Stern-Stern (world)

Stern-Stern/Darrian (Spinward Marches 0223) Milieu 1116 B421558-B Starport B Good: Spacecraft Construction, Overhaul, Refined fuel Size 4 Small (6,400 km, 0.32g - 0.46g) Atmosphere 2 Vacuum (very thin - tainted) Hydrographics 1 Dry World 10% Population 5 Moderate (700 thousand) Government 5 Feudal Technocracy Law 8 High Law (controlled blades) Tech Level B Average Stellar (large starships)
See also	UWP
style="width: 220px; height: 250px;" Jump map from Travellermap.com
System Details
Primary	M0 V M3 V
Worlds	9
Gas Giants	1
Planetoid Belts	0
Cultural Details
Government	Feudal technocracy
Law Level	High
Cultural Extension	565B
Army Size (BEs)	0
Economic Details
Technology Level	11
Economic Extension	845+1 Resources 8 Moderate Labor 4 Moderate (70 thousand) Infrastructure 5 Limited Efficiency +1 Average
Importance Extension	1
Resource Units	160
GWP (BCr)	1
World Trade Number	4
Trade Volume (MCr/year)	1,067
Starport Details
Classification	Class-B
Port Size	5
Building Capacity (Tons)	0
Port employees	1,105
Port passengers (annual)	1,000

Stern-Stern has a tainted unbreathably thin atmosphere and very little surface water. 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 Darrian Confederation in the Darrian Subsector of Spinward Marches Sector. 100% of the world's population is the Minor Human Race Daryen.

Description (Astrography & Planetology)

Stellar Data

Stern-Stern is a binary star system.

• Both are red main sequence stars.

Stern-Stern has two stars in the star system.

Primary
	Type	Category		Mass (Sol)	Temperature (K)	Luminosity
	M0 V	Main Sequence (Dwarf)		0.57	3770 - 3850	0.13982
	Unit	Diameter	Safe Distance	Habitable Zone	Jump Shadow	M-Drive Limit
	AU	0.0055	0.031	0.39 - 0.74	0.55	5.5
	Orbit #	*	*	2	1	6
	Remarks
Secondary
	Type	Category		Mass (Sol)	Temperature (K)	Luminosity
	M3 V	Main Sequence (Dwarf)		0.37	3270 - 3430	0.03081
	Unit	Diameter	Safe Distance	Habitable Zone	Jump Shadow	M-Drive Limit
	AU	0.0034	0.0146	0.18 - 0.35	0.34	3.4
	Orbit #	*	*	0	1	5
	Remarks

System Data

The worlds of the system have been surveyed. They consist of:

• The mainworld.
• x7 secondary rocky worlds.
• x1 gas giant.

Mainworld Data

The atmosphere is breathable but unpleasant enough that most residences have their own life support systems.

It orbits within its star's habitable zone.

• It receives moderate levels of stellar energy.

Mainworld Size (S)

Stern-Stern is a Meso World between 5,600km and 7,200km in diameter. The world has low gravity between 0.32G and 0.46G. The horizon will appear about 3.6km away.

Mainworld Atmosphere (A)

Stern-Stern has a pressure of 0.10 to 0.42 atmospheres. The very thin pressures require a respirator or Oxygen Mask. This atmosphere also contains an unusual taint such as disease, a hazardous gas mix, pollutants, or sulfur compounds, which requires the use of a Filter Respirator Combination Mask. Some taints may require more protective equipment. TL–5 or more advanced survival gear is required to settle this world.

Mainworld Hydrosphere (H)

Stern-Stern has 05-15% of its surface covered by liquid water or ice. Wilderness refueling will be difficult. Water for the inhabitants needs to be imported and extensively recycled. These worlds are Hell Worlds or Poor Worlds depending on their atmosphere.

Mainworld Geography and Topography

No centrally held map of the world exists within AAB Library Data records.

(Blank map, predominantly dry world.)

Native Lifeforms

Primitive native life occupying a number of ecological niches. Its metabolic functions drive the process of atmospheric renewal.

Stern-Stern has an ecology based on fern-like cacti. The extreme aridity prevents most plants from exceeding man-height. They survive by condensing trace amounts of water vapour on their fronds. Animals likewise are specialised for desert survival. The most common are vividly coloured crustaceans, which mainly browse the ferns. They pose no danger to the colonists, who often keep the small creatures as pets.

History & Background (Dossier)

Stern-Stern specializes in heavy industry with considerable robotic help in the factories.

World Starport (Sp)

Stern-Stern 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.

Population

700,000

World Languages

• Te-Zlodh
  • Written te-zlodh uses a syllabary of flowing symbols, known as yaser te-yulep (the old script). When the Solomani arrived at Darrian, a new Latin-based alphabet, rome te-yulep ('the Roman script'), was introduced. Currently, yaser te-yulep remains in use for legal documentation, classic literature, poetry and news bulletins, where the speed and efficiency of the syllabary allows for rapid reading. Scientific and educational documentation are written in rome te-yulep.

World Law (L)

Stern-Stern has a high law level with laws covering many areas of interactions of people, corporations, and the government. A few worlds with this law level may be Amber Zones. Any interaction with the judicial system requires an Advocate trained in the local legal system. Law enforcement is present almost everywhere, either as people or via technology. Legal proceedings can take weeks to months to resolve and involve a dozen or more people. All blade weapons and firearms, and anything more destructive, are typically regulated or prohibited.

• The Taledh Code is the basis of Darrian law.

Economic

Corporations

The following major businesses operate within this region:

• Tharnitia Denus: a transport and logistics corporation that operates postal services and maintains terminals on all worlds within the Darrian Confederation.
  The name literally translates as "Transport Company".
• Zloril: a manufacturing corporation specializing in electronic equipment such as computers, sensor systems, and entertainment devices.

Historical Data

Stern-Stern was not one of the original Pre-Maghiz colonies of the Darrian Confederation. The system, then known as 247-461, was originally bypassed due to inadequate surveys, and except for a starport was ignored by the Confederation and its economic planners. The world was cursed with a very thin atmosphere, and possessed few obvious resources that would make it attractive to outside settlement. Some industrial exploitation eventually took place, but no permanent settlements were established.

In -31, a volunteer group of Ilium residents were convinced to settle on Stern-Stern with the promise of pre-Maghiz technology to help them. Even they found the atmospheric taint beyond endurance, and the planet was abandoned.

Finding people to emigrate to Stern-Stern remained exceptionally difficult in later centuries. In desperation, the Darrians even once offered an amnesty for exiles that would be willing to work for a new start. The move proved to be popular but was shut down by the Confederation over fears of turning Stern-Stern into a seditious world of resentful inhabitants.

This state of affairs finally came to an end in 576. In that year, a Sternmetal Horizons survey discovered that the world had extensive deposits of Iron, Nickel and Aluminum in large ore bodies buried under its extensive plains. Military tensions and conflict with the Zhodani, and the massive initial investment outlays required for subsurface mining, delayed colonization until 603, and the Second Frontier War delayed actual exploitation of the deposits until 625.

Sternmetal, with assistance from the Darrian government, sank several deep shafts, some of up to 10 kilometres deep, to reach the ore bodies. In doing so, the company had to compromise safety. The digging of deep shafts, in an atmosphere under severe underground pressure, on a world with very little air pressure to begin with, was a dangerous and expensive undertaking. Death due to the bends, or blowouts at the surface level, claimed a number of lives, and gave the world an unpleasant reputation. Sternmetal soon suffered a labor shortage, as skilled mining workers developed an understandable reluctance to work in the mines.

As production dipped, Sternmetal approached its fellow Megacorporation Naasirka for assistance in automating the world's production. Through a separate holding company called Sternmetal Automation, the two companies pooled their efforts and constructed a huge network of automated factories and mining complexes for extraction, processing, refinement and machining the mines output for eventual export. These complexes were probably the largest robotic factories ever constructed in the Marches before the Collapse, and still rank among the largest still extant. A major drawback was the pollution generated as a byproduct of various mining and industrial processes, but the two Sternmetal divisions (which is where the world name originates) profited enough to pay their employees very good wages and continued to deliver massive amounts of vital metals to both the Third Imperium and the Confederation.

The world was the target of major Zhodani raids during the later Frontier Wars, and of an attempted Sword World invasion during the False War, but it has remained in Darrian possession for its entire history.

New Era

Because of its factories, the Collapse and Virus posed a special threat to Stern-Stern. A controversy developed between the company and local authorities -- the Regency wanting to shut the factories down and the Darrians wanting to keep them running -- and within their own governments, between security services and industrial planning agencies. In the end, the now renamed Horizons was able to retain the factories, as the authorities came to the conclusion that more would be lost through shutting them down, and risking shortages and price hikes in resources vital to the Quarantine, than whatever viral threat they posed to the Spinward Extents.

In order to keep the factories, the company agreed to eliminate outside communication links, creating a totally self-contained and airgapped communication and control system placed in fortified military-style command centers. Horizons beefed up security around the facility, though more against outside intrusion by agitators and anti-virus radicals, than against actual Viral infection. The company still has the confidence of most of the local population, and it has eliminated most of the old silicon-based systems that made the world vulnerable, but there has been concerted action by offworld protesters and action groups to disrupt or impede local production. And while the company still enjoys the confidence of the Darrian government, a number of neighboring world governments and their citizens have staged frequent protests and passed disruptive resolutions against Horizons and the Stern-Stern world government.

Additional Data

IISS GURPS Astrographics Survey

0223 Stern-Stern (Darrian Confederation)

Starport: Class IV.

Diameter: 2,985 miles (4,800 km).
Atmosphere: Very Thin oxygen-nitrogen tainted with sulfur compounds.
Hydrographics: 6%.
Climate: Cool to Hot.
Population: 700,000.
Government: Civil service bureaucracy.
Control Level: 4.
Tech Level: 9.
World Trade Number: 4.

References & Contributors (Sources)

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Marc Miller. The Spinward Marches (Game Designers Workshop, 1979), 8-9.
• Marc Miller. The Spinward Marches Campaign (Game Designers Workshop, 1985), 18-19.
• Marc Miller. Imperial Encyclopedia (Game Designers Workshop, 1987), 94-100. (UWP only)
• Rob Caswell. "Domain of Deneb: Sector Data." MegaTraveller Journal 3 (1992): 47-58. (UWP only)
• Dave Nilsen. The Regency Sourcebook (Game Designers Workshop, 1995), 44. (UWP only)
• Martin Dougherty, Neil Frier. Behind the Claw (Steve Jackson Games, 1998), 46.
• Mike West. The Spinward States (Avenger Enterprises, 2008), 108. (UWP only)
• Martin Dougherty. The Spinward Marches (Mongoose Publishing, 2008), .
• Martin Dougherty. Behind the Claw (Mongoose Publishing, 2019), 80-84,86,88. (UWP only)
• Peter Gray - BARD-OPAL 9527