Harvest
System: Heath’s Star
Sector: Rimward Expansion Zone (a.k.a. The Free Colonies)
Harvest is an agricultural world that serves as a major food production center for the Free Colonies and parts of Terran Protectorate space. The planet has ideal growing conditions, a large amount of arable land, and takes well to different species of plant life. All of the major grain crops are grown here, as well as a variety of more exotic foods. Fruits and cattle are also in abundance, as well as fish. It is the least powerful of the Free Colonies politically, though if Harvest fell into disarray, it would adversely affect far more planets than anyone suspects.
The most remarkable aspect of Harvest is that it occasionally suffers from what scientists have called temporal or dimensional instability. Sometimes large swaths of the landscape will mysteriously seem to…well…become another world entirely. This phenomenon occurs most frequently during times of weather upheaval, such as storms or hurricanes, particularly on the southern hemisphere. Members of the alien species known as the Nix have visited the planet and say that it has a high amount of psychic energy, dispersed evenly across the entire surface. In some areas, this results in temporary dimensional shifting.
In effect, the entire planet works the same as being on a ley line, with rare instances of dimensional shifting and the occasional ley line storm. The only difference is that anyone dimensionally snatched from Harvest will return when the fabric of space and time snaps back into place, which it always seems to do. So no one is ever permanently rifted away. Occasionally, strange creatures are rifted in, but most are harmless, and the ones that are not can usually be dealt with easily by the local militia, which includes a few platoons of Trebuchet Combat Robots and Duelist power armors.
The planet is run by the Proletarans, and also has small populations from the Order of Voltaire and Clan Hedonis. It also has a large corporate presence which handles food distribution and much of the farming. Except for the planetary militia, there is little in the way of independent space defense assets.
The Scions of Tellus Mater run a large genetics facility here, on a restricted island, and the Nix have been allowed to build a research outpost to monitor the planet’s unique magical energy field. The Nix scientists and mages have noticed that some humans have aptitude for magic, and there are rumors that a very few have been trained, but those rumors are unsubstantiated and the Proletarans have a natural distrust for such things.
The capitol city, Bounty, has a population of just over two million people and is most notable for its massive space port (built to handle bulk food haulers), an agricultural institute run by the Order of Voltaire, and the Ripe Peach, a five star hotel and brothel two blocks long that also houses 10 different restaurants and some of the most….specialized…room service in Human space.
The planet lies almost in a direct line between Bifrost and New Tortuga, six light years from Bifrost.
Population: 15 million
Controlling Clan: Proletaran
Diameter: 10, 450 miles (16,817.6 kilometers)
Atmosphere:
Gravity: .95 G (terraformed, formerly 1.7)
Calendar: Harvest has a 19 hour day and a 294-day year.
Satellites: One rocky moon, Raiden, and Frontier-Class space station that coordinates space cargo traffic and is where many of the large cargo ships load up and refuel.
Defense Assets: Harvest hasn’t really had a problem with pirates,
raiders or anything else, so their defenses are light. They have four Ranger-class
defense corvettes in orbit and two wings of R-80 Starchasers on the ground. One
additional wing of fighters is located onboard the space station. The Guardsmen
always have a couple