Dengvin (world)
| Dengvin/Xenough (Foreven 2325) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classic Era (1116) | D666875-4
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| See also | UWP | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dengvin is a pleasant seeming T-Prime just outside of Avalar space. The world is rather cool, however, the result of its proximity to a dim K2V primary. It also suffers from a strange divergence of geology. About twenty million years ago the world's continents were locked up in one single supercontinent. The climate was a uniformly wet one.
But the large landmass has broken up at a very slow pace, and the single continent is now a cluster of continents seperated by large oceanic rifts. The climate has cooled, and drier conditions have affected the continental interiors. Large escarpments that are evidence of this breakup seperate the continents into extensive moist rain-forested coastal plains, and drier "grassland" and savannah plateaus that are like night and day to each other ecologically. Because of Dengvins lower gravity relative to Terra, isostasy permits higher relief within its mountain ranges and plateaus. The difference on average between the two regions is about 4000 meters, creating an ecological wall that hinders species movement between the two climes.
The world was discovered and surveyed by the Zhodani, but it was bypassed because of its distance from the Consulate. A lack of concentrated mineral deposits suitable for exploitation prevented corporate interest as well. But its fertility for edible crops and animals were proven in subsequent surveys by the IISS, and interest remained despite delays imposed by Zhodani and Avalar interference.
Colonisation finally occured in 813, and was carried out by a large back-to-nature sect from Deneb Sector. The Brotherhood of the Grain was from Vincennes subsector, and its worshipped nature, controlling its worshippers with a heavy handed ideology that deterred individual dissent and technological reliance. The colony ships were destroyed soon after landing by the colonists, and the TL was limited effectively to 1 or 2. The BoG was an odd group, and its rituals included devotional worship of grain fields and animal herds. Its ideology idealised a society based upon a symbolic representation of a grain field, and its priesthood and security apparatus took on titles reflective of farming occupations with the intent of retaining conformity.
Its shunning of technology proved its undoing. The community originally settled the coastal lowlands, due to the warmer climate, but more and more runaways took advantage of the imposing terrain, and decamped for the highlands. The poor communications, and the lack of air transport or other modern equipment prevented the priesthood "yeomanry" from retrieving these apostates, and their communities were decimated by this emigration. The highlanders and remaining lowlanders drifted apart over the next few decades, until they were two hostile competing groups.
The BoG hiearchy finally broke down completely following a series of disasters in the late 890s, and their followers balkanised. Several secular states arose that conquered and dominated the coasts, but were unable to make any headway against their mountaineer cousins, and many broke their armies against the fortified heights. The highlanders developed a democratic canton system linked by an ingenious network of heliographs, but each plateau was still seperated from each other by water and their enemies. But for the most part a two century period of stagnation ensued.
This equilibrium was shattered in the aftermath of Avalar's annexation of the nearby Kamrathi League. Previously the League had interdicted the world on the behalf of its inhabitants; but the new Avalar overlords were less keen on leaving the status quo intact. Expansionist elements within the Avalar government perceived little opposition from the low tech populations of Asyrog (Foreven 2326) and Dengvin, and commercial interests contacted the worlds just prior to the Fifth Frontier War. The lowlanders proved most enthusiastic for this contact, especially after hearing how they could represent the world in the Consulate after wiping out the more xenophobic highlanders.
As this policy would upset not only the Third Imperium, but their own Zhodani allies as well, the Avalar's limited the technology they distributed to TL-4 armaments and industrial assistance. In the face of such superior firepower, the highlanders would inevitably be exhausted in spite of their high ground. Imperial agents discovered this illicit contact, and loyalist companies on Urnian smuggled in arms to deter this expansion. The result was a long series of positional wars similar to Terra's First World War battles in the Italian Alps. Millions of soldiers were killed in battles fed by the never ending supply of offworld guns and explosives.
This trade continued on through the Civil War period, and was slowly driving the two sides to exhaustion as their young men and women were slaughtered in hopeless battles. Only in the aftermath of the Avalar Landgrab of 1132 did the Regency move to make the world a client state, and shut off the pipeline. The world is still a powderkeg in spite of this intervention. The locals are sufficiently industrialized to manufacture most TL-4 weapon systems, albeit in much smaller quantities. Relations between the Regency and offworlders, and the two groups are quite amicable. Offworld intelligence and military cadres are eagerly sought by the two sides. While the overt wars have mostly ended, covert espionage is common, and quite bloody. Professionals signing on will encounter attempts by the other faction to subvert or acquire their loyalties, and in extreme cases killing contractors.
- ↑ "Jump Map API" and map location from Travellermap.com