Harlequin (world)
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See also | UWP | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Jump map from Travellermap.com [1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
System Details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Primary | K4 V M4 V | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Worlds | 13 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Gas Giants | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Planetoid Belts | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cultural Details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Government | Self-perpetuating oligarchy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Law Level | Low | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cultural Extension | 1427 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Army Size (BEs) | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Economic Details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Technology Level | 10 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Economic Extension | B33-3
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Importance Extension | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Resource Units | 69 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GWP (BCr) | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
World Trade Number | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Trade Volume (MCr/year) | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Starport Details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Classification | Class-C | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Port Size | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Building Capacity (Tons) | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Port employees | 0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Port passengers (annual) | 0 |
Harlequin has both an unbreathably thin atmosphere and a lack of surface water making habitation by sophonts difficult. The system has a population between 10,000 and 10 million, lacking the industrial base to be completely self-supporting. It is a member of Third Imperium in the Sapphyre Subsector of Dagudashaag Sector and in the Domain of Vland. Harlequin, as a member world of the Third Imperium, holds the estate of an Imperial knight, a member of the Imperial Nobility charged with overseeing the world. During the Long Night this world was named Leka Id.
Astrography and planetology
Harlequin is a member of the Dagudashaag Main.
A remarkable double planet system, Harlequin and its twin Pierrot (H2A6103-9) orbit a bloated red giant star in the final stages of evolution. The star, Gastoyne, has reached the stage where it has started to blow off its outer layer and a steady wind of carbon soot is being blown out of the system. Over the millennia this carbon dust has settled on the outward facing hemispheres of Harlequin and Pierrot. The pair are tidally-locked, giving both worlds a characteristic black-and-white appearance.
Binary Solar System
Harlequin Binary Star System Star Name Hierarchy Category Mass (Sol) Temp (K) Luminosity (Sol) Gastoyne K4 V
Primary Main Sequence 0.73 4440 - 4600 0.33238 Unit Diameter Min Distance Hab Zone Jump Shadow M-Drive Limit AU 0.0033 0.0478 0.58 - 1.07 0.33 3.3 Orbit # * * 2 1 5 Star Name Hierarchy Category Mass (Sol) Temp (K) Luminosity (Sol) Pierrot M4 V
Secondary Main Sequence 0.23 3110 - 3210 0.00584 Unit Diameter Min Distance Hab Zone Jump Shadow M-Drive Limit AU 0.0013 0.0063 0.08 - 0.16 0.13 1.3 Orbit # * * 0 0 3
History and background
In 827, the Bolvaran petrochem corporation Stahimeyer-Ramires SA conducted a detailed survey of the system and found the complex organic oceans on Pierrot included a significant percentage of buckminserfullerenes and lanthanum-doped nanotubes (a naturally occurring superconductor). Randolph Stahimeyer immediately authorized the purchase of much of Harlequin/Pierrot, and the construction of a plant to exploit Pierrot's petrochemical resources.
Construction began on a beanstalk system connecting the two worlds, designed to pump raw nanotubes to refining centers on Harlequin. In these plants they would be turned into lanthum carbosilicate wires used in starship jump grids.
Construction of the 'Worldbridge' began in 836 at the midpoint of the Harlequin/Pierrot system, the shaft of the Skyhook extending slowly toward the surfaces of both planets. Despite technical problems and labor disputes which greatly increased the cost of the project, work proceed until 841 when the end of the Worldbridge were barely a thousand kilometers about the surfaces of the worlds.
Stahimeyer-Ramires, its financial resources so depleted by the Worldbridge project, was the victim of a hostile takeover by Interstellar Petrochemical Processing (IPP). IPP replaced Sashimeyer's senior management, took over the most profitable refining plants in Pact and Bolivar, and sold the rest. The subcontractors on the Worldbridge went bankrupt and the project was abandoned barely a step from completion.
Three centuries later the Worldbridge had become Randolph's Folly, an interplanetary derelict. Forty thousand kilometers of spun monocrystalline plasteel tubing has attracted a great many salvagers and wildcat scrap merchants. Incompetent attempts to dismantle the structure have left parts of it critically unstable. In 1102, two hundred kilometers of skyhook cabling broke free and fell onto the surface of Harlequin damaging several habitats. The people of Harlequin have appealed to the Imperial Navy to make the structure safe but no official moves have been made.
References and contributors
- Jae Campbell. "Library Data: Sapphyre." Signal-GK 07 (1993): 11.
- Marc Miller. First Survey (Imperium Games, 1996), 83.
- Jae Campbell. Encyclopaedia Dagudashaag (Signal-GK, 2017), 145.
- ↑ "Jump Map API" and map location from Travellermap.com
- Third Imperium worlds
- Domain of Vland worlds
- Worlds
- Era: Milieu 1116
- Dagudashaag Main worlds
- Binary Star System
- Articles at intermediate completion state
- Beanstalk worlds
- Durgaarur Loop worlds
- Interstellar Petrochemical Processing worlds
- Megastructure worlds
- Megastructures
- Rule of Man worlds
- Second Imperium worlds
- Stahimeyer-Ramires worlds
- T5 Second Survey worlds
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