Section 2: Dark Side of the Galaxy

Chapter 6: Capital Worlds

While Omega is the black heart of the Terminus in both location and culture, the capital worlds of Jona Sederis and Yan T'Ravt are major factors in influencing Terminus politics and warfare on their own, and deserve some attention.

Illium

Nominally an Asari corporate colony, Illium is a very young world by Asari standards having only been colonized four centuries ago. Located in the same system as one of the three prime relays leading into the Terminus systems made it a natural trade hub even before the formal colonization efforts, and a popular discharge location for independent merchants.

In more modern times the planet is a massive trade hub specializing in goods that are typically illegal in Citadel Space, with a large amount of additional revenue brought in from wealthy tourists hoping to indulge themselves. Nominally a planet with very few laws, but a large amount of regulations, it's often said that murder and slavery are the only things not allowed without the right contract.

The planet's ruling board does allow for a form of indentured servitude which theoretically have a wide variety of rules governing how such individuals should be treated and conditions under which such agreements can be made. In reality, the people tricked, pressured, or desperate enough to sign such deals are treated in a varied fashion. Corporations, oddly, tend to have a better track record than individuals, as the Illium media can be absolutely vicious when it comes to exposing ill-treatment as a means of harming otherwise untouchable groups.

While nominally a garden world, the planet is abysmally hot and extremely humid thanks to its many seas and location relative to its sun. As a result nearly all of the population lives in the temperate bands nearer the polar regions, with limited arcologies located further south. Those in the lower regions are primarily agricultural in focus and are rarely visited by offworlders, who prefer to visit Nos Astra and Nos Irrail, the two largest cities on planet (accounting for nearly twenty percent of its population between them).

Nos Astra

Nos Astra is a lesson in contradictions, a delicate balance between Asari sensibility and Terminus ruthlessness. The area surrounding the primary starport and the skyscrapers of Nos Astra proper are one of the safest areas in the galaxy thanks to an extreme focus on corporate security, and the open sale of any vice that credits can buy make it an extremely popular tourist destination. Things shift as one leaves for the suburban cities and 'ground' areas of Nos Astra however. While I-Sec does what they can, the Board of Directors ensures that nearly all of their budget is allocated to the Nos Astran division, who are most concerned with the downtown arcology buildings, leaving local corporate interests and public groups to manage for themselves elsewhere.

Directly inland of the ocean-front downtown is the River District, the primary residential region. Largely a middle-class neighborhood populated by the workers from Nos Astra affluent enough to own their own homes and large apartments.

Bordering both the River District and Nos Astra to the north is the Manufacturing Zone, which is as industrial as the name would imply. Its primary, and unfortunate, claim to fame is the non-Asari slums that stretch north of the city, filled with indentured servants and others who tried and failed to make it.

To the southwest of the River District is Khar'shan Minor, the largest single enclave of Batarians outside of the Hegemony and Omega. Founded by Gehari Shaaryak two centuries prior, near the end of the Hegemony's Golden Age, it was intended to be the last stop on a grand trade lane that would run from Khar'shan, through the Traverse, to Omega and then through the Republics. As relations and profits worsened, only a small mansion and attendant starport were completed before the family pulled the rest of their investment. Smaller highborn and midcaste families still made a modest effort, but did little more than create a tiny enclave that was swiftly populated by exiles who preferred peaceful, comfortable lives rather than those of crime or piracy.

The farthest inland from the polar ocean is the Western Reaches, a sprawling mass of sub-cities and expansion zones. With few offworld visitors and little direct corporate ownership, it is neatly separated from most of the problems found elsewhere.

Nos Irrail

Once described as 'What Illium is really like, under the false glamour.' by a visiting Spectre, Nos Irrail is the second largest city on the planet, and lays directly opposite Nos Astra across the polar ocean.

A sprawled mix of residential and industrial complexes, the city's main claim to fame is that it is the home of the Eclipse's corporate headquarters. As one might expect, this causes it to be avoided by the same crowds that flock to Nos Astra, but that is not to say that it is not busy. Outside of Omega it is one of the more common locations to find mercenary units, large and small, congregating for one reason or another, and at least three Council Spectres have their own bases within the city. While not unwelcome per-say, the city becomes noticeably tense when they are town. Fortunately for all involved they rarely linger, instead recruiting from amongst the local freelancers willing to tag along on their latest suicide mission for the right price.

The local I-Sec captain openly answers to Jona Sederis rather than the I-Sec Executor, as one might expect, ensures that the populace are very much allowed to handle their own affairs.

The Board of Directors

The rulers of Illium in name only, the Board of Directors consists of seven individuals with specific ownership stakes in major corporations. On paper their duty is to adjust and tweak local laws to maintain the world's delicate balance, and to manage I-Sec's budget and global direction. In reality they accomplish little beyond political bickering, only coming to decisions when their profit lines are threatened.

Military Presence

While the planet does not have a standing army or fleet of its own thanks to specific laws and regulations agreed to between the first Directors and the Republics, it is assuredly not defenseless.

Ground Forces

Both Nos Astra and Nos Irrail possess highly sophisticated ground-to-space batteries concealed both inside of and around the cities, and it is known that there are silos housing fission weaponry beneath the polar sea and under the control of I-Sec's executor. I-Sec itself, much like the organization it is patterned after, is as much a militia as it is a police force. If all of their officers were pulled in from all offices on planet, they have sufficient numbers to protect Nos Astra against most conventional opponents.

Supplementing I-Sec's official forces are the tens of thousands of soldiers who work for the various major corporations and private-military-companies, as well as many thousands more of gangers and freelancers who consider the planet home. While most of the latter are not what you would call 'military types', they know their streets and how to fight dirty, and the fact that most are Asari with decades to centuries of experience makes hem far more lethal than their equivalents in other species.

The largest military force on planet remains the Eclipse, however. At any given time more than half of the organization's manpower is likely on planet, either working local contracts or enjoying leave before shipping back out to the Terminus or Traverse. Even discounting I-Sec and the smaller mercenary groups, most military analysts from the Republics agree that Sederis' private army could easily hold the planet against her fellow Warlords even if several of them allied with one another.

Naval Forces

There are three principle 'fleets' usually operating in the Tasale system.

The first of which is the Republics small system defense fleet, loaned out to the planet's corporate government to protect the colonists in the early years of colonization. Shrewd negotiations kept it in place long after it was needed, though the Board was less thrilled after realizing that the Republics had largely duped them. As the fleet's location ensures that it occasionally sees combat, unlike most other Republic fleets, it made an ideal group to assign trainees for seasoning. Typically includes up to ten light cruisers and as many as thirty frigates, the fleet is typically tasked with running down those stupid enough to try and raid shipping in system.

The second fleet is the smallest and belongs to I-Sec. Consisting of a dozen modified frigates, their primary heavy weapons were removed in favor of additional space for boarding pods and GARDIAN defense batteries. These cutters are used to run down smugglers that manage to escape the planet's atmosphere, board them, and drag them back to be dealt with appropriately.

The Eclipse's Golden Armada is the largest fleet in system, as one might expect. Prior to the Blue Suns' War, the group's fleet was split equally between Illium and Omega, but with their larger territory many ships have left to consolidate their new systems. Currently there are two capital ships in service and protecting the world, with two more being overhauled in the planet's orbital shipyards.

Xentha

An otherwise unremarkable garden world, Xentha is one of the few in the Terminus where the local ecosystem is dextro-amino compatible. The planet's geography is rather typical for a garden world, with lush jungles and deserts near the equatorial regions and bands of temperate forests and savannahs stretching north and south from there.

It was a prime target for Quarian colonization after its discovery roughly three hundred and fifty years ago. In the aftermath of the planet's sacking mere months after the Morning War, there were perhaps eight or nine million Quarians on planet with barely enough infrastructure to keep themselves alive. Now, a mere three centuries later, the planet's population has exploded to nearly two billion, the majority of which are Turian.

After the Quarian population was enslaved by several Krogan and Asari warlords, the latter muscled out the former by allying themselves with two major Turian run PMC's who quickly drove the Krogan and their Vorcha off planet and even managed to steal most of the Quarians allotted to them. The cycle of betrayal and backstabbing continued, as the most powerful Turian commander wasted little time in realizing that Xentha was a prize, consolidating both companies under his authority before assassinating both of the Asari and buying off their subordinates.

He and his eldest son wasted little time in declaring open immigration for their own people, inviting dozens of pirate groups to join them with the offer of Quarian slaves to repair and maintain their ships at rates that the dockyards at Omega couldn't match for the quality of work done. Initially it seemed that he or his heir would be the newest major warlord in the Terminus, and during his long life he made increasing strides in that direction by starting construction on shipyards both on planet and in orbit, managing the trade of dextro food to Omega and other Terminus worlds for eezo and other materials.

Unfortunately for his dreams, his son became inconsolably smitten with Yan T'Ravt when the rising warlord visited to work out a trade deal. Shortly after his father's death, he essentially handed the world to the Asari who wasted little time in making it her capital (after suppressing the expected riots and attempts by dissenters to protest).

The new ruler expanded heavily on her predecessor's plans, luring tens of thousands of Turians and Asari to the planet with the promise of a more organized form of governance. She additionally relaxed some of the restrictions on the local Quarian population, buying out many of their slave contracts and shifting them to an indentured deal, letting them work their way to freedom. This was less an act of largesse on her part than not wanting to deal with the constant minor sabotage that they'd affected on their previous masters, and realizing that grateful employees were more reliable than irritated slaves.

As a result of the dominant Turian population, the planet's cities resemble those of Palaven in being more fortresses in depth than the residential sprawls of other species. When they run out of defensible space to expand into, new construction is started elsewhere, leaving the planet littered with hundreds of mid-sized cities rather than a few massive sprawls like many other colonial worlds.

Celthani

The planetary capital is Celthani, located in the southern hemisphere within a major mountain range. The city itself surrounds a long river valley whose soils feeds its (dextro) population, with major fortifications blocking the few mountain passes that would provide land access. For aerial protection, several of the nearby mountains have had their tops flattened into plateaus to mount massive anti-air and ground-to-space w, with more batteries scattered through the city proper.

The city's primary places of interest are T'Ravt's palace complex, the Old District, and the Cove. The former is built onto one of the small plateaus overlooking the valley. Like the other buildings in the area, it was built with the Turian emphasis on practicality and defensibility, and is much a command center as it is a palace. While the perimeter may be decorated with bunkers and automated defenses, the interior is as extravagant as Sederis's more traditional mansion in Nos Astra and even includes a grand ballroom where the Lady Warlord often hosts fetes for her captains and important members of Xentha's population.

For it's part, the Old District is the largest single collection of Quarians outside of the Migrant Fleet, with nearly a million of them living near the Warlord's palace in their own enclosed compound. Outsiders who aren't members of T'Ravt's personal army are rarely welcomed, and those stupid enough to enter without permission can find their life expectancy measured in minutes and pieces of themselves taken as trophies to warn away further attempts to encroach. Those few who are welcomed find the place incredible from a historical perspective, and their hosts congenial if rough around the edges.

The Cove is the city's largest draw for offworlders, especially pirates and slavers returning from runs to the Traverse. Essentially a massive cul-de-sac attached to the city's largest starport, it is filled with vendors hawking everything that a Terminus Captain could want, from weapons to supplies, from slaves to entire starships. The surrounding buildings hold stores more aimed at purchasing the loot being brought back, giving T'Ravt's people their cut before either filtering the goods to be sold to other captains or elsewhere in the city. Not far away are several hotels and resorts aimed to cater to the same pirates and their like, part of T'Ravt's concentrated efforts to make her world the next best option to Omega to conduct operations from.

Military Defenses

Xentha holds the amusing privilege of being the only major Terminus world not to have been raided within the last century. Part of this is T'Ravt's increasing power and fleet strength, but more honestly it is simply due to the planet's population. Turians who have fled the Hierarchy remain as martially dedicated as their kin, though their young are inducted into their parent's gangs or warbands instead of a professional military. As a result, not only is nearly the entire population armed (not unusual in the Terminus), but the vast majority actually know how to use their weapons (which is).

The planet's massive population also works as its own defense, as even the larger pirate bands would be hard pressed to suppress a city to be looted and ravaged while fending off innumerable counter-attacks from others.

From her point of view, this has allowed T'Ravt to keep a surprisingly minimal level of her personal troops on planet, keeping only sufficient forces to protect the Capital and allowing the various elected, hereditary, or despotic governors in the other cities manage their own affairs provided that they follow the laws she has dictated and pay their tithes. As she gives them a very free range to operate, and maintains the threat of her warfleet in orbit in case they get ambitious, most remain at least tacitly loyal.

In regards to the fleet, she typically retains at least two to three of her capital ships in orbit along with sufficient escorts. A small fleet's worth of warships and converted vessels are also typically present being overhauled or repaired in her various shipyards, and typically there are well over a hundred independent ships or members of pirate gangs in system at any given time.