ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE: YVARIX (GGC-9432 II)

[Johnny1A.2]

ORICHALCUM UNIVERSE: YVARIX (GGC-9432 II)

The star Yvar (GGC-9432) is a K1 dwarf star, located about 115 light-years from Sol, in the same general direction as, and about 40 light-years beyond, the hyperplex HY1, the closest hyperplex to both Sol and Yvar. Yvar has a planetary system, made up of six major planets and a considerable number of asteroidal and cometary debris, and various minor planets.

YVAR SYSTEM:

PRIMARY:
Spectral Class K1
Age: 3.72 gigayears
Metalicity: 1.03 Sol

Major Planets:
YVAR I: Hot high-metal rockball, thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide, metallic vapors, sulfur compounds.
YVAR II (YVARIX): See Below
YVAR III: Small gas giant, sixteen minor satellites, one planet-sized moon.
YVAR IV: Large gas giant, thirty-eight minor satellites, three major moons. Accessible orichalcum exists on the sixth and seventh moons.
YVAR V: Large iceball, trace atmosphere, one minor moon.
YVAR VI: Small gas giant, nine minor satellites.

A modest asteroid belt exists between the fourth and fifth orbits. A more extensive belt of minor planets, asteroids and iceteroids orbits around and beyond the sixth orbit, comparable to the Solar 'Kuiper Belt'.

YVARIX (YVAR II):

(Pronounced Ei-var-ix)

DIAMETER: 12,754 kilometers
MASS: ~6*10^21 metric tons
AXIAL TILT: 21 degrees
SATELLITES: One large moon
ROTATION: 25 hours, seven minutes, 11 seconds
LENGTH OF YEAR: 290 Terran days
SURFACE GRAVITY: 9.73 meters/sec/sec
ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION: (nitrogen 77%, oxygen 22%, other 1%)
ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE: .99 bar at sea level
HYDROSPHERIC COVERAGE: 66%
SURFACE ICE: 35%
SURFACE TEMPERATURE at 30 degrees latitude: 30/45/60
CONTINENTS: 8


The second planet is a silicate-iron body similar to Earth in size and composition, and which was terraformed by the Familiar Eldren during the early Carboniferous Period. At that time, the Yvar System was on the far side of the galaxy from Sol, but stellar motions since then have brought the two stars relatively close in galactic terms.

During the period when the Familiar Eldren were resettling humanoid populations from prehistoric Earth to new worlds, several such groups were established on Yvarix. Yvarix was one of the mixed-species worlds, with populations of Homo sapiens established along with breeding populations of three other humanoid species.

Yvarix is very similar to Earth in size, gravity, composition, and surface environment, but some differences do exist. Local oxygen levels are just slightly higher than that of Earth. This is not sufficient to make much difference to Terrestrian visitors, though some people will find the local air invigorating. On the other hand, Yvaris is currently in the grip of a major glacial period, with over a third of the land surface covered in glacial ice.

Yvarx is an exception to a common pattern seen in the worlds where Homosapients were settled by the Familiar Eldren. As a general rule, on multi-species worlds, where a significant breeding population of Homo sapiens was present, they tended eventually to outbreed their cousins and dominate the planet, more often than not driving their competing kindred into extinction early on in the history of the world. Exceptions do exist, however, and Yvarx is one such.

Many reasons might play into this, but one likely factor is that the ongoing glacial period favored a species that was well-adapted to it. While the usual competitive advantage of the high fecundity of H. sapiens operated to make them the most numerous Homosapients on the planet, the second most populus species was Homo svarta.



MORE LATER.

[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

The Svarts, as a species, were and are relatively well-adapted to the cold environment to be found in the middle and high latitudes of Yvarix. While Humans spread across the two ice-free equatorial continents and came to dominate those areas of the other continents that were ice-free or nearly so, the Svarts thrived in the colder lands, and as both species increased in number trade and commerce became common as well.

The Svart tendency toward local-scale, small-scale social organization continued on Yvarix as on Earth, and as a result, as the millennia passed and both species advanced, the Humans, as was the Human wont, formed larger and larger, and ever-more-complicated, social arrangements. Tribes became city-states, city-states merged into empires, these rose and fell as they ever do, but the trend was always toward larger and more complex Human societies. Eventually, entire continents were spanned by Human states.

The Svarts, for their part, expanded in a different way. As their numbers grew, instead of vast singular states, they created ever more local states, trading with each other, sometimes fighting with each other, but always organized primarily at the local level (though they could certainly cooperate on a temporary basis at a larger scale).

As time passed, the large Human states developed armies and navies and had more than sufficient military power to conquer the Svart communities...in theory. The practice was slightly more complicated.

The Svart city-states were often underground, partially or entirely, and always heavily fortified. Direct attack to conquer one was sometimes possible, but always difficult and expensive in blood and treasure. A siege was more practical, but though such sieges could and sometimes did happen, they too tended to be more trouble and expensive than they were worth, the more so because a Svart city-state was rarely expansionist on its own anyway, and thus more useful as a trade partner than a subject people.

Eventually, as the millennia passed, a sort of symbiosis emerged. A Human empire might well encompass several Svart city-states (or other such local grouping) within its claimed territories. But the Svart city-states would be independent politically and socially of the surrounding human state, usually de jure and almost always de facto. This benefited both species.

The Human states gained the benefit of trade with the skilled miners and technologists of the Svarts (the myth of the 'dwarven technical skill' is based in reality). Svarts were far better miners than Humans at low and medium technology levels, and tended to be at the higher end of the local technology scale as well. Furthermore, the often-underground, always-fortified Svart cities could be safe storehouses for vital materials, equipment or other useful things. Having a strong and 'friendly' or at least civil Human realm surrounding them provided them with trade for food, raw materials they could not obtain locally, a market for their projects, and protection from rival Svarts and Humans as well. The Svarts could enable a Human realm to expand into the icy northern and southern latitudes and gain access to the resources there, as well.

Though the political details varied enormously on both sides of the species gap, this overall sort of arrangement emerged over and over on Yvarix. Often, even when a Human realm was conquered or collapsed, the subsequent Human state that replaced it would resume the same arrangements with the local Svart communities that had existed in the previous state. Svart city-states tended to be more stable and long-lasting, but here too, when change did occur they often retained the same relationship with the Human side.

The Svarts, who often interacted badly with their conspecifics, also gained by letting Humans act as intermediaries between their city-states, both within a Human realm and between Human realms. This enabled Svart states to trade and interact without direct contact, which greatly reduced their own rate of intraspecific warfare.

(A common Human joke on Yvarix, across millennia and many societies and languages and cultures, translates almost perfectly into English: 'What do you call a group of Svartish cities? A war.')

Many Human societies on Yvarix even had a special class or category of diplomats, who specialized in acting as go-betweens between the notoriously proud and touchy Svarts. It could be a difficult and challenging task, but often a very lucrative one.

MORE LATER.

[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

As centuries passed, the two dominant intelligent species of Yvarix found themselves eventually settling most of the useful land areas. These areas were far more limited than they otherwise would have been, because of the ongoing glacial expansion. Not only was Yvarix in a glacial period, but the planet was in the expanding stage of the cycle, the ice was still spreading steadily across the northern and southern continents.

Matters were made somewhat worse by the fact that of the eight major land masses of Yvarix, six of them were in the higher latitudes, and each of the poles hosted a polar continent smaller than, but otherwise somewhat analogous to, Antartica. Thus much of what would otherwise have been completely useful land was buried under hundreds of meters, or often more, of solid ice.

Here and there, ice free areas existed in the high latitudes, in places where 'snow shadows' existed, for example. [1]

These areas were still not necessarily welcoming, often being very cold and sometimes tundra, but they were of some use. The alliance (in general terms) between the two species enabled them to use areas neither could have used alone, as well.

Still, the useful areas remain distinctly finite, and as the populations gradually grew and their technology advanced, the squeez began to bite. Eventually, massive wars would be waged over the best lands.

By the time the technology of the Yvarixi (the term refers to both species) had achieved nuclear technology, and space flight, the planet was more or less politically unified already. This may have spared them from a fatal nuclear war over the best lands, and it also enabled them to begin expanding into space more readily than happened on many Homosapient worlds.

None of the other planets in the Yvar System were suitable for settlement, at least not in large numbers. On the other hand, it became technologically possible to construct ever larger habitats in space, drawing on the resources of the Yvar System and its ample asteroid and iceteroid belts. Eventually, enough of the habitation and industrial base of the Yvarix was off-planet to make the ongoing glaciation a secondary issue.

After about a century of space flight, the Yvarixi discovered the orichalcum deposits on the seven satellite of Yvar IV. The usual confusion, study, and eventual application of the unique properties of that substance followed, and the Yvarixi were travelling faster than light within fifty years of the discovery.

By this point the Yvarixi had reached the common technological plateau that tends to occur around 'TL10'. They had by now discovered useful worlds orbiting some of the nearby stars, including some living worlds that had been terraformed by the Familiar Eldren ages before, and which were fully suitable for exploitation and settlement. Such colonies did indeed get planted, and within another century, the Yvarixi were living on a dozen worlds, with smaller outposts and bases on many more.

(This was about 1700 AD Gregorian.)

In the normal course of events, the Yvarixi would likely have discovered Earth sometime in the late Eighteenth Century or early Nineteenth Century. Two things prevented this.

One was a nasty war that set some of their worlds against others, and which escalated to the point of mass destruction weaponry. Whole cities burned, entire continents were irradiated, the populations plunged. Space flight was not lost, but for many decades there was little impetus for exploation or expansion during the reconstruction period. An entire new government had come into being, and it had to get settled in as well.

The other factor was the HY1 hyperplex.

The Yvarixi had discovered the HY1 hyperplex long since, of course. It was only forty light-years from Yvar, after all, and once they developed instrumentation able to detect it, they began to study it. They understood it in theory for some time before they worked out how to use it. In fact, it was the arrival of an exploration vessel from elsewhere through the HY1 gate that allowed them to learn the secret.

This was their first contact with non-Yvarixi humanoids, and given the war they had just endured and the still-ongoing reconstruction, they were understandably paranoid. Still, war was avoided, and peaceful trade and commerce emerged.

By the last decades of the Nineteenth Century, the Yvarixi were in contact with several other Homosapient worlds beyond the gate, and this occupied most of their attention, which was part of why their ships had not reached Sol. They had encountered two other Homosapient civilizations close to their own star, and several more beyond the stargate. Trade and commerce were picking up, and the Yvarixi dual species society was in an optimistic state.

This came to a sudden crashing halt around what Terrestrials would call the 1880s. It would be difficult to say exactly when it happened, because time rates and simultaneity are tricky concepts over interstellar distances.

The time is slightly uncertain, the 'what' was the arrival, through the HY1 stargate, of the first ships of the Thak-Tarak Clan of the Thakarians.

MORE LATER.

*
[1] An analogous situation existed in western North America during the last glaxial maximum, a low-ice corridor east of what would eventually be the Canadian Rockies.

[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

It is to be remembered that any given hyperplex can connect to any of thousands of others across the Galaxy. These 'stargates' do not simply link to a specific destination, and that also means that any given hyperplex can be an arrival point for a traveler from far across the Galaxy (or the deep past, if they travel down a first-order hyperpath). [1]

As it happened, the Thakarians had been travelling the stars much longer than the Yvarixi, and the Thak-Tarak Clan was a particularly aggressive subset of an aggressive Human culture. They had a procedure for this sort of situation that they had worked out long since, and successfully used many times in the past.

The first Thak-Tarak scouts to arrive at the HY1 hyperplex discovered that this hyperplex was not 'fortified' in any way, nor did there happen to be any vessels nearby at that time. What followed was the arrival of heavily armed warcraft, who took up orbits around the hyperplex, and then construction ships and crews and raw materials who began constructing 'orbital fortresses' near the hyperplex. So proficient were the Thakarians at this that they were already well on their way to securing the hyperplex when the first 'local' ships planning to use the gateway approached.

These ships were seized and the crews imprisoned and interrogated. More ships were captured as they arrived in the space near the hyperplex. The few ships carrying sufficient weaponry to make capture problematic were simply destroyed to keep the secret of the Thakarian arrival.

Little of this was known on Yvarix, or any of the other local planets that made use of the HY1 hyperplex. It was no surprise that outgoing ships did not immediately return, after all, they were heading to HY1 precisely to use the gate to go elsewhere.

What did eventually attract notice was the absence of ships coming from the hyperplex, either earlier voyages returning or ships from worlds on the far side of the gate. The Thakarians were, after all, intercepting vessels both coming and going through the gate.

This absence had become noticeable enough, after the passage of six Terran weeks or so, that investigative missions were dispatched...and did not return.

When neither those vessels, nor any further ships from beyond the gate, appeared over the following months, major expeditions were mounted, and finally a ship returned to report that new arrivals had fortified the stargate, and were aggressively denying use of it to everyone.

What followed was warfare. The Yvarixi, and other races and species that made use of the HY1 gate, attempted repeatedly to break the blockade, with ever-larger attack forces. They succeeded in inflicting heavy damage on the Thakarians, but never in breaking the blockade. Further, the attacking forces suffered heavy losses themselves.

The Thakarians, after all, were long-experienced at this sort of thing, and were backed up by an immense resource base including over one thousand star systems (though the Thak-Tarak Clan did not have direct control of or access to all of those). The time and effort of bringing in reinforcements through the gate was a choke point, to be sure, but not enough of one to make up the difference. By the time the local worlds realized the magnitude of the problem and were massing really large armadas, the Thakarians had completed their huge orbital fortresses and were firmly entrenched.

The peoples of the local worlds, for their part, had never seriously even considered fortifying the HY1 hyperplex (or any others for that matter). There had been occasional proposals for cargo-handling or passenger-handling stations in orbit around HY1, but nothing more. The idea of fortifying something so far from home had seemed both pointless and prohibitively expensive, and now it was too late.

A stalemate emerged and held for a time. The Thakarian fortifications and fleet was sufficient to keep the local worlds from being able to use the gate, and to intercept anyone emerging from the gate as well. On the other hand, the local fleets could lay siege and prevent any Thakarian vessel from leaving the vicinity of the stargate as well. They could come and go through the gate at will, but at first they were contained in local space by the local powers.

The Thakarians still held the long-term upper hand, however. They had many worlds on the far side of the gate providing them with support, and more experience at this sort of space warfare than the Yvarixi or their allies. Eventually, the Thakarians started making serious efforts to break out, as new and ever-larger fleets arrived through the hyperplex from multiple systems across the galactic region.

The first three attempts at breakout were contained, though with steadily heavier losses by the Yvarixi and their allies. The resources of the locals were strained, because they were fighting a larger power and because their own resources were still recovering from their own internal wars. Thus it was more or less inevitable that the Thakarians would eventually break out, and they did so on their fourth attempt.

This fourth attempt involved over two hundred Thakarian ships, which arrived through the stargate by surprise in a mass attack, and which shattered the besieging fleets and gave the Thakarians full access to local space. The remains of the defeated fleets fell back toward their home star systems, as the Thakarians began to establish bases and settlements on worlds of local stars. The major worlds of local space were still too heavily defended for the Thakarians to successfully attack, but the Thakarians were more or less unchallenged in deep space at this point.

MORE LATER.


[1] For details about hyperplexes see here: https://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=187741

[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

The dominance of local space by the Thakarians left the people of Yvarix itself in a precarious situation. Yvarix had been the center of an association of both local colonies and colonies in star systems far across the Galaxy, through the medium of the hyperplexes. Now that access was cut off, the colony worlds, and other trade partners, beyond the hyperplex, were beyond reach or even communication. It would have required voyages of many decades to reach those worlds 'directly', without a hyperpath.

Contact and trade with allied worlds, and colonies, in local space was still possible, but the Thakarians were about as well, and often interfered with such travel and trade. At first, the Yvarixi feared a planetary siege that would cut them off entirely from other worlds, but this never happened. In fact, now that they had broken the containment, much of the combat power of the Thakarians departed through the gateway again.

The Yvarixi would not learn why until much later, but the reasons were actually fairly simple and straightforward. In order to break the containment and establish a hold within this part of the galaxy, the Thak-Tarak Clan had thrown a huge percentage of their military and economic resources into the project. They had succeeded, and were now in exclusive control of the HY1 hyperplex and had the freedom of local space, except for volumes very close to major worlds. Now those military assets were needed elsewhere in the Thak-Tarak domains, and departed, leaving only a more limited force to hold and extend the holdings in local space.

Over the course of the next twenty to thirty years, the Thak-Tarak would establish a network of bases and spaceports, conquer some worlds (including some Yvarixi colonies, as well as worlds like Veranis) outright, and establish themselves as the strongest humanoid power in local space.

The strongest, but not all-powerful. Major worlds like Yvarix itself were too well-defended to attack, and gradually a tense calm settled over the local worlds, and some trade even existed between the Thakarians and the other races and species of local space.

The Thak-Tarak Clan eventually opened the HY1 gate for use again, allowing Yvarix to regain some contact and connection with the far colonies and former trade partners.*This benefited the economy on Yvarix, to be sure.

The Thak-Tarak charged hefty taxes and tolls for such use, however, and were adamant that no armed spacecraft other than Thak-Tarak ships could pass through the stargate. In time, most of what trade and travel was permitted between Yvarix and the worlds beyond the stargate was required to move aboard Thak-Tarak freight ships or passenger ships as well.

(This provided the Thak-Tarak with both even more toll and fee revenue and also enabled them to keep careful tabs on who and what the other powers were sending through the gate, and to where.)MORE

MORE LATER.

[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

For some time, the overall situation remained semi-stable. The Yvarixi, both those dwelling on their home planet and on their 'local' colonies, remained in contact with each other, and engaged in trade and commerce. The worlds beyond the HY1 stargates were accessible only by permission of the Thak-Tarak Thakarians, and such access was heavily restricted, and very expensive.

On the other hand, once the Thak-Tarak Clan was forced to send most of their combat assets back through the hyperplex to maintain control over the rest of their territories, their military superiority over the local Yvarixi and their local humanoid allies was far more limited.

The Yvarixi, and their allies, had their home systems close at hand, and had an immediate superiority in firepower and numbers. On the other hand, the Thakarians had vastly greater assets and numbers in their other territories across the Galaxy, which could be called into action if need be. Still, the Thak-Tarak were reluctant to do so, because that would mean pulling assets away from policing and guarding their other territories, leaving them vulnerable both to internal rebellions and external attack.

Also, should it become necessary to summon such forces, to do so would take substantial time. As always, organizing a major military operation was neither easy, nor cheap, nor simple.

The result was a stalemate of sorts. The Yvarixi and their allies could have launched an attack on the Thak-Tarak, and if properly organized and done with sufficient surprise, might well have forced the Thak-Tarak into retreat...at first. After some time, though, the Thak-Tarak would call up their superior forces, and likely overwhelm the local powers. Thus, the only way launching such an attack would have made sense would be if they had a sufficient chance to recapturing control of the HY1 hyperplex, and holding it afterward.

The Thak-Tarak Clan, for their part, would have liked to have invaded and secured the wealthy homeworlds and local colony worlds of the Yvarixi and their allies. Such an operation, if successful, would have been hugely lucrative and beneficial to the Thak-Tarak. On the other hand, it would require a heavy investment of blood and treasure, because the local powers were in their home space and were fortified and watchful for just such an attack. Further, an unsuccessful effort would risk changing the calculus of the locals, perhaps driving them to make their own assaults.

Neither side was confident enough to risk upsetting the status quo for several decades, as Terrestrians measure time. In the meantime, both sides engaged in exploration, settlement, and exploitation of local sector resources, and they engaged in cautious trade with each other, as well.

The advent of Terrestrian starships in Local Space upset the status quo, much to the surprise of everyone involved, including themselves. Shortly after first contact with the Thakarians, violence broke out between Terrestrian and Thakarian, in several star systems. Although both sides took significant losses, the Terrestrians surprised the Thak-Tarak Clan, the other older Local Space powers, and themselves by successfully defeating the Thakarians in several engagements.

Caught by surprise, and not quite understanding what had just happened, the local Thak-Tarak Clan officials 'on the spot' agreed to a cease-fire and after a particularly lopsided Terrestrial victory, to permit Terrestrians to make use of the HY1 stargate without toll, and with few (but not no) restrictions.

From the point of view of the Yvarixi, the advent of the Terrestrians was a complication and a blessing at once. The Yvarixi home government was quick to see the advantage of allying with the new players, though it was difficult to establish a working diplomatic relationship, since the Terrestrians were not politically unified. Their world was divided into sovereign, and often hostile, states, and relationships had to be worked out with them separately.

The overall delicate balance of power remained in place. The Thak-Tarak Clan still had vast resources beyond the star gate, but they were currently tied down dealing with other problems elsewhere, problems the Terrestrians and the other Local Space powers only half understood.

(Gathering intelligence across light-centuries, with limited access to the stargate, was not a simple matter.)

The ability of the Terrestrians to send their 'star carriers' through the gate opened huge opportunities to the other Local Space powers, who could now send their own planetary ships through aboard Terrestrial star carriers, who the Thak-Tarak were committed to let pass. The Terrestrians charged for the privilege, of course, but far less than the exorbitant tolls the Thakarians had been imposing for over a Terran century, and with far fewer restrictions about what could be shipped, as well.

The Thak-Tarak complained that this violated the cease fire terms, but as of 2123, have contented themselves with grumbling protests. This has permitted the Yvarixi to regain full contact with many of their own colony worlds beyond the stargate. Both the Terrestrian and Yvarixi are careful not to push too hard, of course. Neither side wants open war again, at least not as of 2123. Not yet.

Still, both the Yvarixi and the Terrestrians suspect that it is only a matter of time before the Thakarians try something to regain full control of stargate access, and probably control of the rich worlds the Terrestrians managed to capture control of away from the Thak-Tarak.

In the meantime, trade between Earth and Yvarix has begun, as well as cultural and scientific exchanges. The cultures of the two worlds are very different, but at least as of 2123, their interests lie together.

The Ring City.

The Ring exists in part because much of the best land of the planet Yvarix remains substantially covered in ice. After many centuries of space access, the Yvarixi have constructed, gradually, one module and habitat at a time, a ring around their home world. Occupying the 'geostationary' orbital path above Yvarix, the resulting ring city is an immense structure, literally hundreds of thousands of kilometers long, though only a few kilometers thick, and by no means solid. A great deal of empty space interweaves with a fractal structure of interlocked habitats, shipyards, agricultural modules, manufacturing centers, fortresses and weapons emplacements, and docking facilities. The Ring makes Yvarix the center of Local Space trade and shipping, and it houses well over a billion people.

The Ring was constructed over centuries, and originally it was not intended to be a ring-city. Instead, as the geostationary orbit around Yvarix was filled with ever more constructions and habitats and satellites, it more or less 'just happened', emerging as an integrated structure from organic additions.

Three 'spoke towers' anchor the Ring to the planet, rising from the equator of Yvarix to the Ring, and beyond to anchor-masses. Smaller cables link the Ring to various locations on the surface away from the equator, providing connections between ground-side cities and the Ring City.

Many Terrestrians, new to the stars, consider the Ring to be a wonder, and images of it have become famous back on Earth. [1]

MORE LATER.


[1]As a theoretical concept, the idea of a geostationary ring had been proposed by various Terrestrians in the 20C. Still, the reality came as a stunning surprise when they encountered one in the 22C.

[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

In 2124, the Yvarixi of the home planet are politically unified, in a sense. More precisely, the Human Yvarixi are politically unified. The various Svart city-states that dot the surface of the planet are de jure independent sovereignties. The Svarts do not, as a species, tend to like living in space, they prefer planetary surfaces and especially underground dwellings. Space does them no harm as such, most of them simply prefer the surface. This is just as true of the Svarts of Yvarix are any other members of their species. Thus relatively few Svarts dwell permanently in the Ring City, most live in their own city-states on Yvarix proper or its large moon.

(While Svarts do not usually prefer to live in space, their predilection for and comfort with living underground makes them well-suited to settling on worlds that lack breathable atmospheres or other such luxuries.)

Each Svart city-state on Yvarix has its own government, which vary in details from city to city, but are most commonly a sort of elected monarchy. In practice, they are surrounded by Human territory under the control of the Human world-state, so their independence is that of an enclave. This is not particularly problematic for the usually insular Svarts, however.

Each Svart city-state on Yvarix or its moon appoints an envoy to the central Human government, and these diplomats are almost de facto members of the legislative assembly. Certainly few significant decisions are made by the Human government without extensive consultations with these Svart diplomats.

As far as the structure of the Human government goes, it has a legislative assembly made up of delegates elected by the population, usually for a period of about ten Yvarixian years. This assembly also includes the heads, or elders, of various influential families, and some particular 'big men' who meet certain requirements of wealth, income, social status, etc.

The executive power rests in a Triumvirate chosen by lot from among the legislators, for two years terms. A new member of the Triumvirate is chosen each year, and no assembly member is permitted to serve in the Triumvirate twice. Once a legislator has served in the Triumvirate, his or her name is removed from the lottery to serve.

A second threesome, also chosen by lot from among the legislators, acts as a supreme judicial authority. They two hold office for two years, and can not repeat serve. They are advised by a body of professional lawyers, but the final authority is held by the judiciary triumvirate.

While no one can legally serve twice on either the Triumvirate or its judicial twin, one can serve one after having served on the other.

At one time, the world-government on Yvarix acted as an overall government for the various extrastellar colony planets as well. The arrival of the Thakarians made that arrangement impractical, forcing the colonies, both in Local Space and beyond the hyperplex, to become de facto independent whether they wanted it or not.

Militarily, the Ring City makes the planet especially defensible, because the Yvarixi have constructed enormous high-energy laser emitters in clusters around the perimeter of the Ring. Enormous sunpower tubes energize the laser cannons, and the immense length of the Ring City (hundreds of thousands of kilometers) provides enormous space for heat radiators, power accumulators, cooling systems, and the other necessary support systems. There is also plentiful space for large-diameter beam emitter lenses.

The cannons use ultraviolet light, and between the short wavelengths and the large focal diameters, the projectors have immense range. The shape of the Ring City gives 'coverage' all sides of Yvarix, only behind the moon is there 'cover' from the Ring City laser cannons. In order to partially compensate for this 'blind spot', there are immensely powerful laser emitters on the surface of the far side of the satellite (which is tide-locked to Yvarix), and there are also spaceborne 'focal complexes' orbiting the moon which can redirect a beam from the Ring City as well.

MORE LATER.

[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

Before the Thakarians arrived in Local Space, the Ring City defensive installations were present, but in far fewer numbers than are present in 2124. The Yvarixi had, after all, fought a major war among themselves (the homeworld and their colony worlds) before the Thakarians came. The Thakarian threat, though, motivated the Yvarixi to add considerably to their arsenal.

In 2124, the Ring City mounts five thousand heavy beam emitters, each capable of putting ten gigawatts into a tightly-focused 300 nanometer UV laser beam. Standard doctrine is to focus multiple emitters on a single target, and given the large emitter apertures, the enormous energy of the beams, and the short wavelengths, the effective range of these weapons is enormous. It is slightly safer to approach along the plane of the planetary equator, because then they cannot focus quite so many beams on an attacker, but the difference is modest.

The beams can not be maintained for long, the sheer power requires that they be fired in short bursts. But a one-second UV beam, pulsed every microsecond or so, and carrying ten gigawatts of intensity, is a dreadfully destructive force. Even ships far beyond the primary destructive range can still be in danger, because these megalasers can be used to damage or overwhelm heat radiators and other critical systems, even at distances too great to permit immediate destruction.

Of course the heavy lasers are not the only weapons. Along with the five thousand megalasers, there are literally tens of thousands of smaller laser emitters, much lower in power and with smaller emission apertures, but mostly still using 300 nm UV light. There are also over two thousand major missile clusters, each capable of launching as many as one hundred high-acceleration kinetic kill missiles, which are functionally autonomous kill vehicles. For the most part they do not carry major warheads, relying instead on impact to destroy their targets. Some do, however, carry small charges intended to shatter the missile and thus to shower a target with high-velocity 'shrapnel'. Others carry secondary missiles which launch near the target in hope of overwhelming point-defense systems.

On the surface of the large satellite of Yvarix, what amount to buried mass drivers (some using other technologies than magnetism) are prepared to hurl chunks of rock at tremendous velocities. They have a nearly limitless supply of 'ammunition', and are located in deeply-buried underground shafts, with only the actual launch aperture exposed.

These are considered second-tier weapons, even though an impact from one of their 'missiles' can be devastatingly effective. The problem is that a 'shell' that is evaded or misses its target through miscalculation remains dangerous to traffic indefinitely, unless deliberately tracked down and removed or destroyed, at great expense, later. Thus, the preferred doctrine is to use the heavy lasers first, and resort to the mass drivers only if necessary.

MORE LATER.

[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

The great Ring City around Yvarix is anchored to the planet primarily by three great 'towers' that run from anchor-points on the planetary equator up to the Ring, each tower-column falling over thirty-six thousand kilometers in height.

Note that 'anchored to' and 'falling' are the correct terminology, because these great towers (themselves vertical cities along some of their lengths) are in tension, not compression. They do not rest on their planet-side bases, they 'hang' from the Ring City downward to where they are anchored to the ground. If something were to break one of these 'towers' along their length, only the portion below the breakage-point would either fall to the ground, or swing into a new orbit around the planet.

The towers are in lateral tension, because they are effectively in orbit around the planet, at an orbital velocity appropriate for geostationary position. However, most of their length is below the altitude, and so the material along that length is moving at a velocity too slow for a given altitude to maintain orbit at that altitude. The resulting tensions are complex, and counter-intuitive to humanoid instincts adapted to surface life.

The Towers are roughly one hundred and twenty degrees apart, and the Anchors that bind them to the ground are reworked mountains. The supporting cables that form the 'foundation' of the Towers reach below the surface to a depth of several kilometers, and are tightly coupled to immense dense buried mases of material to add structural strength to the Anchors.

The equator of Yvarix is crossed by considerable amounts of dry land, in part because the advancing glaciers to the north and south have substantially lowered global sea level, and the oceans continue to retreat from the continental shelves as the ice sheets advance. The Anchors, though, are in mountainous regions, and would remain above sea level even if all the vast amounts of ice were to suddenly melt.

The term 'anchor tower' is not simple hyperbole. The Ring City itself is in equilibrium, because it moves at the appropriate orbital velocity for its altitude, each point on the Ring staying in position above a given point on the planet. As long as nothing disturbed the system, the Ring would remain in the same position above the planetary equator almost indefinitely.

This equilibrium is unstable, however, because absent the anchor Towers, anything that disturbed the Ring evenly slightly would tend to lead to it going farther and farther out of position. Thrusters and other active systems could be used to hold position, but this would be both expensive and require active intervention. The anchor Towers are a passive solution that works.

Along with the three great Towers, other cables link the Ring City to the surface, many of them rising out of plane to reach cities and sites in the northern and southern hemispheres. These secondary cables are far less elaborate than the Towers, but they do host elevator/train connections linking the Ring to key sites on the surface. As a rule, it takes between one and three local days to travel from the Ring to the surface, or vice versa, using the elevators. Exactly how long this requires depends on the particular elevator, with the express tracks in the main Towers being much faster. There are secondary tracks in the Towers, and similar slower elevator tracks on the secondary cables to the north and south. The slower elevators are less convenient, but far cheaper, and most non time-sensitive cargo makes the slower journey.

As mentioned above, Yvarix is currently in the advancing stage of a glacial cycle. In many ways, Yvarix is in an 'ice age' similar to that of Earth. In 2124 Earth remains in a warm interglacial phase of its local ice age, but Yvarix has exited an interglacial and the ice sheets are once again advancing.

In principle, it would be possible for a civilization as advanced, wealthy, and old as that of the Yvarixi to attempt to artificially reverse the glaciation. Large-scale orbital mirrors could direct extra insolation onto the ice sheets. Various self-replicating low-albedo materials on the ice surface could be used to increase heat absorption. Mass production of greenhouse gases could be used to raise the equilibrium temperature of the planet overall.

Such proposals have been made, but so far, the large majority of the ruling authorities of the Yvarixi civilization have opted against the attempt. The sheer complexity of modeling all the factors that would come into play in such an effort make accurate predictions of the outcome difficult. A vast number of highly sensitive feedback loops would come into play, all of them interacting with each other.

Another factor against the idea is that the lower sea levels have exposed broad areas of previously flooded land to settlement and use. The ice has been advancing through Yvarixi recorded history, and as the oceans retreated from the continental shelves, the locals spread out onto the revealed land, settling it, farming it, and eventually building vast cities in some areas. Though these regions have only recently been exposed to the air in geological terms (a few millennia or so), most of them have been there throughout recorded Yvarixi history.

If a project to reverse the glaciation succeeded, the oceans would rise and many settled lands would be flooded beneath tens or hundreds of meters of water. Enormous dislocations of population and economy would follow.

In principle, the ice sheets could be forced back at a slow pace, raising the sea level gradually and providing generations of time to adjust. In practice, no one is completely sure about that, because of the complex uncertainties in the models. A slight mistake, or some small factor unaccounted for in the calculations, might plausibly produce a rapid feedback and a relatively quick deglaciation, flooding vast areas in one lifetime or less. Alternatively, preventing such a sudden flood might require allowing the ice to return fully and completely.

The uncertainties are too great to convince the Yvarixi to go forward with the idea, as least as of 2124.

MORE LATER.

[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

The Yvarixi have, however, engaged in geoengineering on a smaller scale in response to the advancing ice. While they have refrained from constructing the immense (and expensive) mirror farms that could be used to seriously alter the planetary heat balance, they have constructed smaller 'soletas' that can be used to add significant heat and light to local locations. Some major high-latitude cities and other key sites to the north and south are kept ice-free by beams from arrays of such smaller mirrors. In emergencies, these mirrors can also be used to provide light to remote locations as well.

The largest single land mass on Yvarix actually runs from the north pole all the way south to well past the equator. Over twelve thousand kilometers long north-south, it is actually three major continents merged together by plate tectonics into a single land mass. The east-west width varies considerably, in part because large areas of continental shelf have been exposed by falling sea levels, especially on the western side.

Two great mountain ranges divide this huge continent, both of them running roughly east-west and separated by about fifty-five hundred kilometers. These ranges are relatively young and steep, but both have stopped rising. They represent the 'suture zones' where the three component continents came together, several tens of megayears ago, and both ranges today are fairly geologically quiet, and have begun to erode. Still, they remain major ranges, analogous to the southern Rocky Mountains of North America, which have also stopped rising in recent megayears. The southern range is slightly taller and steeper, because that continental collision was forty million years more recent.

Today, the entire welded landmass has begun to drift eastward, and the land to the eastern edge of the supercontinent is rising, but this orogeny has not had time to do more than create some mildly elevated new uplands on the3 eastern coast as yet.

Because this land mass reaches all the way to the north pole, there has been ample opportunity for glaciation. North of the northern range, the huge majority of the land is covered by ice sheets reaching thicknesses of over two kilometers in places. These ice sheets reach all the way to the northern slopes of the upper mountain range, and so much ice has accumulated that is has significantly depressed the northern reaches of the continent, partly offsetting the reduction in sea level.

This northernmost range is called the Xyx-tokya in the primary language of the Yvarixi. It is actually a double name drawing on older tongues, and it translates literally as the 'northern mountains mountains'. These mountains act as a barrier to the advancing ice sheets from the north. There is plenty of ice to their south, but the glaciers are nowhere close to as thick as they are to the north of the Xyx-tokya.

Because the mountain ranges of the continent run east-west, there is little barrier to the weather systems coming onto the continent from the west in the middle latitudes (i.e. between the ranges). With no precipitation-shadow effect, plenty of snow can reach far inland and fall across the lands. There is still less than one might naively expect, because the combination of a lower sea level and lower global temperatures reduces evaporation from the ocean. On the other hand, what does fall, at least in the northern reaches of this between-the-mountains zone, usually falls as snow and that snow rarely melts in the summer. Thus great glaciers have flowed south from the Xyx-tokya and merged into an ice sheet of their own south of the range.

This ice sheet is much thinner than the vast masses of ice to the north of the Xyx-tokya, but it continues to spread southward, slowly but steadily, and to thicken, as time passes. In 2124, the boundary line of the ice sheet advance is about one thousand kilometers south of the Xyx-tokya. At that latitude, summer temperatures are sufficient (currently) to melt the ice almost as fast as it arrives from the north. Almost.

Though the edge of the ice sheet advances and retreats along this zone from year to year, depending on the vagaries of temperature and precipitation, over time it continues to slowly, inexorably move south. The average annual advance is no more than a few tens of meters per annum, over long periods of time. Still, that adds up as years turn into decades and decades into centuries, and the overall trend of global temperature continues to decline.

One of the largest remaining Human cities in these reaches is Tan-tokta, actually resting near what was once the intersection of three major rivers coming off the southern side of the Xyx-tokya, only about one hundred kilometers south of the mountains. Today most of those river valleys are ice-choked, but where they meet remains liquid, and a narrow valley exists in the ice sheets, through which the combined river flows south in a cold torrent. This is possible because several of the above-mentioned soletas keep a constant concentration of extra light and heat focused on this river. Other mirrors keep the city itself, and a circle of surrounding land, ice-free as well.

MORE LATER.