- Published: 26 March 2020
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Introduction
New Detroit is the current flashpoint between Terran Sphere and Shohan Forces as they battle for control of the sector. Once an exemplar of the Terraformer’s art, and a training post of the Terran Sphere marines, Shohan missteps on the planet have created a revealing ecological catastrophe and an ongoing humanitarian crisis.
The Bunyip System
The Bunyip system is somewhat small, with a star that is less massive and dimmer than Sol and 5 planets revolving around it. The first 4 are rocky worlds. Black Rock, the closest to the sun, lives up to its name as a blasted rock. Further out are two venusuvian hell worlds of Mojave and Sonoran. The final rocky world, almost at the edge of the Star’s grav limit, is New Detroit.
New Detroit, a super terrestrial world with a surface gravity of 1.21Gs and a 28 hour rotation, is the primary life-bearing world in the system. Despite its distance from its star, the world hosts a diverse range of climates across its 11 continents. The largest of these is Cadillac; officially named for the soldier who built the original Fort Detroit, not the Automotive brand. Cadillac is slightly larger than Eurasia by land mass and stretches from the northern to the southern pole as one unbroken land mass. The continent also boasts the longest river in the sector, the New Mississippi, running from the southern highlands to the northern Pontiac Bay in the upper northern latitudes. The entire river system is 5 times the length of its namesake on Earth, and some aquatic species will swim the entire length in order to return to ancestral spawning grounds.
The planet does not boast any natural satellites, although during the Terraforming process a mirror array was stationed in orbit to provide the semblance of moonlight over sections of Cadillac for the sake of imported Terran species. Due to the lack of natural moonlight, a significant evolutionary divide has developed between daytime and nighttime ecologies. Many species are only active during one or the other, and choose to burrow or retreat to some kind of protective lair to hibernate in their off cycle. For the night time ecology, it bears many similarities to cave ecologies: loss of pigment and poor eyesight being the two most common adaptations. Enhanced hearing, echo location, or sensitive whiskers that can track air currents are other common adaptations. On both sides of the divide predators will frequently evolve methods to track sleeping/hibernating prey to their lairs and strike while they are vulnerable.
The final world of the system is the gas giant of St. Clair. The gas giant orbits outside of the grav limit of the star, which has made it a useful shortcut for ships arriving at the right time. When planets are positioned correctly, they can surf to the system, maneuver outside the grav limit, make the hop to St. Clair’s grav limit and then dive back into the system towards New Detroit. The planet’s largest moon, Hazen, is mostly ice encrusted, but despite the overall frigid temperatures, it has developed a sparse ecosystem and even a thin but breathable atmosphere. Prior to the war, there was some ecotourism to the moon, but the few permanent settlements there were abandoned as the Shohan came closer to the system. Port Lernoult orbited at the edge of the planetary grav limit to act as a stopover point for travelers, but was abandoned during the retreat from the system.