus Cluster (Eden Prime).
Below are the 4 major inhabited systems within this Cluster. The colonized garden planet is described below. Each system is assumed to have smaller outposts around other planets in the system for mining or research purposes.
Emperor Qin Shi Huang System
Garden Planet: Liann Juin
- Atmosphere: Breathable
- Temperature: Temperate
- Biosphere: Human Miscible
- Population: 16,153,983
- Government: Single Party State
- Orbital Distance (in AU): 1.72
- Orbital Period (Earth Years): 2.3 years
- Radius: 1.1 Earth raidus
- Day Length: 44.7 hours
- Atm. Pressure: 0.8 atm
- Surface Temp: 22 °C
- Surface Gravity: 1.01 g
- Mass: 1.22 Earth Masses
- Satellites: 4
Filled to the bursting with well over 2.5 billion citizens on Earth, Liann Juin was China’s attempt to establish itself as a major player in the early period after the Mass Relays were discovered and interstellar colonization became possible. It solved a problem of overpopulation and resources. A garden planet discovered by chinese probes was quickly settled with a massive propaganda campaign by the communist party. Commerce quickly followed with entrepreneurial corporations granted licenses to exploit an entire planet’s resources provided they assist in the settlements’ establishment.
The colonization program was quite successful with many citizens from nearby nations buying tickets to escape their own overcrowded, poverty-stricken lives to help establish one of China’s premier colonies. Today it is a thriving gateway of commerce and the hub of the Celestial Garden Cluster. Numerous port towns and cities dot the surface, exporting goods to Earth and other Citadel planets. Although not as well-known (or as wealthy) as Berkenstein, it plays a major role in Earth-founded economics in the galaxy.
The starports are perpetually busy with numerous and regular ferries (both corporate and independent) bringing colonists and businesses on a daily basis.
An Shi System
Garden Planet: Santo
- Atmosphere: Airless/Thin
- Temperature: Cold
- Biosphere: Human Miscible
- Population: 350,260 (permanent); 100,00 to 400,000 tourists, depending on season
- Government: Syndicate
- Orbital Distance (in AU): 1.1
- Orbital Period: 1.6 Earth Years
- Radius: 0.3 Earth Radius
- Day Length: 37.1 hours
- Atm. Pressure: 0.3 atm
- Surface Temp: −100 °C
- Surface Gravity: 0.71 g
- Mass: 0.22 Earth Masses
- Satellites: 5
Considered the Las Vegas of the Stars, this is a gambling paradise for local systems. Set up on a cold, nearly airless planet considered not worth developing, a conglomerate of casinos from Hong Kong, Macau, and Las Vegas stirred up a marketing campaign playing up the scenic purple vistas and the clarity of view in seeing the stars at night as if one was in space — not having much of an atmosphere tends to help with viewing the night sky.
Set up as the classic ‘domed cities of tomorrow’, each casino exists in its own arcology bubble with numerous interconnecting structures both above and below ground to allow transit for its visitors. Many elderly and retired chinese arrivals come to Santo to try their luck. The large flow of cash has meant a boom for the conglomerate who set it up and they work to keep their edge as a local tourist attraction.
An earth-based crime syndicate, the Nine Dragons, is rumoured to be active on Santo. They are said to be looking for a place at the table of money that Santo offers. Astute observers have also reported rival syndicate agents infiltrating the area, both to keep an eye on the Nine Dragons and to find a place of their own. The casino syndicate must play a delicate game to keep the situation from exploding.
Lucky Five
Skyport Settlement: Gold Star Skyport
- Atmosphere: Breathable
- Temperature: Cold
- Biosphere: No Native Biosphere
- Population: 5,430
- Government: Anarchy/Feudal
- Orbital Distance (in AU): N/A
- Orbital Period: 2.1 hours* Radius: N/A
- Day Length: N/A
- Atm. Pressure: 0.9 atm
- Surface Temp: 2 °C
- Surface Gravity: 0.9 g
- Mass: N/A
- Satellites: N/A
A poor man’s Omega is one way to describe this community. Located in orbit around 2nd planet, this station originally served as a mining mega-corporation’s head office for operations down on the planet. A series of ill-timed accidents and the discovery of corrosive pockets of gas trapped within the planet’s crust quickly caused the collapse of the planet’s exploitation. The skyport was abandoned, but not for long. Ne’er-do-wells found it a convenient hideout and base for raids into the rest of the system where other mining interests have set up. Several mercenary groups have moved into to establish themselves in the Celestial Garden cluster. There is no official government on Gold Star, as no group has a monopoly on power. Skirmishes do break out now and then with the tiny “civilian” population that’s grown up on station taking the brunt of the damage.
The station is in a state of shoddy disrepair, resulting in a drop in efficiency of the environmental systems. While originally set to Earth norms, the temperature, gravity and atmosphere have all decreased. The lack of centralized control means that there exists a patchwork of systems depending on the group in charge of the area.
The solar system is named for the five planets, all of them terrestrial. This is unusual in cosmological terms, as it indicated an unusual amount of heavy earths that formed the planets while all the gaseous material dissipated or formed into the star’s body early on. This was deemed to be a lucky thing, as it promised excellent mining prospects. But as the history of Gold Star shows, the promise offered by the system hasn’t always followed.
The Forbidden System
Garden Planet: Di Yu (“Hell”)
- Atmosphere: Breathable
- Temperature: Warm
- Biosphere: Human Miscible
- Population: 712,103
- Government: Single Party State/Tribal
- Orbital Distance (in AU): 6.2
- Orbital Period: 6.8 Earth Years
- Radius: 2.41 Earth Radius
- Day Length: 73 hours
- Atm. Pressure: 1.8 atm
- Surface Temp: 43 °C
- Surface Gravity: 1.91 g
- Mass: 2.15 Earth Masses
- Satellites: 14
“Di Yu” is Chinese for ‘hell’, describing this hot world settled largely by Mongolian-descended colonists. Due to atmospheric conditions, it is perpetually hazy on Di Yu, where the sun hangs in the sky like a fuzzy tennis ball — on a good day. The atmosphere when initially settled required breathers for humans, but large-scale terraformers at strategic points have transformed the atmosphere to what it is today.
The biosphere is a mix of Earth-imported and native flora and fauna, though colonists subsist mostly on Earth-imported crops grown in vast hydroponic farms supplied to them by Chinese conglomerates. The planet suffers from freak weather storms as the atmosphere is bent and moulded into the desired Earth-like atmosphere.
A smaller population has returned to the Mongolian nomadic society and roams the plains between major settlements. Due to the heat, water is a precious resource with all major cities and towns located near large water sources either drilled from deep within the planet, or have formed as a result of terraforming operations. There are no ice caps.