This page has descriptions of some of the planets on which my stories are set. For a brief history of the Dominion itself, click here. Click on the thumbnails to see a larger image of the planet. Please note: some of the worlds depicted haven't actually been written about to any great degree. Yet.
And, to make it official, I'll state it here: this is an Open Universe. If you want to write a story in this setting, go right ahead. I only ask that a) you don't make any blatant changes to the universe as I've described it, and b) you send me a copy when you've finished it. If there's a point about this universe that you'd like me to explain further, please mail me and ask.
Notes on the Aliens:
The Parkry, the Akhaga, and the Ordinator (note: these pages form a more detailed history of the NoSaNoOs Dominion and why it came about).
I've also provided some brief notes on the Fexel, the Jherani, the Kaelen, Narish, the Maracites and the Tsialo.
| The Bythian Resource Complex | |
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Bythe Prime: A gas giant with five moons; Syndaine, Fer, Copperla, Parizz and Bythe. As far as we know, no-one actually lives on (or in the atmosphere of) Bythe Prime. It has been mined extensively for methane, helium and hydrocarbons which nobody could be bothered synthesising and is also used as a dumping ground for any waste which nobody could be bothered processing. There is a slowly accumulating pile of weird shit somewhere at the core; it is rumoured that the Moridani once seeded the planet with nanotech machines which are slowly gathering everything that’s being dumped there and making stuff out of it. |
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Syndaine: Very Earthlike; eighty-five percent of its land-mass is devoted to farming, and is criss-crossed by a network of railway lines; the trains are home to a race known as Railers (who are actually genetically-modified humans trying to hide from the NoSaNoOs). When the NoSanNoOs dominion collapsed, a group of Bythians seceded from what was left of the empire and held the planet against the regular forces. The Railers didn't come out of this arrangement very well. |
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Parizz: A tiny ( 220 km in diameter) moonlet, more of a large asteroid, really. Shortly after Bythe and Syndaine were terraformed and settled, it was melted down to a solid sphere by solar reflectors, allowed to cool, hollowed out and then filled with atmosphere; the inhabitants live inside it. It is a combination of recreation station and a port for crews moving between the other (accessible) worlds of the BRC. Newbies who have heard of Parizz say that people live "on" Parizz; newbies with half a clue say that people live "in" Parizz; people who actually work there (`Parizziennes’) say they live "at" Parizz. The outside has been painted a variety of bright colours in an attempt to resemble Bythe Prime. Its axis of rotation points directly at the sun (this photo is slanted at about 45 degrees); the top third of Parizz is made up of solar collectors. The place is run by a being known only as Paulamonster. No-one has ever met it or knows which species it is; it has been suggested that it is a Moridani, which is hardly likely. |
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Fer: No atmosphere to speak of, this moon contains more than the statistical average amount of iron – more than the asteroids in this system, even – and is given over to iron mining, using huge machines which are somewhere between very big dump-trucks and very small cities. Fer is where you're sent if you're bad; very few sentient beings actually want to live/work there. |
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Copperla: (the name was given to it by humans; the NoSaNoOs used to refer to it by the symbol for the metal) similar to Fer, except it features copper. It is a decidedly unhealthy place; it once had an Earthlike atmosphere which has since been ruined by centuries of cheap, polluting methods of copper mining and refining. The planet is riddled with mines and tunnels (even more so than Raummir :), has a severe greenhouse gas problem and bears a striking resemblance to hell. This is where you're sent if you were sent to Fer and were bad there. |
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Bythe: Similar to Syndaine in climate, but completely inaccessible to the outside world, almost as much as Raummir was. The Bythians live there; visiting Bythe would be like going on a holiday to the Death Star or Auschwitz. The few images that exist of Bythe have been taken with long-range equipment (understandably, the NoSaNoOs don’t feel that their Freedom of Information policies extend that far) and are rather blurry; it looks like it rains a lot there. From what we can see, there are large grid-like structures (far too wide to be roads) linking circular structures (again, far too large to be cities). "No fucking idea, your worship" as Mr. Heitman might say. |
| Other Worlds | |
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Moridan: The birthplace, around sixty thousand years ago, of the Moridani. As you can see, there is a rather large chunk missing from one side – an exit wound, a result of their losing the war with the NoSaNoOs – and the entry point is on the lower left. No-one knows exactly which weapon did this. This planet is uninhabited. The few humans who have seen it invariably remark "Pacman!" until they learn that this wasn’t a natural disaster. |
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Raummir: is home of the Maracites (a kind of Gothic cult). The outside is completely covered with mausoleums; the inside is a maze of labyrinths, based on the idea of The Labyrinth of Leviathan from Barker's Hellraiser films. |
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Tsi-Pinpoint: the Tsi system consists of one large sun, two earthlike planets (Tsialos and Tsifayos) and a rather large black hole all involved in one of those weird orbital dances. Pinpoint is the name of the black hole. |
All work on this site is © Nikolai Kingsley unless otherwise stated.