Salvation
System: Metatron
Sector: Hyperion
The second of six planets orbiting a yellow dwarf star much like the Sun, Salvation is the classic "garden planet." It has an atmosphere, gravity and temperatures almost identical to those of Old Earth. It is lush with native plant life and readily accepted flora brought by humanity, though it had little in the way of animal life (mostly restricted to its seas). The planet got its name from the fact that it made the Hyperion sector profitable and habitable, after a long stretch of finding worlds that were only marginally so.
Sadly, it is unclear how long Salvation will remain that way. It's population is exploding, development is unchecked, and its natural resources are being harvested as fast as they can be, all in support of the growing war economy of the Colonies of the Line. Virgin forest is being strip-mined faster than it can grow. Several river deltas, lakes and bays are already heavily polluted, and the Scions of the Tellus Mater have little influence over growth and development. With a growth rate of 6% per year due to both a high birth rate and low fatality rate, and immigration, the problem will only get worse over time.
Salvation was the first of the Fortress Worlds along the Terminus Line, and while it looks beautiful from a distances, up close one quickly realizes where it gets the title "fortress world." Almost all of its 150 million population (fully half of the population of the Hyperion Sector) live in several, heavily fortified cities. Each city is enclosed in massive walls, large enough on top for two Trebuchet to walk abreast. Each city also has several batteries of planetary defense cannons. Barrages from these cannons would wreak horrendous carnage on an invading force, and many of the Inquisition's military tacticians believe one of the goals of the mysterious forces from the other side of the Terminus Line (referred to as The Corruption, or The Enemy by the people of the Colonies of the Line) is to disable these defense systems from the ground. They believe that is why they encounter individuals who are possessed or corrupted by evil and why it seems someone is trying to get human crews who have been altered in mysterious and disturbing ways back across the Terminus Line into human space.
Of course, disabling the ground batteries is only a part of the defense system that earns Salvation the title of Fortress World. It is covered with strategic military bases, hidden interplanetary missile silos and has a full dozen Cerberus Mobile Defense Platform space stations in orbit, with six around the planet and another six strategically placed throughout the system.
One of the side effects of all these defensive measures is that Salvation is one of the safest shipping ports within several parsecs. No pirate with a lick of common sense would try something in the Metatron system, or in any system nearby. And the Inquisition provides its own trading vessels with heavy escorts, sometimes all the way to their destinations. This has led to a boom in trade, particularly with Leo Sector and the Free Colonies. There have even been some Xintrin traders to the region. This has led to attempts by independent traders and shipping companies to establish a trade route from The Xintrin Merchant Guild, through the Free Colonies, particularly through Hephaestus, all the way to Salvation. Due to the fact that this route would skirt the Terminus Line and the scarcity of colonies along that corridor, establishing a regular route has become difficult.
Salvation is the cultural heart of the Colonies of the Line, and the center of power for the Inquisition. Its people are devoted to The Cause (the defense of humanity from evil) and have turned their defense of the humanity's flank from forces beyond the Terminus Line into a new religion. They believe that they are chosen to fight in the Great War to Come, and that humanity must be kept pure and uncorrupted in order to win such a war. They have accepted, whole-heartedly, the concepts of magic and supernatural evil.
They are fairly xenophobic, rarely accepting of any aliens, even those friendly to humanity. At most the Xintrin are tolerated. Only the Nix earn some small measure of respect, because of their known history of combating evil and their acceptance of magic and the supernatural. Even the fact that they can somehow breed with humans plays in their favor in the Colonies of the Line. However, they are not trusted to have humanity's interests at heart.
Interestingly, despite their religious zealotry, they are not a puritan people in the classic sense. Unlike many religious enclaves, there is no focus on chastity or a life free of sin. But it must be a life free of Corruption. The Corruption appears to be some sort of techno-organic virus associated with some Deep Time Artifacts. However, the population is also warned that Corruption comes in the form of alien, inhuman influences. That can be a Rhtharian trader or a Deep Time Artifact. They must not weaken the defenses of the colonies through crime or excessive vice that would eat up important resources, and they are expected to perform no less than five years of service, either in the military or laboring in the military industrial complex; building new starships, mining raw materials or constructing new planetary fortifications. There is enough need for this kind of work that unemployment is almost unheard of.
If an invasion ever actually does occur, an enemy will find Salvation at the heart of the defense of the Colonies of the Line. An actual invasion would be met by a ready and determined population, all who have undergone basic training (any character claiming to be from the colonies of the line must have Hand to Hand: Basic, Energy Rifle and Running, they do not get these for free, they must be either part of the O.C.C., or chosen as Other or Secondary skills). Every adult over the age of 16 must have one set of body armor, one energy rifle, and at least four energy clips. They also have a designated job in case of an emergency and go to drills at least three days every month.
They live in a veritable police state, with privacy laws virtually unheard of and freedoms highly curtailed for the good of planetary security.
It can be hard for outsiders to believe that the Colonies of the Line have never actually been directly invaded, and the vast majority of its people have never seen combat.
Population: 150 million, plus another 2 million visitors at any time
Controlling Clan: Ares-Draconis and Hannu
Diameter: 8,125 miles (13,076 km)
Atmosphere: Virtually identical to Old Earth. Slightly higher oxygen.
Gravity: 1 G
Calendar: 341 days in a year, 26 hours in a day.
Satellites: No natural moons, but there are always six Cerberus Defense Platform satellite stations in orbit, six York-Class Shipyards, and three space stations dedicated to trade and customs. There is also one Sky City, for the planet's most rich and powerful (usually higher ups in the Inquisition and corporate liaisons.
Defense Assets: One of the most well-defended planets in known space, with a large portion of the Inquisition Fleet present at any given time, a dedicated force of corvettes, frigates and escort carriers that make up the planet's customs patrol fleet (separate from the Inquisition) and a significant portion of the Inquisition's ground forces. Plus, Salvation has managed to maintain its own army, unlike the other Colonies of the Line, whose forces were completely absorbed by the Inquisition. There are 10 major cities on the planet, with populations ranging from 20 million (the capitol, Sanction) to 5 million. Each city has four to 20 planetary defense cannons. Each cannon has a range of 10,000 miles and does 6D6x1,000 M.D.C. with a single blast. Each cannon can fire once per melee and has 20,000 M.D.C.
