Autumn’s Fall

Type: Major Planet

Solar System: Autumn’s Fall (binary class K stars)

Population: approx. 100,000 sentients (60% humans, 25% syllians, 5% azell, 3% kelarian, 2% Consensus-synthetic, 5% other)

Major Settlements: Fall Center (local government center, pop. 60,000), The Ditch (informal name for a large scavenger base 200 km north of Fall Center, pop approx. 8000), The Graveyard (aquatic bay city 100 km southwest of Fall Center, with undersea expansions, pop approx. 15,000), Avagar Island Spaceport, Kol-mar Island Spaceport

Description: Autumn’s Fall is an “involuntarily colonized” planet that has had some level of sentient habitation for about 1000 years. Originally a minimally habitable planet, only a few bacteria evolved, and the majority of the planet is ocean or desert (although some speculate that indigenous sea life may exist deep in the sea shielded from radiation). There are sixteen island-like “continents,) but only the second largest, named Fall Center like the city headquartered there, has a large stable population.

The first verified surviving sentient group to land on Autumn’s Fall was a human trading company during the Allegiant era, GY4925. The landing was not intentional, and they crashed among many other ships that had failed to navigate the risky route out of the jump point, which is located within the orbital radius of five moons and a large natural debris field surrounding Autumn’s Fall. Ships that fail to make the jump impact the planet’s atmosphere within minutes. When the trading company made emergency planetfall, they did not have the equipment to return to space, and survived off of salvaging other downed ships (which had been crashing for at least a millenium previously based on tech levels and ship designs, but had intensified in the past century due to increase trade interest in the Edge region).

The trading post that came to be known as Autumn’s Fall managed to reconstruct some spacecraft and chart a marginally safe approach vector; out of humanitarian interest, the Allegiance (the major universal government from GY 2120-GY5980) sent aid. The aid groups consisted of a large number of syllian laborers, and political tensions over the next few centuries eventually led the small community to fracture, with Kol-mar Island being settled by syllian separatists. The syllians located an ancient terraforming ship from the 31st century GY and used its psionic-guided automatons to begin the terraforming on Autumn’s Fall in GY5342, and by GY5400 the planet had a large zone of habitable terrain on six of its continents located north of the equator. By present day GY6011, the entire planet is hypothetically habitable, although the largest continent is referred to by locals as “The Wasteland” because of the relative paucity of scavengable material and its largely inhospitable desert terrain. The Fall Center continent is largely alpine terrain with some prairie and desert biomes to the south. Both Falls Center and The Ditch, the largest settlements, are located within a few kilometers of the coastline. Weather patterns are stable and there have been no major changes to the climate for over a century.

Politics: the planet has never been part of any successful interstellar regime, although the Renewal Compact of Allegiance (RCA or Compact) which rose in 5980 claimed every star in the universe as part of its dominion. During the ancient kelarian expansion period around GY600-1800, the planet also fell within the realms claimed by the kelarian high clergy, but it was never successfully settled and is not remembered as having significance politically.

In the contemporary (post-Compact) era, efforts have been made to convince leaders at Fall Center to join the Spacer’s Union (SU or Union), and some corporations from the Conglomerate-ruled “Corporate zone” have scouted the region. At this time, security hired from the Corporate Space Patrol provides a single frigate-class vessel and three fighter squadrons to fight smuggling and maintain public safety; about 100 CSP officers assist with security within Fall Center, The Ditch, The Graveyard, and the other spaceports, but their enforcement authority is limited. Local militias and police forces often form near valuable wrecks that are discovered.

Economy: Autumn’s Fall is a planet literally ruled by those who can find the most “fallen” ships. Its settlements grow up around crashed spacecraft, and most permanent inhabitants can trace their descent to survivors of a crash. Since importing goods is difficult, there is a substantial agricultural sector on three of the continents, including the tropical island-continent Vir-ma. Energy is abundantly available, as starship fusion and hypercores and fissile material scatter the landscape. The majority of the population lives in either self-manufactured or salvaged homes, or, for the past few decades, corporate-driven mass housing near major agriculture or scavenging sites.

Autumn’s Fall’s only export is salvage, but it maintains several spaceports due to the strong market for vintage and even ancient spacecraft parts and cargo. Most shipping on Autumn’s Fall is done by independent groups, although Interstar and their competitors have begun sending light freighter fleets. No major bulk freighter operator has been willing to risk the jump point in centuries.