(Upon reading a bunch of the militaary sci-fi short stories in the stuff Drakensis sent me, another little fragment grabbed my brain. Feel free to use the system as a throwaya reference or waypoint.)
The system arrayed about Sekon's Star lies in one of the less-traveled fringe sectors of the Humanx Commonwealth, and while it has some minor asteroid and gas giant extraction industry in the outsystem, most of the academic interest in the system is centered on Sekon III, a Class-M planet commonly known as Neverland. Close analogues of Earth-standard flora and fauna are commonplace, but tend to be 30-60% larger than their equivalents. The planet is currently in a 'green age' with dense forestation on nearly all of its land area, which lies entirely within the tropical climaate zone. As a result, the atmosphere contains a higer than standard ratio of oxygen, as well as heavy concentrations of pollens and spores even at high altitudes. (For a detailed listing of common allergenic contaminants, see data file 992351-420-SEKOR.)
The most fascinating inhabitants by far, however, are the autocthonic sentients, who seem to actually exist simultaneusly in Hyperspace and realspace, appearing variously as near-human (insert photograph of an atarctively androgenous humanoid with fair skin, dark hair, and lightly pointed ears), miniature glowing humanoid/insectiods (photo of butterfly-winged version of the above individual, eyes now solid black and skin having taken a slight bluish tint), or free-floating energy effects (photo of a trio of brighly colored energy balls, flitting around a flowering tree), at their whim. It is because of this unique property that Neverland is a Restricted World, with its own patrol detatchment (the 1088th Orbital Cavalry Regiment "Lost Boys") maintaining constant watch on the system. This is almost as much to protect unwary visitors as the locals, as they appear to possess a vareity of higly refined paranormal powers and a demonstrated willingness to apply them not only for self defense, but in the form of pranks that, while harmless to another of heir own people, may cause considerable distress to visitors not similarly empowered. Communication with the natives tends to be problematic, as it appears to require some form of reciever psionic talent as yet not fully understood, but has been sufficiently positive that travel passes can be obtained for Happy Island, the one offworlder surface setlement. Planetfall as such is forbidden, however, so all travel to and from orbit is restricted to use of the Sky Hook station that maintains position directly above Happy Island.
Those few offworlders fortunate enough to be able to communicate with the Nevs are occasionally offered Neverland citizenship, an event which seems to coincide with their 'adoption' by a native or native clan. Any Nev seen offworld is almost certain to be traveling with an adopted visitor. Such a partnership has its own dangers, however; contact with Nevs seems to foster the developemnet of hypeertalents in humans, near-humans, and several other intelligent species, which has reportedly led to attempts at capturing those that venture offworld by less-than-scrupulous reasearch organisations.
Due to the abundance of challenging terrain and oversized wildlife, the 1088th sees frequent duty as anti-poaching wardens in addition to their interdiction role, and occasional suppression of commerce raiding in the outer system indusries, or when hyperstorms in the O'Shea Cluster require traffic to use the secondary route for the Lilienthal/Zander/Bob's World axis. The jump point for Sekon's Star is at the L5 point of Sekon VI, a gas giant naturally rich in kerolon.
(Something I couldn't work in and maintain a beleiable magazine tone is that the Nevs can actually confer certain hypertalents on others - adopted or not - so long as those others *beleive* that the Nev can do so. As to whether I'll ever actually use any of this for a Spiral story... well, don't hold your breath. As I said above, it's pretty much just a random peice of flotsam that pounced me; I don't really hae any plans for the Nevs, the Lost Boys, or their world, so if it's coneinent for anyone else to pass through or pick up a Nev partner or whatever, feel free.)
- CD
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Yes, the nomenclature for the defending force is an intentional pun, not just in their regiment name, but in the abreiation of Orbital Caalry Regiment as "OCR." Other OCRs could include the Swifts protecting the Tomsberg Reaserch Institute, the Dragonriders doing orbital clearing after the lesser moon of McCafferty broke up and started raining debris on the planet at irregular intervals, and Wolf's Pack and their frusrating mission to keep the competing religious colonies - locally known as Fuzzies and Redshirts - on New Hind from wiping each other out. They don't hae to be an offical Humanx arm (or een exist) if the God-King Of Spiral Humanx doesn't want them, but it's a fun little joke and I don' recall ayhing being laid down about force structurres or roles and missions as yet. Basically, the OCRs as envisioned here get the stuff that's a little too big for home guard types or where there is no local space police type force, and yet still too small time to be worth sending a group of the spaceforce propeer after. Craft would range from single-man skimmers through squad-sized sublight spaceships that can dock with and serve as a long-range booster for a mobile suit up to ships that would make respectable escorts and screening elements for a real military task force. The institutional culture and motto is "We do more with less!"
- CD
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