OBT Forum

Ok, this has taken longer to get ready than expected, but here we go. the idea is a setting that can be slipped into any campaign, even canon. It's a single system, so its presence doesn't have much effect on canon (unless you really want it to. That's also possible  ) Much of it makes sense if you keep in mind that its designed for an AToW campaign I'm beginning. Basically a cloak & dagger campaign, the fun part is that none of the players are spooks, just simple mechwarriors. Add in a Ringworld style journey, and you get the idea 



A rare episode of sunny weather on Arda, as seen from orbit.

Arda
----------------------------
diameter: 25,503 km
mass: 6.16 earth masses
density: 4.25g/cc
position in system:2
time to jump point: 10 days
gravity: 1.54G
surface area:
        water :(73.8%): 1,507,817,686 km²
        land  :(26.2%): 535,483,446.787 km² (3.5953 Terran norm)
period of rotation: 36 hours
axial tilt: 8%
Moons: 1 (Aman)
distance from primary: 1.42 AU
orbital period: 518.655 days
insolation: 0.56 Terran norm
atmosphere:
   surface pressure:2634 millibars (2.6 atm)
         nitrogen:54.7% 1348.798mb
         helium:16% 421.44mb
         argon:12% 316.08 mb
         neon:10.5% 276.57 mb
         oxygen:7% 184.19mb (88% terran norm)
         other:3.3% 86.922mb



Terra, in scale with Arda.

Background:
The world known as Arda is a rocky, terrestrial world of massive proportions. There is little that would be considered normal by terran standards. With a diameter of 25,503 km it is double the size of Terra and a bit over six times its mass. Despite having a little over seventy percent of its surface covered with water the remaining land area is still more than three and a half times that of old Terra, and is divided into a main supercontinent and some islands. The center of attention is the main continent which occupies more than eighty percent of all land on the world. Just to give an idea of the scale, this single landmass has as much area as all of the land on Terra 2.8 times over. Despite the gigantic proportions Arda is rather lightly built; a density of 4.25g/cc (notably less than Terra's 5.5g/cc) results in a surface gravity of 1.54G. Unpleasant, but liveable. It is the second planet in the system: a Mercury-like ball of iron and rock lies roasting at .55AU from the primary, while an imposing asteroid field that strecthes nearly 20AU across begins at roughly 5AU and effectively shields the system from most direct observation by blocking all escaping light except IR. Named the Chaldean Fields, the mineral-rich asteroid belt is all that remains of the original planets that Arda's arrival destroyed. 

Situated at 1.42AU from a G1V star that is slightly larger, slightly brighter than Sol Arda only recieves 56% of the insolation that Terra gets. However, the world's thick, soupy atmosphere is over two and a half times as thick as Terra's and has a stronger greenhouse effect due to greater concentrations of CO², water vapor and less oxygen (about 88% Terran norm at sea level). Added to this is a languid planetary rotation that gives Arda 36 hour days, increasing the daily insolation; the practical upshot is that Arda is about 8°C warmer than Terra on average. Once again, unpleasant, but liveable. The higher level of water vapor in the atmosphere, combined with the longer days and a mere eight degrees of axial tilt, results in a climate that is positively teeming with life; tropical jungles extend almost to the 40° latitude. This is highlighted by the thick, moisture-laden atmosphere's refractive properties, which extend dawn and dusk sufficiently to effectively give the world twenty hours of daylight. Most of the land, due to the immense scales, consists of endless savannahs and jungles; even far from the coast the moist air means there are no true deserts on Arda. From space even the arid regions are a lush green, making the world a deeply emerald orb floating in the void.

Arda's sub-terran density is a result of a smallish core and higher proportion of silicates than iron. The lightly built giant of a world disappointed the initial survey team by being relatively resource-poor compared to other newly discovered worlds- apart from the truly gargantuan reserves of usable water. The lighter composistion of the world means that the tectonic activity, while somewhat higher than terra due to a proportionally thinner lithosphere, has pushed entire landmasses upward; there are whole regions thrust into the sky. The higher gravity of Arda causes the atmosphere to hug the surface closely, which leaves plateaus high enough to boast permanent ice and snow even near the equator. The north and south poles themselves reflect the small axial tilt with frozen plateaus, and the lack of real seasons only serves to accentuate the churning, tempestuous weather that lashes the primordial land. Likewise, the hemispheres-spanning world ocean has, at the minimum, taught the newly arrived humans a healthy respect for the sea by way of incredibly vicious storms that crash into coastal settlements. The world's burdensome gravity means that even raindrops from a simple rain become a torture session.

History.
Arda is incredibly old, older than the Galaxy itself. The world is approximately 12.7 billion years old, or nearly three times the age of the Sol system. If the rocks could talk, they'd tell a story of tragedy, destruction, and rebirth.

Long ago, when the universe was still young, Arda came into being. At that tender age the universe still had produced very few planets, much less ones capable of supporting life. Nevertheless, it happened and Arda passed the first four billion or so years uneventfully in one of the outlying globular clusters, gradually moving to the outlying regions of what would eventually become the galaxy.

Tragedy struck Arda as the system crossed paths with another solar system. This new star was bigger and possessed a strong enough gravity well to strip the old sun of its worlds. One was pulverised by collision with the new star's outer world, and resulted in the creation of the Chaldean Fields. Arda survived this celestial kidnapping, and settled into orbit. In the process Arda herself hijacked one of the inner worlds, ripping the planet from its orbit and settling it as Arda's moon. Naturally, this had a catastrophic effect on the biosphere of both worlds, but life survived in the black depths of the world ocean. Over the proceeding billions of years life has not only bloomed once more across the surface, it has gone in totally new directions. For reasons that no one has been able to explain, organisms have not followed a linear evolutionary path. Land-based life has nominally reached the level of insects and amphibians, but possesses several characteristics of reptiles and even birds. Plant life on land shows a truly impressive diversity, some of which is to the detriment of the human invaders. Most indigenous life on Arda is carnivorous, even among the plants.
Fast-foward nearly eight billion years. It is now the late twenty-third century, and life on Terra is such that people are leaving in droves; some willingly, others at gunpoint. Arda had been surveyed by 2125 and the Terran Alliance established a scientific outpost in 2128. One of the members of the first survey team, a literary fanatic, named the world and its satelite Arda and Aman, a reference to the works of a twentieth century author. The scientists on the ground were less interested in literary references and used a different naming scheme for mapping the land.

Initially, the colony existed expressly for studying the alien world. After a century of existence however, the political turmoil between Liberals and Expansionists meant that even Arda, with its habitable yet unwelcome bio-sphere, was preferable to remaining on Terra. The multinational conglomerates felt this turmoil as keenly as the citizenry, and set into motion plans to move operations to the world. Employees were carefully screened so that only those physically suited to the world were allowed to immigrate to Arda. While a lemon of a world for miners, the planet was a pharmaceutical paradise, to say nothing of its potential for acquacultural concerns. In the aftermath of the Outer Reaches Rebellion in 2236 the corporations saw Terra's offworld possessions turned into a dumping ground by an embittered Alliance government for political undesirables. Countless thousands found themselves with a one-way ticket to worlds they were woefully unprepared for, and few survived the experience. The new Hegemony government took this program of systematic extirpation to new heights with Micheal Cameron's desire to root out any and all traces of the old nationalism that plagued the Terran Alliance.

Director-General Micheal Cameron saw Arda as a part of his plans to erase the final vestiges of the old nationalism that had plagued the Terran Alliance. While the old USA nation-state's role has been covered elsewhere, another deep pocket of resistance was found on the european continent. Many on that densely packed landmass did not take kindly to the loss of prestige and status that cities such as Brussels had enjoyed. Through creative use of eminent domain and fait accompli, Director-General Cameron "persuaded" a significant percentage, millions in all, of citizens from Portugal and the low countries to start a new life on Arda (although many clamored for it at the time, there were few if any greeks or italians among the first groups to be sent to Arda). Naming the settlement region after their former home, the Benelux region seemed strikingly similar to its terran namesake- as long as one ignored the yearlong summer climate- while the Portuguese immediately went to work on converting large region of the endless tracts of land into an economic powerhouse based on cash crops, much like their ancestors had done in Brazil centuries before.

From the outset, the initial colony site of the Benelux region came to dominate Ardan economic and cultural life. While very similar to the similarly named region on old terra, it is considerably larger, being slghtly larger than the entire european continent. The first colonists immediately set about recreating their lifestyle and culture that they had back on their homeworld. Even today, after more than a milennium of spaceflight, Ardans live in a way that has changed surprisingly little from pre-spaceflight days, and the lords of the Benelux are easily the single most powerful faction on Arda.

Life on Arda runs in languid harmony with the indigenous life, influenced by the heavy gravity and the soupy, sultry atmosphere. The ancient world and its equally ancient biodiversity in many ways swallowed whole the terran lifeforms transplanted there; nowhere is this more evident in the nigh-endless Godam Fields. As on old terra before, the Portuguese settlers quickly saw the potential for agriculture, being not the least bit intimidated by minor details such as literally man-eating flora and fungus that could actually feed on electronic circuitry (there is no historical evidence that the name for the region came from the colonists' frustration with the land), and forged a mercantile empire that would last well into the Star League era. Life in the Godam Fields, as well as in the Benelux, centers on the massive waterway named the Via Dutra. This enormous river is nearly a hundred kilometers across for most of its length, and flows for more than seven thousand kilometers, more than any terran river. Starting in the frozen mountains and ultimately emptying in the Solymar lake, the river has served from the beginning as a super highway for goods of all kinds between the various regions. This is surrounded by vast plantations that extend for for thousands of kilometers of hybrid crops: many of the terran plants adapted to the ardan ecology by producing strains not seen elsewhere, something the canny ardans were quick to capitalize on. Although the world was known- and infamous- as an exclusive preserve of the Hegemony's ultra-rich and elite, Arda possessed formidable economic clout due to its agro- and aqua-cultural and pharmaceutical exports. 



Ever since the beginning, the Benelux region has dominated Arda society

I'll post the rest as time permits (and it's never been very permissive with me  )

Next post: Amaris, zombies, and the mines of Moria!