Talk:Falcon (TR 2725) (world)

MJD Limited Permission To Use Text (May 2017)

MJD was kind enough to allow explicit but limited permission of the below text. some of the text may later appear in a published product.

- Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 11:45, 19 May 2017 (EDT)

MJD: Here's the text I just wrote for Falcon. It reconciles the asteroid/world/colony/etc issues.

• Falcon (A558448-D)
• Falcon is the mainworld of a system with five gas giants and five other terrestrial worlds. It is often listed in navigational databases as a ‘hollowed-out asteroid’, an error which is understandable given the circumstances of the world and its people.
• Falcon is in fact a wet world, smallish and with a thin atmosphere. Whilst not a Terra-Prime candidate, it was certainly inviting for colonists, and was chosen for a large-scale development operation during the Solomani settlement of the region. This proved to be a fatal mistake – literally – for most of the population. Falcon’s ecosphere contains a number of compounds which are subtly toxic to unadapted humans. The adaptation process requires lengthy exposure and often proves fatal.
• Those who do adapt to the world’s toxins become dependent upon them. It is possible for someone from Falcon to be deprived of these substances for a few weeks without coming to harm, but sooner or later they will become sick and begin to deteriorate. The process can be slowed or almost permanently deferred by creating an artificial environment where these substances are available but this requires significant investment in technology and equipment.
• Once deterioration has begun the only way to halt it is to go home to Falcon and stay there for an extended period. Even this will not always reverse the process – even a short time outside Falcon’s unique environment can start a process that resists all attempts to halt it. Most inhabitants of the world choose not to leave. The population stays low due to the fact that even among people acclimatised to local conditions by many years of exposure may have children who are not, and whose bodies cannot survive the toxic environment long enough to learn to withstand it. To avoid this tragedy, the people of Falcon practice strict population control and provide what may be the most intensive system of pre-natal medical support in the sector.
• Falcon highport is a hollowed-out asteroid, crewed mainly by workers from other systems. There is an enclave of Falcon locals, who usually wear encounter suits to avoid contaminating visitors when interacting with them. Small doses of Falcon’s unusual contaminants are unlikely to cause any harm, but it might affect offworld trade if anyone were to be made ill by a visit. Since offworlders almost never visit Falcon itself and its people rarely leave, the highport is widely considered to effectively be Falcon. Indeed, some databases claim that Falcon is ‘a hollowed-out asteroid’ and make no mention of the inviting but deadly planet it orbits.
• The port is owned and operated by GeDeCo, which also maintains a local-operations administrative centre. This, among other functions, controls the operations of GeDeCo assets on neighbouring Sperle, which in turn more or less own the government. The misconception has arisen that Falcon maintains Sperle as a colony, whereas in fact the situation is that GeDeCo more or less controls Sperle from a location which is usually thought of as being Falcon.
• Falcon’s port sees a fair amount of in-cluster traffic, with a considerable amount of commerce going on in its auction halls. A portion of the revenue thus earned goes to the government of Falcon, but the lion’s share is taken by GeDeCo, which also provides for local-orbit defence and security on the station. GeDeCo’s personnel have no jurisdiction on-planet and never go there.