Persephone : World Description ------------------------------ Persephone has always been noted as just a whistle-stop on the Strouden - Glisten xboat route. Most traders, pre-Collapse and today, have not even bothered to land on Persephone itself. Instead, they merely refulled at the the Gas Giant Demeter (diameter: 84,329 km), which Persephone orbits around. A flotilla of ships and small space stations, greeting the local traveller near Demeter's northern polar regions, glistens like red stars against the planetary tempests below. This flotilla serves a vital purpose for local traffic: providing fuel (both refined and unrefined) and basic repair services, which the small, TL A local starport cannot provide. The flotilla is a transient affair, growing larger as more traffic passes through Persephone, fading away as traffic weakens. There is no organization in the flotilla: each and every ship is a law onto itself. There are a few common characteristics shared by nearly all of the thousand or so ships and stations: they are all registered with nearby Strouden (Lunion: Spinward Marches/2327 A745988-D), never set foot on Persephone itself, and have a running vendetta against the local Persephone System Guard regarding taxes and tarrifs. Although hostilities between the Guard and the flotilla rarely break out into violence, there is a near continual game of hide and seek between them. The Guard strives to record every major transaction while the flotilla conspires to hide "the Big Stuff" from the Guard and their ugly taxes. Approaching Persephone the casual traveller can easily make out the Dam Aspshii, a major sea covering 1/3 of the surface area of Persephone. This circular sea is widely believed to have been the result of either a massive impact crater or the work of the local Keo Neseb civilization. While my scout ship - the R.S.S Aurora - did not dock at the high port, we did take a pass. The port seems to be nothing but a long communication antenna, with a stub at the end for insystem shuttles and living space. The small size of Persephone Lowport - it can hold the grand total of 1,600 Tdisp worth of craft, total - is fabled thoughout the subsector. I counted at least 47 craft on my sensors waiting to land. According to legend, a messanger with an Imperial Warrant, waiting to speak to the King himself, was left waiting in orbit for 52 hours as traffic untangled itself. One large merchant, which needed the ENTIRE starport to land, waited for an entire month until finally the port was freed for landing. The fact that the port can only repair ships to TL A does not endear it any more deeply to hard-pressed merchantmen. The current activist monarch, Queen Ashki, is laying plans to expand the starport drastically. Already construction has finally begun on a new starport just outside of the system capital of Ki Didimgamu, finally laying to rest the jokes of a "starport smaller than a Tirken's mouth". (especially since the Moran Tirken doesn't even _have_ a mouth, just a small, noticable pore.) My pilot waited two hours in orbit, but we finally landed at the Scout Way Station rather than the Lowport. The station administrator laughed at my troubles, and she promptly swamped me with tales of 'backyard landings' and 'running touchdowns', leaving me helpless with laughter. The next day, I took an air/raft to the Lowport. If you examine the Law Code closely, you'd realise that these is NO TRADE LAW on Persephone. This makes for cutthroat trading, indeed. This also makes Persephone The Source for all sorts of goodies you can't find anywhere else in the subsector. I recommend that only experienced traders visit Persephone's Giilumadgii Trade District, people who know what they're doing. The careful reader would have also noted that there are no crystals, ores, or metals that are mined on Persephone. This is because the old resources were mined out by a long-dead civilization called the Keo Neseb. An insectoid race, looking more like a giant praying mantis than anything else, they originated on Penkwar (Lunion: Spinward Marches/2128 X978000-0), a Red Zone world a parsec from Persephone. They seem to have reached their apex about eight million years ago, and most likely changed Persephone's and Harvosette's atmosphere to its current state. No one knows what has become of them, although a few archeological digs were made on Penkwar. Among the most important changes that has occurred on Persephone is a change of personality. For centuries, Persephonians were considered "Unagressive/Peaceable" rather than "Expansionistic/Nilitant". However, the old easygoing attitude disappeared due to the great (local) economic crash of 1179. The people, led by the young, aggressive Queen, have changed drastically, so don't trust the old starman tales or out-of-date guidebooks. Giilumadgii itself - the major startown on Persephone - is a rather pretty town of 72,000, set in the Aziramam Badlands, a heavily forested, cold region in the southern hemisphere of Persephone. The Persephonians themselves are rather distant from outworlders. While always polite, I have never seen one smile in my presence. Outside of Giilumadgii, children run from me and my crew, and adults only answer my questions EXACTLY, forcing me to dig to learn anything. It should be noted here that Galanglic is spoken only to foreigners. Among themselves, Vilani is the common tongue. My Tobian engineer, who speaks Vilani himself, claimes that Persephonian Vilani is strongly accented, but still can be understood: but the written language is something else entirely! Apparently, their elegant script, using glyphs and symbols to stand for particular ideas, is not related to written Vilani at all. This greatly surprised me: almost always, the spoken word changes but the written word remains highly stable. It certainly doesn't metamorph into something completely different. I fear that it would take years for a foreigner to master written "Persephonian". The locals name for their world is Mudemzalushush, but they call themselves Ushamai (as do their related folks at Harvosette (Lunion: Spinward Marches/2129 C330737-9)). Local cities are not domed archeologies as on most worlds with tainted atmospheres, but rather like a warren of long steel corridors, with houses and public spaces being dome "nodes" connected by one or two corridors. [Incidentally, the airborne taint - which takes about a day of exposure before convulsive vomiting begins, leading eventually to death by dehydration - is exactly the same as on Harvosette, only with greater concentration there.] The domes are always above ground: the corridors may be above or below ground. In private homes, the walls have engravings and are painted with bright abstract patterns. Some of the more traditional people still put up "wood" venners from the local flora. The more wealthy folk buy offworld holographic projectors. In the very few elite homes I was allowed to enter (exactly two: both actually owned by offworlders) the new fashion is to embed the walls with strips of black marble, with white or silver engravings on them. I feel that a brief summary of local history would not be amiss to the casual traveller, so here goes. The Persephonians first settled here during the 420's, as political/religious refugees from Corridor. Here, they created their society around Gekashiishaa (their political/economic ideology) and Nominolus (their religious beliefs). They prospered and 'kept balance' for centuries until the Second Civil War, when Glisten was lost to the wicked Aslan. The loss of Glisten slashed trade volume through Persephone, striking an economic blow to Persephone that slowly, inevitabily let to the Crisis of '79. Then, the newly coronated Queen saved her crown and Persephone independence from their creditors, at the cost of general living standards. Her expansionist policies have brought Persephone a new spirit of greatness and hope, but most people still have not recovered back to pre-Crash years. I eventually found myself in Kigiirpaku Limis, the major holy site on Persephone, and home to seven million priests, acloytes, confessors and attendant bureaucrats. Unlike most cities, Kigiirpaku is set in a arological bubble covering the entire city, allowing a freedom of movement hard to find in Persephone cities. An unfortunate side effect, though, is that local temperature control is poor (whether deliberate or not, I don't know), so the heat from the noonday sun realy cooks. The local faith - called "Naminalus", Vilani for Balancing - centres on a triune God, but composed of Time/Space/Energy rather than the Christian conception of Father/Son/Spirit. The goal of the Naminalii Kuk Kusili - a follower of Naminalus, or "Maintainer of the Balance" - is to maintain the Balance demanded by God, by keeping the forces of Time, Space and Energy in Balance throughout their life. By doing so, a form of immortality is granted to the believer, being merged with the "Universal Balance" that all life depends on. For a long time, the priests of Naminalus was concerned only with fellow believers on Persephone, Harvosette and Strouden. But now, as the old faith in Gekashiishaa fades away, the Queen - a strong believer - is urging the priesthood to spread the faith, to help restore Balance throughout the Regency, and eventually - especially - throughout the ex-Imperial Wilds. "Seekers" (Naminalusian mossionaries) are now being sent throughout the subsector, and are causing quite a bit of comment, both good and bad. Finally, I went to Ki Didimgamu, the capital of Persephone. An undersea city, set under Une Didimgamu (Lake Didimgamu), it houses 138 million people and is the largest city on Persephone. It is very much a Royal city, proud of it's Vilani heritage. Most prevalant here is the Digamu, the ruling elite of Persephone, and their entourange. One of the most surprising aspects here is the absolute ease that the richly dressed rulers move through the commoners, many without any bodyguards. As a lark, I sent a video message to the Palace, persenting myself as a Regency Scout asking for an interview. And not only was their a response, but the answer was yes! Well, a virtual interview, anyway. The contents of the interview are available elsewhere, but I can vouch for the fact that the Queen is quite a remarkable woman, with a strong 'presence' that is unmistakable. Among the more strangest sounds I have heard in my 24-year career as a scout was the Mortiousa Melody, often heard in the poorer quarters of the city. The best I can describe it is as a combination of Latin Chant and Cantonese Popsongs, with a fast samba beat. I have no idea how the poor folks sleep at night, it sounds so bad to my ears. Moreover, it is a tradition to never let the song die, but to pass it on from singer to singer.