Penelope (world)

Penelope/Five Sisters (Spinward Marches 0533)
Classic Era (1116)	C560642-4 Starport C Routine: No Construction, Major Repair, Unrefined fuel Size 5 Medium (8,000 km, 0.40g - 0.57g) Atmosphere 6 Standard Hydrographics 0 Desert World 0% Population 6 Moderate (3 million) Government 4 Representative Democracy Law 2 Low Law (no energy weapons) Tech Level 4 Industrial (combustion)
New Era (1200)	C460642-8 Starport C Routine: No Construction, Major Repair, Unrefined fuel Size 4 Small (6,400 km, 0.32g - 0.46g) Atmosphere 6 Standard Hydrographics 0 Desert World 0% Population 6 Moderate (3 million) Government 4 Representative Democracy Law 2 Low Law (no energy weapons) Tech Level 8 Pre-Stellar (superconductors)
See also	UWP
System Details
Primary	F6 V M2 V
Planetoid Belts	2
Gas Giants	3

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Penelope is a high-population world with a billion or more sophonts in population size.

• It is a member of the Third Imperium in the Five Sisters Subsector of Spinward Marches Sector in the Domain of Deneb.
• The system lies on the Sisters' Reach section of the Spinward Main.

Description (Planetology)

No information yet available.

History & Background (Dossier)

A rich, non-industrial desert world located in the Five Sisters Subsector of the Spinward Marches.

• Penelope is a member of the Imperium.

Mileu: New Era

Non-canon: A pleasant desert world located in the middle of the subsector. It had the unlikely role, in the last years before the Civil War of being the downfall for the Imperial Ministry of Colonization.

At the same time that the MoCol was initiating the Jonkeereen project, it was researching desert world terra-forming methods in a parallel project. Penelope became one of several worlds, scattered around the Imperium, that were settled as "testbeds" for these methods. Previously unsettled, a colony of researchers and pioneers was established after the Third Frontier War to test the MoCol's terra-formation protocols.

As MoCol began to develop excessive zeal and hubris in the 1000s, the project began to take on grandiose dimensions. The research had produced limited but promising results, and project managers began to expand their efforts from simple research projects into application of it towards real terra-formation. A number of testbed worlds were converted into full terra-formation projects, and of these Penelope was the most hyped and fully funded.

MoCol is estimated to have poured trillions of credits of the taxpayers money into these mega-engineering projects, despite objections from their own scientific staffs, the IISS and the Ministry of Science over their scale, cost, dubious methods and feasibility. Many projects bogged down in bureaucratic stonewalling and inter-agency disputes.

But Penelope had the benefit of its remote location and the support of the local nobility to keep it going. Under MoCol supervision from its offices on Iderati, the world was bombarded with redirected cometary debris. Vaporaters extracted subterranean water and expelled it into the atmosphere. Massive "groomers" altered the world's albedo to reflect more sunlight. A sulfide haze was created to further cool the world surface. Plant life was introduced around reservoirs to provide shading. And an extensive underground network of cisterns and canals were constructed, criss-crossing the world. There was even talk of using Meson Guns to heat the world's interior to induce volcanism, thereby bringing more moisture to the surface.

In the end, after nearly a century of work, the Penelope had yet to create a single natural body of water, and the planet was scarred by worthless construction projects and their debris. Disgusted with MoCol, the First Regent terminated the program in 1134. Citing Penelope as clear evidence of the Ministry's ineptitude and superfluousness, Norris sacked it, merging its personnel with the Ministry of Conservation in 1136 to form the Ministry of Interior.

With the termination of the project, Penelope's population was suddenly unemployed, but were buoyed up by development money released from the appropriation funds for the project. Ironically enough, the world's emergence into an integrated member of the Regency was overseen by chastened former project managers now working for MoI.

The local economy is now self-reliant thanks to dry agriculture methods and mining of its under-developed mineral resources. To aid in the world's development, Jonkereen were permitted to settle the world in the 1140s and now make up 12 percent of the population.

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.

• Classic Traveller The Spinward Marches Campaign
• GURPS Traveller: Behind the Claw
• External Link: BARD OPAL 9517 – Peter Gray