Bellerophon (SR 1519) (world)
{{WorldS|Bellerophon|Solomani Rim|0709 A88A986-E)
Bellerophon is one of four worlds in the Vegan Autonomous District with an almost completely human population. Vegans find Bellerophon's gravity excessive and are rarely encoutered on the world.
Bellerophon is a water world; except for a few islands and for reef-flats exposed only at low tide, the entire surface is covered by water. Nonetheless, the world supports a thiriving population of over two billion people; most are concentrated in magnificent pylon cities which rise from the ocean shallows, thrusting two and sometimes three or more kilometers into the sky. Sea-bottom complexes and free-folating raft-cities are also present, and there is a considerable population — numbering in the tens of millions — of so-called "sea nomads" living aboard large ship-cities which follow herds of marine creatures that provide them with a livelyhood.
The planet has a pleasant climate, ranging from tropical at the equator to cool at the poles, but the vast ocean serves to moderate climatic extremes. There are periodic seasonal coriolis storms — called yaz yugiyor locally — which can grow to awesome dimesions as the cross thousands of kilometers of unbroken sea, but these are dangerous only to small boats and aircraft which venture too far inhabited regions, into places where weather satellite predictions are not available.
Pegasus Starport is a class A facility built into and across one of the few permanent islands on the planet. This island, landing site for the world's original settlers thousands of years ago, has long since vanished under the office skyscrapers, administrative centers, dockyards, landing bays, warehouses, and maintenance complexes that make up the starport. Regular gravitic shuttles run from the port to all of Bellerophon's major pylon cities; the nearest city is also one of the largest — Phocaea, a 3 km-tall city complex located 375 kilometers south of Pegasus.
Anteia, Bellerophon's single large, close mooon, cause daily high tides of between 20 and 30 meters. While fusion power is cheam and in common use everywhere, many of the pylon cities still make use of tital power generators, anachronistic holdovers from Bellerophon's earliest days.
History
Bellerophon was orignally established as a naval base of the Terran Confederation during the Interstellar Wars. Civilian settlers were brought in to help support the base, saving the navy the expense of shipping in food and raw materials. The majority of the settlers were "voluntary colonists" from the politically troubled Eastern Adgean region of Terra. A government subsidized colonization program brought several waves of immigrants of Greek and Turkish background to the world, where they spread to the scattered islands and becan to establish themselves as fishermen; the first of the nomadic sea communities began around this date, ranging the oceans in the wake of Bellerophon's enormous marine grazers, the daghadasi.
The fleets eventually moved on, and the abse on Anteia was abandoned, but seawater metal-relamation processors provided the economic basis for the first pylon cities and for properity.
Like most worlds, Bellerophon suffered somewhat during the Long Night, but its economic attachment to the Vegan Polity allowed the world to maintain advanced technology. During this period, many Vegan customs were adopted by the pylon cities; the Vegan idea of extreme cultural pluralism helped to insulate Bellerophon's societies from change, and its many cultures have remained remarkably stable through most of the world's history.
The rise of the Third Imperium and the period of Solomani rule made little difference except at the high levels of government. After the Solomani Rim War, Bellerophon's ties with the Vegan worlds made its inclusion into the Vegan Autonomous District natural. Again, only the planetary government changed: the Vegan civil service was substituted for the previous Solomani Party bureaucracy.
Government
Bellerophon's capital is Korinthea, one of a cluster of pylon cities built along the Isandros Shallows south of Pegasus Starport. Most of the Vegans on Bellerophon have their offices and homes here, in the upper, gravitic compensated floors of the tower; most members of the Vegan civil service on the world, however, are human, including all members of the constabulary. Detachments of the constabulary at Korinthea and Pegasus starport are the only major military forces on the planet.
In most respects, Bellerophon is self-governing; the civil service defines each city as a separate tuhuir (the unit of Vegan society), and the internal affairs of tuhuir are their own concern. Customs, trade, and commerce restrictions are loose, but laws are well enforced. In the pylon cities, weaponry is discouraged. Special permits allow the use of weaponry up to the level of military lasers and various heavy support weapons by groups with a specific need for such arsenals; permit holders include the various sean nomads and Seaharvester, as both groups require spohisticated weaponry to practice their trades. Permits are extremely hard to obtain.
- Source: Adventure 9: Nomads of the World Ocean
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