Chhaya System

The Chhaya system contains a total of seven planets, though only two of the planets are deemed permanently habitable. The most important planet in the system is Actoris, where the Chhayan Congressional Republic capital is located. The other planet of note is Immerweiss, an icy planet at the outer edge of the habitable zone of Chhaya with a smaller population of mainly miners. The entire system has disproportionately large deposits of both platinum and Helium-4, making it a profitable system for mining raw resources.

 Chhaya* 

Chhaya* is a Class M red giant star nearing the end of its stellar life with a radius of approximately 0.8 AU. It frequently throws off clouds of plasma as it begins to shed its outer layers, so the inner parts of its system are highly dangerous for ships with all but the most advanced shielding. It is expected that in a few million years, Chhaya* will begin to ramp up shedding of its outer layers as it becomes a white dwarf and render the entire system essentially uninhabitable.

 Wustenei 

Wusteni (German for "wasteland/desert)" is a small, rocky planet orbiting roughly 0.3 AU from the surface of Chhaya*. The planet experiences immense tidal forces being that close to Chhaya* and as such, nearly its entire day side is anticipated to be molten. No probe has ever been able to get close enough to observe the planet's surface in detail, but the glow of the molten rock can be easily seen through all but the most rudimentary of telescopes when the planet is positioned correctly. Occasionally, large cloudlike features can be observed in the sunset region, which appear to be storms of vaporized silicon dioxide and iron that precipitate as a rain of literal rocks on the night side.

 Graustein 

Graustein (German for "grey rock") is the second most inner planet of the Chhaya system, orbiting 1.2 AU from the surface of Chhaya*. Syrvey teams have been able to land on the night side of the planet, but a permanent mining operation has so far been deemed unprofitable due to the massive amount of electromagnetic shielding that would be needed to protect any outposts during the daytime. Teams have been able to find evidence of flowing water and plant life fossilized in samples returned from the desolate world, but any atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere that the world once had has been stripped away by the constant bombardment of charged particles from Chhaya*.

 Actoris 

The third planet from Chhaya* and orbits rougly 2.3 AU from the surface of the star. It is the most habitable and therefore populated of the Chhaya system. It sits just outside of the center of the habitable zone so most of the landmass is cold, but habitable. Its poles get cold enough in the wintertime for CO2 ice to form atop the ice sheets and sea ice, but this tends to thaw in the summertime. Locations near the equator are warmer with native plants intermingled with imported deciduous trees. Midlatitudes have harsh winters and moderately warm summers, and are populated mainly by coniferous trees imported from Earth long ago. It is thought that Actoris has only been habitable for 1 billion years or so as Chhaya* began to expand and heat up. The city of New Berlin sits near the equator and serves as the capital of the Chhayan Congressional Republic.

 Immerweiss 

Immerweiss (Germman for "forever white") is a mostly frozen planet with a thin band of liquid water at its equator orbiting nearly 3.0 AU from Chhaya*. 80% of the planets surface has been deemed uninhabitable, but a vast ocean under the ice has proven to be the best access to the minerals in the rocky mantle of the planet. A singular small continent exists near the equator and is the the location of the main settlement, New Dusseldorf. A large port in the city serves as both the R&R for the miners on break and the main spaceport for the transfer of material and bodies for AMTEK to continue their mining operation. There are no known native flora or fauna, though many species of earth-imported conifers occupy undeveloped areas of New Dusseldorf. Rumors of a large cephalopod-esque creature that occupies the deep trenches near the hydrothermal vents have been dismissed by AMTEK, but the miners regard the theoretical entity as some sort of minor deity.

The icy world has proved very profitable for the AMTEK mining company that legally owns the entire planet. The worker's union would beg to differ, claiming that AMTEK has been a puppet corporation for the CCR for hundreds of years. A rebellion that started on Immerweiss has spread to the entire system, though the front line has been pushed back to the mountains surrounding the main AMTEK mine, though efforts by the CCR to starve the miners out has so far proved unsuccessful. The miners have elected Ambrose Dawes as their leader, a man of the people who claims to want only for the miners to be allowed a fair share of the profits of the mine, but both AMTEK and the CCR have identified him as a terrorist who only seeks to break the chains of authority. The miners refer to the conflict as the Second Chhayan Civil War, but the CCR refers to it as the Dawes Rebellion

 The Ring 

The Ring is the remnants of a very large gas giant that was destroyed in the first Chhayan Civil War. The gas in the ring glows brightly as charged particles from the frequent solar flares from Chhaya* pass through it. The CCR maintains that the Fifth Reich destroyed the planet in a terrorist act against the system, but there are rumors that the CCR destroyed the planet to silence the leaders of the movement. Whoever is to blame, the destruction of the planet signaled the end of the Fifth Reich and cemented the CCR as the dominant power of the system. The three rocky moons of the doomed gas giant still orbit in and out of the ring, though the constant bombardment of dust and rocks is assumed to render the rogue moons completely uninhabitable. Occasionally, the moons throw large chunks of the core of the gas giant into the inner or outer system that can prove hazardous to ships or the two main planets. The Ring is the first visible feature of the system (besides Chhaya*) as a ship approaches.

 Siegfried 

Siegfried is an iceball planet orbiting 8.8 AU from Chhaya*. The surface of Siegfried is completely covered in a mixture of water and CO2 ice. There are places where ancient hydrothermal activity may have resurfaced parts of the planet, but the surface has been relatively unchanged for a billion years or maore, save for meteorite impacts. It is possible that a liquid ocean remains far theneath the ice, but so far attempts to reach below the icy shell have been unsuccessful.

 Poseidon 

Poseidon is a large gas planet orbiting 17 AU from Chhaya*. The planet's deep blue color is due to its large hydrogen content, though the winds in the atmosphere make harvesting the hydrogen difficult. Poseidon has several small moons and one large one, Aimee. Aimee is mainly water ice, though as it orbits behind Poseidon, its thin nitrogen atmosphere frosts over parts of its surface.

 Artemis 

Artemis orbits 27 AU from Chhaya*. It is thought to be an amalgamation of several comets and it may not even have a rocky core. Artemis' surface is covered completely by various ices, mostly water and methane. There is also a not insignificant reservoir of nitrogen ice just beneath the surface that occasionally bursts forth in cryovolcanic eruptions on the daytime side.