SOREN
Noble Ruler: None (Assembly of Barons)
Star Type (Recharge Time): K4V (195 hours)
Position in System: 2nd of 6
Time to Jump Point: 4.31 days
Number of Satellites: 1 (Gustav)
Surface Gravity: 0.96
Atm. Pressure: Standard (Breathable)
Equatorial Temperature: 30° C (Cool-Temperate)
Surface Water: 74 percent
Recharge Station: None
HPG Class Type: None
Highest Native Life: Reptilian
Population: 572,000,000
Socio-Industrial Levels:
Agricultural dependence: C
Materials dependence: C
Industrial output: B
Industrial development: B
Technological sophistication: B
Like most of the worlds of the Cavaretta Expanse, Soren was settled by a large group of ethno-preservationists – specifically, conservative German and Finnish Lutherans. Deliberate social engineering after their arrival resulted in a culture that prizes the Kinder-Kuche-Kirche strain of family values, industriousness, piety, and specifically renounces the excesses of ambition, avarice and materialism that ‘polluted’ their forebears’ lives and culture before their departure from Terra. While generally prosperous, Sorens are also extremely stiff-necked about the technological, ideological and moral ‘purity’ of their society, much less even the appearance of dependence on outsiders. This bloody-minded obstinacy has had some benefits since the Amaris Coup, as Soren did not have as much to lose from the League’s absence as other worlds and therefore did not suffer any major decreases in its level of technology or standards of living, but neither did it benefit from the use of those advanced technologies in the first place.
Reasonably industrialized, Soren produces most of the armaments needed by its Baronial militias, including the Käfer tank and its novel Light AC/5 (a weapon that should have been beyond the limits of Soren’s technology-base). However, despite these and the presence of the mercenary formation known as Christian’s Legion, whose TO&E includes BattleMechs, aerospace fighters, and several ‘surplus on loan’ combat DropShips, Soren’s defensive capability against any serious assault is considered unimpressive, owing to most Barons’ bias towards promoting officers who ‘don’t rock the boat’ and training that suffers from highly artificial conditions.
The planetary transport network is well-developed, if not as sophisticated as some others. Most major cities in the five Baronies spread across the planet’s two primary continents are connected by an extensive network of fission-engine railways; indigenous displacement-hull freighters and imported Cormorant-F WiGE transports routinely ply the oceans between those two continents. Similarly, most major cities have factory-sized fusion-reactors powering electric-tram networks so comprehensive that they obviate the need for most urban-dwellers to own cars; personal vehicles, almost exclusively derivatives of the ubiquitous GM EV-2338 electric-battery automobile, are not uncommon among the wealthier portions of society, but in accordance with Soren mores these are generally regarded as conveniences rather than status symbols. (The prominence of public transport in Soren cities has led to the common slur Tramgaffer (‘trolley-gawker’), indicating a yokel so provincial that he finds a simple tram a matter of slack-jawed wonderment.) In rural areas, the need to transport cargo and people long distances between farms, townships and rail-heads requires larger vehicles, mostly petrochemical-powered.
Soren’s eco-system is currently struggling to find a balance between the wild populations of several species of imported land-mammals, including Terran boar and deer introduced by the original colonists for food (and later for recreational hunting). Soren culture initially encouraged control through hunting; when this proved insufficient, Dalton neo-cougars and genetically-resurrected Terran bears were introduced in the late twenty-fifth century. Unrestricted hunting of all of these animals is open to all residents, though customarily one does not shoot more meat than one can eat in a season. Despite many visitors’ preference for hunting cougars to limit the ‘danger’ they present, on an annual basis Sorens in rural areas suffer three times as many fatalities and injuries from bear or boar attacks than they do from cougar attacks. (The primary reason for the emphasis on cougar-hunting is economic - cougars in outlying areas generally regard fenced pastures as well-stocked larders, leading many farmers in those areas to protect their livestock with patrols of armed outriders or to post bounties for cougars and their products.) Despite this somewhat unfair bias, the wild populations of both predator and prey species are thriving.
Unlike most other worlds and nations, Soren does not have a ‘decimal’ currency. Rather, the base unit of currency is the Goldmark (‘gold mark’, symbol ‘ℳ’, also known as the ‘Greif’ or ‘Griffin’ for the Soren totem-animal stamped on the reverse of 1-mark coins), divided into twenty silberschilling (‘silver shilling’/‘S’ or ‘Kreuzer’, for the coin’s cross) of twelve pfennig (pennies/‘₰’), stamped with a boar’s head). Unscrupulous or prejudiced merchants often use this atypical monetary arrangement to bilk unwary foreigners, as a punishment for sullying the ‘blue and pure’ Soren with their presence.
[Star League Mapping Agency synopsis, 2808 update.]
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Topic: Planetary Profile - Soren (Read 6096 times)