User:NewOriginalSchwann/Sandbox

The second planet from the star of the Asoral system, the hot and arid planet of Crosk is crisscrossed by immense canyons and valleys due to its active tectonic history. The planet is considered to be under the control of the Coalition of Colonies and has a fairly small population of only two-hundred million across its surface. Due to the planet’s size (estimated as 75-80% the size of Earth) this means that its surface is sparsely populated, with most settlements situated around the poles of the planet due to richer mineral veins there. This means that the rest of the planet is sparsely inhabited outside of a few small settlements - most of which also exist around naturally occurring mineral deposits that justify the town’s existence for as long as they are productive, and prove to be its undoing as soon as the nearby vein (or veins) dry up. The surface of Crosk is often covered in these small and abandoned prefabricated mining settlements, with their populations having moved on now that the mineral wealth in the region has been depleted.

Due to the canyon-filled topography of Crosk, air travel is the preferred method of transit for most of the planet’s residents. While for most residents this often means turboprop-driven planes able to take off and land on short runways common on the planet, Crosk’s reliance on air travel has produced a thriving entertainment industry based around flying - with the more daring and death-defying the stunt the better its reception.

The aviators of Crosk are a remarkably diverse population, and many of them come from off of the world. While many are human, a significant amount of the jockeys and their support are positronics of various frames with the most famous amongst them being the renowned PBU-9551 Team and their rival - Killswitch. Despite some controversies that IPCs are “too good” at Croskian racing due to their superior reflexes, positronics have continued to be extremely successful in Crosk’s racing circuit.

History

The planet of Crosk was first settled by explorers, entrepreneurs, and prospectors from Xanu Prime in the late 2300s. Drawn by the planet’s material wealth rather than its climate, the first settlement on the planet was the city of Koratabad - established near the planet’s north pole in 2395. Koratabad was quickly followed by Gimcheon, the first settlement on the planet’s southern pole, in 2396. Conditions on the surface of Crosk had been discovered by scans most pleasant at its northern and southern poles, and were the prime targets for settlement by the early prospectors of the planet. Early settlement quickly ran into some difficulties due to the nature of the planet’s surface. While not nearly as tectonically unstable as Medina in the Republic of Elyra, the surface of Crosk was covered in a tremendous amount of canyons and crevasses due to previous geological activity. Cities on the poles - the easiest area to build - are typically built into these canyons, which offer protection from the heat and dust storms of the surface, rather than around them.

However over time it quickly became clear that the poles were not the richest parts of the planet, and more lucrative veins had been discovered around the middle section of the planet - particularly near its equator. Prospectors and other adventurers quickly set out to exploit this newly uncovered mineral wealth, but they rapidly ran into a problem: the amount of canyons and ravines made overland travel impractical and improbable, and the mineral veins themselves did not justify dropping supplies from orbit. However, veins near the poles were all claimed by companies by this point. To the new crop of miners and investors arriving on Crosk in the early 2410s, the question was one of bankruptcy by remaining in the poles where they had no resources to purchase or bankruptcy by dropping orbital equipment onto sites too small to support the drops. The solution that presented itself was an unusual one: fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.

The aviation industry on Crosk had, before the 2410s, been fairly successful and profitable due to the nature of the planet’s surface. Air travel, generally by fixed-wing aircraft, was the only practical non-spaceflight way to get from the northern to southern pole of the planet, and helicopters were often used to scout out new dig sites in the poles themselves. The miners of the 2410s used these same machines to move equipment and personnel cheaply and effectively from the poles to the veins surrounding the equator. These efforts found massive success as the profits from the equatorial veins caused more and more money to roll into their pockets, leading to larger and large airplanes, helicopters, and even zeppelins being built and utilized to move equipment as mines dried up and new ones needed to be rapidly established - typically unintentionally creating ghost towns in the process, dozens of which now dot the equatorial regions of Crosk.

Over the years the many pilots employed on Crosk in a variety of craft developed a habit of racing informally to prove their mettle. While some opted for the highly dangerous technique of canyon racing - moving your vessel so low to the ground that you have no choice but to fly through the canyons that dot the surface - others pursued acrobatic excellence or pure speed. Gradually, over the years, these informal racing circuits coalesced into the Crosk Airborne Racing Network Asoral Orbital, which formally switched its name to the Asoral Orbital and Suborbital Racing Network in 2447 with the integration of Xanu Prime’s “debris runners.” IPCs, introduced onto Crosk as both industrial miners and lightweight pilots in the late 2430s, have long been a subject of some controversy in Crosk’s racing networks due to their superhuman reflexes.

The Crosk of today continues to remain an industrial and mining powerhouse, and is regarded throughout the Orion Spur as the premier producer of atmospheric aircraft due to the amount of investment in its aviation industry and the experience of said industry’s engineers. Croskian sporting and racing aircraft are prized throughout the Coalition of Colonies and beyond for their high quality, though the majority of factories on the planet continue to produce aircraft for industrial use. IPCs, while still a minority on the planet, have achieved remarkable success in Croskian aviation, with the PBU-9551 Team and Killswitch - and their rivalry - achieving fame throughout the Orion Spur.

Environment

The environment on Crosk is entirely habitable but not exactly comfortable. The planet is fairly hot due to its closer than average proximity to its star compared to other habitable planets, and the planet tends to dwell in an eternal summer as a result. Despite this hot temperature rain, and life, are not uncommon on the planet and many organisms make their entire lives in the canyons that tend to be cooler than the planet’s surface - including most of the planet’s human population. The other major weather type on Crosk are its massive dust storms that tend to occur near the planet’s equatorial regions due to both large deserts and desertification caused by strip mining projects in the area. Some of these dust storms - sometimes called “Croskian Howlers” - are large enough to be seen from orbit, and may take several days to pass by an equatorial settlement due to their sheer size. Small mining settlements facing a Croskian Howler often simply cut their losses and leave, rather than attempting to endure upwards of a week of constant dust and sand howling through the air.

The majority of the planet’s surface is covered in either environments resembling Earth’s savannas or deserts, with large forests only being present at the poles of the planet. The savanna regions are more common on the border regions of the poles, though they extend well into the equatorial regions of the planet where they often coexist alongside Crosk’s significant deserts. However, the massive amount of mining operations in recent years has caused the deserts to overtake some savannas, ultimately leading to massive desertification in some equatorial regions. Both the Croskian savanna and desert alike are crisscrossed by a variety of canyons, crevasses, and ravines. While there are less canyons near the poles of the planet, there are still enough to make overland travel outside of major settlements impractical for most vehicles.

Xenoflora on Crosk is generally somewhat small and unspectacular outside of the poles, with most plants clinging to the ground to avoid storms. The savannas contain an exception to this rule, with the magnificently flowering taajratn tree rising several meters into the air and producing seeds able to roll for kilometers across the sands of Crosk. The kaantedaar is a native plant found in the northern polar regions that is notable for possessing barbed spikes along its entire trunk, preventing most attempts at harvesting it. Xenofauna is similarly small in most regions, with most creatures tending to keep to canyons to avoid the heat and dust. The zhanshi, a large lemur-like mammal roughly the size of a human child, is one of the planet’s most notable animals, due to its ability to fly long distances on the winds of Crosk’s savannas and deserts. This omnivore typically feasts on either the fruit of the taajratn or on small creatures it is able to catch using its spectacular sense of vision. Zhanshi possess opposable thumbs, and have been observed using primitive tools in their lives.

Life on Aemaq

The floating cities of Aemaq live and die by the chemical ocean they float upon, and life is centered around the sarcastically-named "water industry" of extracting chemicals from the ocean. Hundreds of floating cities of various sizes and populations make their way around the seas of Aemaq, gathering and producing chemicals as they go. Every single one of these cities features standard Elyran magpulse technology, due to the hazards associated with remaining on the sea level of Aemaq, and energy-based shielding, due to the hazards presented by rain on the planet. These cities are generally quite diverse due to the length of time the colony has been established for, its relative wealth, and the cosmopolitan nature of the Republic of Elyra's position on the human frontier. Humans and nonhumans from all walks of life can be found in the floating cities, but off-world humans tend to be rare due to the planet's gravity being equal to that of Earth.

The majority of immigrants to Aemaq intend to become involved in its lucrative chemical industry in a variety of fields - and all kinds of people can be found in the field - or they intend to become involved with the growing scientific community centered around the planet’s leviathans. Natives of the planet tend to be born to middle-class or upper middle-class families, as is typical of the residents of the Republic of Elyra. Many longer-term residents of the planet are wary of the growing scientific community surrounding the Aemaqii Sea’s leviathans, instead believing that a “live and let live” approach should be adopted with the leviathans.

The chemical niche that Aemaq fills in the broader economy of the Republic of Elyra, combined with the already-fantastic living standards of Elyra, has resulted in the planet being incredibly prosperous. As such, natives of the planet often find themselves on a relatively equal economic footing with one another and the planet is, contrary to other locations in the Orion Spur, dominated by a burgeoning middle class.

Clothing on Aemaq tends to be thicker and heavier than most other planets in the Republic of Elyra as a result of its colder climate. Some clothing is made using the aquatic “fur” of a non-leviathan sea fauna referred to as a sumaik-furwi typically found in the northern seas that is often kept as a form of aquatic livestock. The sumaik-furwi can be shaved of its “fur” safely as long as it is released into hotter water afterwards, which has led to a remarkably sustainable product that has come to be desired across the Republic of Elyra and beyond.

While the supersonic “sea scoop” jets powered by both rocket boosters and atmospheric turbojets proved to be too expensive and impractical for widespread chemical-gathering usage, they managed to find another commercial field on Aemaq: racing. The sea scoops have since been rebranded and retrofitted as high-end civilian sportscraft and racers, though they have maintained the distinctive nickname of sea scoop due to the origins of the sport in the pilots that were employed to scoop chemicals from the jets. Various floating cities on Aemaq field their own teams, and racing is a common pastime that ultimately culminates in the Aemaq Grand Prix: a competition between the best teams to see who can perform a chosen course the fastest. Though official races proceed with one jet running the course at a time for safety, informal one-on-one races where both pilots compete to see who is the fastest while running a course at the same time are not unheard of.

Major Floating Cities

Rumaidair is the capital of Aemaq and its most populated floating city, with roughly 40 million permanent residents. It is the first settlement ever established on the surface of Aemaq’s seas, and its residents are typically proud of this fact. While Rumaidair drifts freely, it tends to favor the central seas of the planet due to their comparatively hospitable climate. The planet’s largest university, the Rumaidair Municpal University - an institute renowned for its chemists and biologists, is found here. Its sea scoop team is called the Rumaidair Leviathans, and their colors are green and white.

Nuzhied is the second largest city on Aemaq and one of the earlier settlements on it. While the city serves as a major chemical producer, it also functions as the center of Aemaqii fashion due to its position on the northern seas of the planet. More sumaik-furwi can be found in Nuzhied and its surrounding waters than anywhere else on the planet, which has resulted in its textile exports slightly surpassing its chemical industry in terms of raw profit. Nuzhied’s sea scoop team is, appropriately, called the Fighting Sumaiks. The team’s colors are purple and blue, the same colors often found on clothing produced here.

Kulat is the third largest floating city on Aemaq. Located near the southern pole of the planet, its population has swollen in recent years with the discovery of richer chemical concentrations deeper than the surface level in its surrounding waters. While it is unknown why chemicals tend to concentrate towards lower levels of water near the southern pole, it is known that the “veins” of chemicals are extremely rich and well worth the risk. Due to the risks and foolhardiness locals associate with “going deep” on Aemaq, many of its chemical hunters tend to be foreigners or recent arrivals. Its sea scoop team is called the Kulat Albatrosses, and their colors are brown and white.

Sahina is an atypical floating city located midway between the equator and southern pole. It does not have great chemical reserves, but it does have an extraordinary amount of leviathans in its surrounding waters. This floating city was the site of the M.V. Qishlah incident of 2454, and the floating city has developed a kind of quiet appreciation for the leviathans in the years since. Conflict has arisen in the years since between the city’s population and the researchers (and tourists) that have come to study leviathans in the years since the M.V. Qishlah incident. Due to their odd habits surrounding the leviathans, the citizens of Sahina are often looked upon as superstitious by other Aemaqians. The city’s sea scoop team is the Sahina Seahawks, and their colors are violet and black. These colors have sparked controversy in recent years due to their ability to blend in with Aemaq’s chemical seas, and a debate regarding a change in team colors is currently underway.