Rejhappur (world)

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This is a world-system under construction and is currently being input-programmed into the Traveller RPG Wiki.

Rejhappur/Scotian Deep (Reaver's Deep 1218)
Classic Era (1116)
B551613-A
StarportB Good: Spacecraft Construction, Overhaul, Refined fuel
Size5 Medium (8,000 km, 0.40g - 0.57g)
Atmosphere5 Thin
Hydrographics1 Dry World 10%
Population6 Moderate (2 million)
Government1 Company/Corporation
Law3 Low Law (no automatic weapons)
Tech LevelA Early Stellar (jump drive)
See also UWP
System Details
Primary M1 V K6 V
Planetoid Belts 1
Gas Giants 1
style="width: 220px; height: 250px;"
Jump map from Travellermap.com [1]

Rejhappur is a poor, nonindustrial world.

Description / Astrography & Planetology

This system is part of Rob Roy's Run.

Binary Solar System

Rejhappur Binary Star System
Star Name Hierarchy Category Mass (Sol) Temp (K) Luminosity (Sol)
Rejhappur

M1 V

 Primary Main Sequence 0.5 3620 - 3660 0.08839
Unit Diameter Min Distance Hab Zone Jump Shadow M-Drive Limit
AU 0.0023 0.0247 0.31 - 0.59 0.23 2.3
Orbit #  *  * 1 0 5
Star Name Hierarchy Category Mass (Sol) Temp (K) Luminosity (Sol)
Rejhappur

K6 V

 Secondary Main Sequence 0.69 4100 - 4300 0.27288
Unit Diameter Min Distance Hab Zone Jump Shadow M-Drive Limit
AU 0.0031 0.0433 0.53 - 0.99 0.31 3.1
Orbit #  *  * 2 1 5

System Data

Primary: Binary System.

  • Major - Valajhada, spectral class K5V. ICN S4F0408K5V.
    • Mass, .62 standard.
    • Stellar diameter, .67 standard.
    • Luminosity, .15 standard.
  • Companion - Valherda, spectral class M7V. ICN S4F0408M7V.
    • Mass .09 standard.
    • Stellar diameter, .008 standard.
    • Luminosity, .04 standard.
    • Orbital radius, 4 AU.

Planetary System:

  • Two major bodies. One inhabited world (Rejhappur, II).
  • No gas giants in system.
  • One planetoid belt in system.

Mainworld Data

II Rejhappur:

  • Mean orbital radius, 62.83 million kilometers (.42 AU).
  • Period 126.26 days. One satellite (Krashlamar).
  • Diameter, 9790 kilometers.
  • Density, .99 standard.
  • Mass, .44 standard.
  • Mean surface gravity, .73G.
  • Rotation period, 18 hours, 46 minutes, 29.6 seconds.
  • Axial inclination, 5°17'9.5".
  • Albedo, 0.10.
  • Surface atmospheric pressure, .55 atm.
  • Composition, standard oxygen-nitrogen mix, breathable without artificial assistance.
  • Hydrographic percentage, 3.3%; composition, water and frozen water-ice.
  • Mean surface temperature, 22.6°C.

Mainworld Geography & Topography

No information yet available.

Mainworld Map

No information yet available.

Native Lifeforms

No information yet available.

History & Background (Dossier)

No information yet available.

World Starport

Rejhappur has a Class B Starport, a good quality installation which includes all the expected amenities including refined fuel for starships, brokerage services for passengers and cargo, and a variety of ship provisions. There is a shipyard capable of doing annual maintenance, overhauls and most kinds of repair, and construction of non-starships. Most ports of this classification have both a Highport and a Downport.

World Technology Level

Rejhappur possesses a Technology Level of TL–10 or TL-A in Hexadecimal Notation.

World Government

Rejhappur is governed by a Corporate Polity with a single corporation with a typical corporate structure as a government. A company town, or world. The typical corporate run world usually has a single purpose. Examples include mining, agriculture, or other kinds of resource extraction. But rather than a simple base of operations, there are facilities for housing workers and their families including hospitals, schools, and other infrastructure. How, or if, the children of the workers are incorporated into the workforce varies with companies. The corporation running the world may be a subsidiary of a larger interstellar corporation.

World Law Level

No information yet available.

World Military

No information yet available.

World Economy

No information yet available.

Trade Data

No information yet available.

World Demographics

No information yet available.

World Culture

Religion: Religious beliefs among the natives of Rejhappur are many and varied. Since the outbreak of hostilities on the world, however, a few specific nomad sects have gained a great deal of influence and respect, and have contributed significantly to the solidarity of the native resistance.

The basis of these sects lies in a fear and distrust of ancient "Sky Gods" (believed by some xeno-anthropologists to be dim echoes of the Ancients remembered through traditions and mythology). Open waters have long been associated with sickness and death (thanks to the unhealthy climate around the dead seas); it is easy to see how the nomads reached the conclusion that the offworlders, with their irrigation ditches and pumping stations, were indulging in an unholy magic. Some natives now believe the offworlders to be evil sky gods, while others merely feel that they are violating the natural order of things by establishing open-water irrigation. In both cases, the nomad creed is clear - the offworlders must be stopped. Their fanaticism is turning what was originally a terrible company blunder into a full-fledged holy war.

The religious rules of conduct which control life among the natives of Rejhappur are generally similar. They stress cooperation over competition, and support an ethical code which makes a virtue out of honor, courage, and dedication to the good of family, people, and race. Though barbaric, the nomad tribes of Rejhappur can be counted upon to obey their codes strictly. They will not kill in cold blood, only in fair fight or in tests of justice in which the condemned have a chance to vindicate themselves. These redeeming aspects of Rejhappuran belief help to emphasize the true magnitude of miscalculation which has led to the current outbreak of hostilities among these people.

Languages

The Happrhani, with their settled communities, evolved several distinctive oral and written languages a long time ago. The Happrhani tongues, in fact, have become common languages used by nomads as well as Happrhani in their dealings with one another, although individual tribes employ their own mutually incomprehensible dialects among themselves. Since the coming of offworlders, the Happrhani tongue from the fertile regions around Dunbar Shuttleport has gradually developed into a lingua franca used by the company in all its dealings with locals.

Many Happrhani, especially those employed in the military or on plantations, speak Caledonian Anglic. Few offworlders have taken the trouble to learn local languages, though some terms and words have been adopted as slang. The company does have memclips available at Dunbar Shuttleport for the major Happrhani tongues, but has little or no data available on the various nomad languages.

Urbanization

Society: Social organization and cultural features vary widely among the various groups on Rejhappur. Conditions and attitudes in the Company-ruled areas, for instance, are quite different from those prevalent among any of the steppe nomad tribes; various nomad groups are themselves highly individual in character. Each group has many unique or unusual aspects which serve to distinguish one culture from another; space considerations make it impossible to analyze all of them in detail.

Some important aspects, however, can be examined. In the days before the outbreak of open rebellion, the Company regions were noteworthy chiefly for the existence of a sharply defined class distinction between the offworld minority and the native-born majority. The offworlders formed a rigidly aloof upper class, snobbish, arrogant, and rarely interested in native ways. Cheap native labor gave rise to impressive households staffed with servants; offworld military units usually had as many as two or three servants per squad of private soldiers, with officers attended by native help in even higher proportions. It was this general air of haughty superiority which proved the undoing of the offworlders when the rebellion broke out.

Under the offworld aegis, technology and industry did flow into Rejhappur. The planetary tech level of "10" represents this influx; industrial complexes at Kaludnawi and Venanbodar were beginning to give Rejhappur the ability to turn out various manufactured goods of tech 9 and 10 standards. These industries were highly dependent upon offworld specialists and technicians, and the Rebellion has brought most production to a standstill.

Historical Data

Remarks: The development of the Principality of Caledon's mercantile interests in the period of 800-875 sparked considerable efforts towards exploration and expansion in all directions. As trade routes opened into the Ea and Hryaroaa subsectors (and particularly as trade with various corporations in the Aslan Hierate first began to open up), it became obvious to the Caledonian government that new lines of interstellar communication to spinward and rimward were required. The establishment of the Principality enclave on Dunmarrow (Reaver's Deep 0921) in 833 intensified this need.

In 846, the tiny class D starport on Krashlamar, Rejhappur's moon - a facility which had primarily been used as a base of operations for asteroid miners and the like - was upgraded (to Class C and expanded, becoming the primary packet link between the Principality and various trade links such as Rhys (Reaver's Deep 1019), Brighton (Reaver's Deep 1020) and Dunmarrow. The Scotian Deep Trading Company won the charter to develop and operate the port, with a supporting government subsidy from the Principality. As their involvement in the Rejhappur system became larger, the company began serious survey work on Rejhappur itself. An expedition brought back samples of jaihe, both in its natural form and as the processed ingredient for a popular hot beverage, jaiheblek, which was made by the Happirhva who occasionally harvested the wild plant. Sensing profits, the company followed these surveys up with active trade.

Jaiheblek (which was better known as jaihe off-planet) caught on, and the Scotian Deep Trading Company soon realized the value of their new discovery. By 874, an early trading post had been established at the town of Kaludnawi; James Dunbar, the first factor at the post, signed a series of trade agreements with several local communities to ensure good relations between the offworlders and the Happrhani, who continued to cultivate jaihe as they always had. Under Dunbar and his successors, the Company's presence on Rejhappur became thoroughly established, and the world developed into a major source of profit.

During the Dynastic Crisis of 1024, when the Principality government was nearly toppled by civil war, the Scotian Deep Trading Company gained considerable influence in court as a result of timely assistance to the Campbell Faction. This assistance ultimately won an even stronger charter for the Company on Rejhappur, and a Barony for Robert Armstrong, one of the Company's more prominent officers. Lord Armstrong used the influence thus gained to increase the Company's power on Rejhappur.

Under Armstrong's administration as Director-General on Rejhappur, Company plantations began to replace Happrhani farms as the primary source of jaihe for offworld trade, Plantations were efficient, producing 20 times the amount of jaihe that a comparable amount of land farmed the old way ever could. Large-scale irrigation, modern farming procedures, and centralized direction all played an important part in making the plantation system a successful one.

The Happrhani benefited from the new system as well. The plantations offered excellent employment for good wages, and the influx of high-tech equipment meant that industry, technology, and knowledge all could follow.

Unfortunately, the plantations brought problems as well as progress. The Happrhani were gaining in education and skills, but as they did so, they realized that they would inevitably remain subordinate to offworld employers. The growing offworld population looked down on the locals as ignorant, backward, uncivilized nobodies, who owed everything to their starfaring benefactors. Disdain for native cultural and religious traditions led to some friction, though it would never have amounted to anything if this had been the only trouble.

The real problem was not with the Happrhani settlements, but with nomads, the Happijhom, that lived around certain areas of the steppes which never dried out entirely. As the jaihe plantations became more numerous, the offworld administration began to bar nomad movement from more and more areas; a visit from a nomad community for several weeks or months could badly disrupt the production of the plantations. At first the nomads accepted this; when they began to complain, and attempted to ignore the restrictions, the Company resorted to violence. A small mercenary force defeated a coalition of steppe nomads 10 times its size at the Battle of Simbula in 1059, ensuring the safety of the offworld settlements. Following the battle, several regiments of Happrhani troops were raised and trained as "luvhakka" (support) forces. Officered by offworlders, the luvhakka units were excellent troops, and were used for an increasing number of routine duties - which allowed the Company to cut back on expenditures for large mercenary forces. A few offworld units remained, mostly to secure Kaludnawi, Dunbar Shuttleport, and a few other crucial locations.

After the Battle of Simbula, Company expansion continued unchecked. The Happijhom were increasingly excluded from the fertile regions, although they were strongly encouraged to give up their nomadic life in exchange for steady employment on the plantations. Few did this. Instead, the nomads adjusted, as they always had to natural forces too strong to fight, and resolved to survive in the steppes.

In 1098, the company made the last of a series of blunders which finally brought native relations on Rejhappur to the breaking point. In that year, ground was broken at Nahawaijohm, a new settlement. This town, built around an area of semi-permanent fertile ground, was the first Company town established in the steppes. As the irrigation channels, the wells and pumping stations, and all the other characteristic elements of plantation oriented life were built around Nahawaijohm, the steppes seemed to catch fire with a spirit of hatred for the offworlders. Nahawaijohm was burnt to the ground four times before the settlement was actually completed in 1103; only by moving a sizable contingent of mercenaries and luvhakkas to the site was the work completed.

By 1105, the cumulative errors of four successive Company administrators on Rejhappur had probably already made disaster inevitable. But the arrival in that year of Sir Percival Jameison as the new Director-General on Rejhappur was the final straw. Jameison, an arrogant and stubborn man, was determined to "bring the damned Haps to heel," regardless of the cost. Believing himself to be a brilliant administrator and amateur strategist (he was wrong on both counts), Jameison set out to replace the economic conquest of Dunbar and the slow land gains of more recent years with outright military conquest of all the unpacified tribes. In so doing, he signed his own death warrant.

The exact motivations which prompted the general uprising of the Happrhani - hitherto perfectly content under Company rule - will never be entirely known. Certainly a portion of the cause was religious in nature; an increasing number of Happrhani were beginning to believe the steppe dwellers who accused the offworlders of conjuring water out of thin air through some unclean magic to fill the irrigation ditches; in fact, the water was just pumped up from underground sources, but even sophisticated Happrhani had not fully adjusted to the concepts of advanced technology and science. Other factors no doubt included resentment at the contempt of offworld overlords, dismay at fighting a war with their steppe dwelling brethren, and many other incidental motives. Sir Percival must take the blame, however, for actually fanning the flames.

In 1108, while on a tour of the plantations at Pajnawi, Jameison was confronted by an angry mob protesting the expeditionary force which had been dispatched to compel the steppe-dwellers of the Kaludjakir to surrender through a merciless campaign of scorched earth and harassment. The protest unnerved Jameison, and he made a serious miscalculation - he ordered out the garrison to disperse the mob. The garrison, however, was a luvhakka regiment; rather than fire on their own people, as their officers ordered, the troops mutinied. Their officers were the first to die, but within 56 hours every offworlder in Pajnawi, including Sir Percival and his entire staff, was dead . . . and the news was spreading like wildfire. Other luvhakka units mutinied as they heard the news, though a few stayed loyal. The citizenry supported the luvhakka mutinies, and there were repetitions of the Pajnawi Massacre in several communities. In other areas, offworlders took refuge in hastily-fortified strongpoints and waited, hoping desperately for a relief force.

Relief was difficult to organize. The few regiments of mercenaries and loyal luvhakka available were spread thin, and there was no chance of organizing anything serious in the way of off-planet rescue in less than several weeks. The Rejhappur Revolt of 1108 was and is a plain example of the dangers confronting offworld administrators on a potentially hostile world . . . and is currently a major concern to the Principality of Caledon.

This revolt, and the subsequent governmental takeover by the Principality of Caledon, eventually led to the downfall of the Company. It is expected that government forces will be able to withdraw now that Caledon Ventures (the new owner of the planet) is mobilizing colonial troops to garrison the planet and reopen export of jaihe.

World Timeline

No information yet available.

UWP Listing

No information yet available.

References & Contributors (Sources)

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