Dark Stone
Dark Stone is a colony based on a planet far to the north east of Earth. Made from the remains of a Seed Ship sent out roughly 300 years before the present date Using a mix of sub-;ight and near-light egines to bounce out this far it was stripped for parts to help build the colony.
One thing stands out though concerning Dark Stone... it is built using and on an older settlement, a ruined ancient settlement once belonging to a powerful species that left behind dark sciences that still lies there, deep down i nthe rock below....
Demographics
4302 adults and 513 children. The children are evenly split between babies under the age of 1 years old and 18 years old.
Asmall amount of leaders exist, with a council of 13 "elders" who act on all matters and settling diputes. The remainder are workers and beasic security forces. The security forces act as a defence force and police force and number about 250 people evenly mixed between men & women of differing ages.
The remaining adults are split between builders, engineers, scientists, pilots and farmers. They have some slight crosstraining between the other elements allowing them to tempoaraily step up to fill low leven menials in other jobs when needed.
Government
Nearly all are classed as equals with the elders acting as gobetweens when necessary. When a problem arrises or a descision is needed, the elders rule on it with majority vote. Usually only one of them is enough to pass the local law into force.
Then they approach the people and let them know which way it went and generally accepted. Certainly there is the odd grumblings and the odd slight uprising. Though saying this, there is little chance of permanent imprisonment due to as many people are needed to work, and fines & exile for a period of time is the preferred punishment.
One note is the use of execution... This is rarely applied and carried out by the security forces. The reason is that extreme crime is rare, due to most being too busy with terraforming the planet in the long term and the planet is only partially terraformed at present. They know they need as much of the population alive to survive and finish this work in the long term and will still take many generations to be fully successful. Only a murderer or similar extreme crimes will lead to this happening and only once or twice within a couple or more generations does it happen.
Defences
The colony has 250 security service men & women. Trained in advanced weaponary, armour, hand-to-hand combat and to a degree of ship-to-ship combat. They train regularly and intermittently train up colonists to act as a militia. The latter is only able to use basic weapons & armour and basic vehicles.
They have access to 4 tanks: 3 medium tanks and heavy tank allowing for limited lanfd battles and used more of a scare tactic against aliens & raiders.. There is 6 APCs with basic medical bays built in, and can carry ten security plus drivers.
There is also three planetary defence weapons, a mix of huge plasma turrets and missile launchers sporting plasma missiles that could take out a battleship.
Industry & Trade
The main industry of Black Stone is experimental sciences and terraforming technology. Since the world has extremely tough hardy flora & fauna, biotechnology is a perfect way for them to make money. They also use this skill to develop crops & livestock for other colonies on the frontier.
Infrastructure
Black Stone is made up of descendants of terraformers. All are still working towards fully terraforming the planet, knowing it will still take a number of generations before it will be fully finished.
They are a hardy bunch being mentally tough enough to survive on the planet and its harsh conditions. They are in general practical and hard workers. Most look after their own money and equipment, and family knowing others are doing the same.
Nearly all are social and friendly although can appear reserved to offworlders. Those that do encounter or deal offworlders are usually forthright and won't give out too much information unless known to the Stonian in question.
Districts
The highest spires and buildings hold those that are pilots & administrators of the colony as a whole. The area is generally referred to as the eyries, and the inhabitants as birds, not knowing a day of hard manual work.
The middle ispires and areas are where most of the workers & families live and the area is generally referred to as The Stones, and the inhabitants are what gives the locals the name of Stonians. A few work outside the main colony where there is some arable land used for livestock and some hardy crops.
There is a few who are explorers, adventurer style persons, and the odd exile, who live of venture round the lowest district. The area is generally referred to as The Dungeon, and they are generally referred to as Dunegoneers.
A minority is found in the wild which also what it is regularly referred to as, The Wilds. This is the majority of the planet where life is rough and the alien landscape is still being explored along with the effects of terraforming is still working its effects on the local flora & fauna.
Assets
The Stonians have a number of different assets at their disposal:
- General Flyers. There is a number of general flyers that they can use. Most are built to survive hostile conditions planet side and can be used for transporting people around the planet surface, moving of trade goods and machinery or other equipment, and for security purposes. Smaller ones can carry two operators and five individuals with minor equipment and / or 2 medium car sized vehicles. Medium sized flyers can carry two to three operators and carry 15 others with a mix of equipment and / or 5 medium car sized vehicles. The largest can have up to 5 operators, and carry 30 others and / or 10 medium car sized vehicles. The fina lthree can also be used to enter orbit and used to transport goods & people from surface t ospace, and vice versa. Basic weaponary & physical armour is present on all of these.
- Military Flyers. The colony has access to 3 of these flyers allowing for 35 troops per flyer and enough space t ocarry four medium sized vehicles or two large vehicles. Heavily armed & armoured they are capable of limited space flight.
- Science labs & medical labs. Extensive science labs ar found throughout the Stonian levels for multiple science disciplines with biological, ecological and planetary sciences are dominant with other branches having some space within these. Medical bays & a couple of medium hospitals are present with enough doctors & nurses are present. These see regular use mainly through industrial accidents & exploration accidents.
- Stores. Heavily protect stores are spread throughout the structures though the main one are beside the Security & one of the hospitals. These are used to store equipment, food, water, medicines and medical equipment, weapons or armour, and science quipment.
- Security Barracks. This is where the security forces are primarily based with small 5 man units are spread throughout the rest of the colony. They have jails built in and are armoured. These also contain weapon/armour depots for basic security reasons. Along with the stores & hspitals are used as protective areas where the colonists can live in if the worst comes to the worst and the rest of the colony becomes unihabitable.
- Comms Tower. This is one of the highest parts of the colony allowing for the communications array t owork throughout the colony and linked to offworld satellites within the system. It can be used to talk to offworld facilities and provide updates to Earth, along with messages and the like coming in planetside.
- Power Cores. 3 Fusion Cores are buried deep below the main colony. These produce sufficient power for the colony and can still supply enough power for a colony of double the size.
- Terraformer. This set of buildings and partial spires are spread out throughout the colony and is used to slowly raise the Nitrogen & Oxygen levels as well as smoothing out the planet's extreme storms over time. It also monitors the temperature and it's AI releases chemicals into the atmosphere to try changing the overall temperature. It helps to breed and release microbes to release into the area in & around the colony to make it more Earth-like.
- Reclimation Units. This is effectivelly the system that deals with human, plant & animal waste turning it inot useful products like gasses & manure and remove dangerous microbes & decaying remains. Any organic material goes into this, including the bodies of colonists.
History
Black Stone was established by a seed ship roughly 300 years ago, and was filled with colonists chosen for their hardiness & self-reliance. The ytravelled there on the ship with a mix of sublight engines & near light engines to hop a good distance after the power builds up for this.
When they got close, the seed ship picked ip a scattered, damaged & ancient signal coming from the planet. Landing on the site as to where the signal came from.
The colonists, around 1500 adults, strip the ship and started building the basis of the colony and digs down to set foundatioins & the plasma reactors. Digging dow nthey see the glimmer of a pre-human civilisation. Biomechanical walls and tech still appear here, and the colonists pretty much ignored it as it appeared that the original inhabitants are long dead or gone.
Life carried on and the colony has grown to what it is today.
Points of interest
The Wilds and the ruins are the main points of interest on the planet.
The world does have natural life, strange flora & fauna that seem to blur the lines between the line between both. All appear to be built to survive the harsh conditions of the planet. It is one of little water outside the odd savage storm and rivers with some underground wells.
It does have a north pole and south pole where there is water in the form of ice & snow.
As for the majority of the planet, it is a mix of strange plants that grow beneath the dusty soil and rock with parts that grow above ground and can be withdrawn below the surface when massive dust storms move through a region. Most animals follw a similar form though are mobile, and very few fly and are more terrestrial than other planetary populations. Some can grow to massive proprotions and can't fully burrow and have toughened skins.
Small river basins are found here & there allowing for water to be found here & there.
The other point of interest is the ancient ruins. These seem to be tens of thousands of years, and over time they seem to have been incorporated in the lower levels of the colony now. Also, many parts of the lower levels looks as if the ruins have started to "grow" into the main superstructure of the colony. Exactly why is anybody's guess. There is an element of the population that explores these ruins along with scientists who look through the old ruins to see if there is anything of interest down there.
Architecture
Primarily human in nature with slight idiosycratic patterns are found thorughout, the colony has a slight look of old black stone-like quality though is metal in nature. Most of the parts certainly strike of practical nature more than anything. The lighter the area the higher it is from the ground. Walkways span spires that have built up over generations.
Geography
Built into the ground & bedrock where possible Black Stone is at the edge of a rocky hilly region with small plains dotted around it. The latter helps with farming where water is found. Most of the area is dusty with elemnts of life around if one knows where t olook.
Climate
The climate here is known to be quite windy, though warm and the area is prone to warm dust storms with rainy elements at times. How this works is generally unknown so far though the locals think this may be caused by the terraforming and the colony itself trapping moisture and acting as a wind trap.
Natural Resources
The planet itself seems rich in metals, minerals and hardy lifeforms. It is suspected that is the reason the ancient ruins are there, seeing the perfect planet to maybe carry out bioengineering.
Many of the local organisms certainly show colouration similar to elements found in the ruins, and all show 1% to 2% genetic markers for artificial amino acid tampering some time in the past. Since they have been left to their own devices bature has took over and each generation has shown a thinning out of these markers. When originally tested these were shown to be between 4% to 5%. Many of the bioengineers in Black Stone are still trying to crack the secrets of these.
The metals & minerals are variable and found that many rare earth metals are present along with high amounts of free form amino acids are found in the areas where water is present.
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