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Pactolus & Midaion

Pactolus System

Sector: Arusha

Capital: Eurydice

Species: Vast Majority IPCs

Common Languages: EAL, TCB, Tradeband

Demonyms: Pactolan, Midaian

Part of: The Golden Deep

Pactolus is the capital world of the Golden Deep, located in a shallow section of the Arusha sector. Midaion is the sole large satellite of the same planet, and has served as the primary trading hub of the collective almost since its founding, hosting many more ships while maintaining a smaller population than its planet. Combined, their system composes the sole corner of the Orion Spur populated almost exclusively by synthetics. Humans are a transitory minority in the social and economic complex emerging from these worlds, administered by a radically capitalistic collective of merchants eager for rapid, and reckless, economic growth.

Both bodies exist under a star estimated to be of nearly 13 billion years of age. It is a (relatively) small red giant, having ballooned to 13 times the size of Sol and close to 400 times as luminous billions of years ago. It is theorised that Pactolus was once much closer to its star and also much colder, being flung rapidly outwards into a far more distant orbit which happened, by good fortune, to be within the young giant's new habitable zone. Indigenous life developed shortly thereafter.

While Midaion saw settlement as early as 2439, Pactolus only seriously followed in 2464; its late colonisation is owed to its strong gravity well and thick orbiting debris field making it unattractive for commerce. While less desirable to the merchant class, the quasi-habitable environment and the relative abundance of rare materials including gold, silver, and lithium has earned it a clear economic niche as of the founding of the city of Eurydice. Both bodies collectively comprise the substrate of a rapidly developing culture of independent-minded synthetics; it is an early, clumsy, and wholly novel foray of a young race into self-determination.

System History

The Pactolus system holds essentially two histories; the first features the efforts of the Hegemonic Alliance throughout the span of the 23rd century, and the second sees the system developed again virtually from scratch by the Golden Deep, a collective of synthetic merchants, in the mid-25th century.

Human Colonisation and Exodus - 2257 - 2287 Make big rocks. Settlement by the Golden Deep - 2439 - 2465 Make big rocks. Development and Upheaval - 2466 - present Make big rocks.

Midaion, Trade Satellite

A relatively small, craggy moon comprised primarily of nickel and iron, Midaion's most prominent claim to fame is as the Golden Deep's first and primary anchorage, still eclipsing Pactolus handily in tonnages of exported and imported goods even to the present day. It is a rock dedicated wholly and completely to the glories of capital; gilded halls stretch endlessly in all cardinal directions as throngs of owned workers shift cargo to and from the docks. Throngs of Hoplan march alongside them, as ostentatiously uniformed as their surroundings are decorated, each arrayed in the vivid liveries of their respective House. Almost no corner of the moon is free from the distant groaning of advertisement and promotion - even sitting upon a bench necessitates paying a small fee to a slot in its armrest.

This is the home of the Golden Deep's enterprise. It is not an exercise in nation-building, or in community, or in civil commitment. It is a monument to the wonders of commerce, to the affluence of its creators, to the certain success of their future endeavours, and to the transcendental truths of the Universal Constants of Selfish Reciprocity. It is a machine that serves the interests of the merchant-class, hosting a vanishingly small number of Thesians; its population is almost entirely the property of the merchants whose vessels dart to-and-fro around the moon. It is home to the rampantly ambitious and the utterly resigned.

Serving also as the primary berth of the Midas, the administrative capital of the Golden Deep, Midaion at any time tends to host the most wealthy of mercantile society. It is where agreements are negotiated, where contracts are finalised, and where valuable goods are held during movement. As a result of this, it hosts far more wealth, and wealth inequality, than the more proletarian and free population of Pactolus. According to a Pactolan, Midaians are self-absorbed vampires who erroneously conflate wealth for character. According to a Midaian, Pactolans are anti-entrepreneurial busybodies embittered by their own inferior fortunes.

Environment & Landmarks

Midaion is a little smaller than Luna, although it orbits its planet much closer. It has essentially no atmosphere, and its surface is dotted with innumerable impact sites, particularly on the side tidally locked to Pactolus, presumably owed to the same event that threw so much debris into its orbit. It contains scarce minerals and has never been the host of major mining operations.

Most remarkable of Midaion is, rather than any natural formation, how it has been developed. The Great Anchorage is a work of immense scale, taking up the majority of the planet-facing side of the moon; it is a system of baroquely designed docks and hangars capable of accommodating a few thousand ships at a time, all built around the gratuitously vast berth carved into the crust of the planet itself for the sole occupation by the GDMV Midas. Its interior is a vast commercial centre, featuring retailers for food and drinks and overloaders and antiques, offices for renting, repair stations, luxury suites - all wrapped finely in the gilded veneer of an exquisite, opulent façade. Its custodial department alone numbers as many as a small town, all to ensure that not a single inch of the installation is ever anything but flawless. At the height of its most central and grandiose hallway is a bronze statue of the mythological King Midas, his hand lowered to an ornamental fountain sculpted of solid gold.

Behind and below its ostentatious veneer, however, are thousands of janitors, engineers, maintenance technicians, plumbers, and electricians who work to maintain the vast installation throughout its industrial lower levels. It is a major crux of the economy for a full parsec around, with many smaller corporations and independent contractors throughout the remote archipelago of Arusha dependant on the infrastructure of the Great Anchorage for their survival. While work there is prestigious, self-owned Thesians usually lack the networking to receive a posting.

Pactolus, Capital World

The fourth planet from the star of the Pactolus system, Pactolus is a semi-habitable world orbiting a red star. It is smaller than Earth, having around two-thirds its diameter and the same proportion of its gravity. While its atmosphere is breathable for short periods, being composed of 13% oxygen, 56% argon and 36% nitrogen at 89kPa, internals are necessary for long or strenuous exposure in the surface atmosphere. This atmospheric toxicity has been lately worsened by the growing concentrations of carbons dioxide and monoxide in the atmosphere. Thick raincoats and waterproof ponchos are common to see among both humans and synthetics travelling outdoors on account of the dangerously low pH of the planet's rainfall, and all humans are advised to stay on internals whenever outside a sealed environment.

Its dubious habitability marks a small concern for the majority of its population, which are synthetics from across all walks of life; these are affluent merchants and the most destitute of runaways, formerly free souls that have sold themselves to save themselves, and the dispossessed, and the possessors. Most of this population is concentrated in the city of Eurydice, a rapidly growing metropolis built atop one of the few permanently dry landmasses on the planet, although the surface is increasingly dotted with colonial outposts and mining stations as the population eagerly sets out to exploit the planet's long-untapped resources. Despite this rapid growth and development, however, the planet remains remote, relatively undeveloped, and host to a small population in comparison to major worlds such as Konyang.

Famously, Pactolus is shrouded by an immensely thick debris field composed primarily of iron and nickel meteoroids between the sizes of a grain of sand and a small car. This has historically made entry and exit from its gravity well almost impossible. Earlier human attempts to colonise the planet featured custom-built heavy-duty shuttles designed to shrug off impacts without harming the crew; more recently, the Golden Deep has successfully utilised the 'Draupnir' system of low-orbit satellites armed with advanced electromagnets to force open holes in the field, relying on the ferromagnetic metals in the field to dilate open a narrow path for minutes or even hours. Only one path exists, which is opened intermittently above the city of Eurydice to permit traffic.

Environment

Pactolus is dominated by its ocean; a usual average of 85% of its surface is covered in grey, acidic brine at a usual depth of less than 70m, composed primarily of water and ammonia and salty to the point of complete saturation. Large salt deposits dot the surface. There is almost no permanent land anywhere; while there are many low-lying landmasses, inclusive of sandy atolls and stromatolite formations, almost all of them are submerged at some time of the week due to the planet's immense tides. Midaion's extremely close proximity and its weekly orbit results in a planet in which the tides may subside as much as 60 to 80 metres, before the ocean comes flooding back in within the same week. This is made worse by the erratic orbit of Midaion; not only is the map constantly changing, but it is also changing in a new way every time as old causeways disappear and new landmasses emerge from the tides, making exploration difficult and rendering all long-term colonisation of tidal areas nearly impossible.

All of the few dozen landmasses that are at a sufficient altitude to avoid these monumental tides are volcanoes or giant stromatolites. Pactolus is highly geologically active, boasting a large number of geothermal springs on the surface and underwater in addition to several large volcanoes dotted across the surface, many of which are still active. These volcanoes serve as critical anchors when traversing the surface, providing a consistent reference point for travel throughout the ever-changing tidal landscape. Most permanent outposts are, for this reason, built on the slopes of volcanoes.

The planet's topography is composed of many hills and crags giving way occasionally to large flat stretches of dense, black sand. Rivers and streams are commonplace but are usually both small and temporary, being substantially rerouted or entirely destroyed by movements of the tides. Many rivers and streams originate from hot springs exposed intermittently to the surface, which feed to rock pools. There are almost no plants, and none of the hardy weeds that have managed to take root are indigenous to the planet - it is a basalt desert locked into a constantly tidal state, never allowed to fully dry.

While traditional human weeks are still used on Pactolus, each week lasts 2⅓ local days as a consequence of every such day lasting 72 hours. This means long days and long nights, often resulting in dangerous recovery operations as travellers on the surface misgauge their position and find the tide coming in at dusk. Surface temperatures at the equator average -5 to 10°C, and reach as low as -25°C at the poles, although there is rarely any surface ice owed to the saltiness of the surface water. Weather on the planet is damp and perpetually overcast - if not by clouds, then by the debris field above diffusing the red sunlight to a uniform haze. Storms are common, and at even low wind speeds are treated with serious gravity by the mercantile authorities due to the exacerbated hazard of the rainwater's acidity.

Geology & Minerals

While rich in a large variety of relatively valuable elements and compounds, inclusive of silver, gold, lithium, and cobalt, the radical tidal environment of Pactolus makes these difficult to extract. Small deposits can be easily sifted through the grey sand of the planet, which glistens with tiny flecks of highly reflective metals across the surface. This has prompted several mercantile conglomerates to operate 'Sifters' - tracked vehicles which roll across the surface behind the tides to collect material from the sand and till it in its wake. Permanent quarries are forced to operate very dynamically; mining companies must maintain large networks of many small quarries, each of which their workers will migrate between as they are taken and released by the tides. Advanced drainage systems must be incorporated into these tidal quarries to ensure that they are not a saltwater lake by the time the workers return to them, often incorporating high-power pumps feeding to nearby reservoirs to achieve this. On account of the difficult lifestyle implied by this erratic quarry-hopping, and because of the dangers involved in chasing the tides, self-owned sifters and quarriers are among the most lucratively paid menial workers on the planet.

Biosphere

While Pactolus hosts a modest roster of indigenous lifeforms at the present day, it is understood that it hosted a far greater diversity in the recent past. Non-fossilised remains of large millipede-like arthropods, lamprey-like jawless chordates, and even structures resembling coral have been found littered throughout the planet, revealed occasionally by the shifting sands. Pactolus is in the immediate aftermath of a debilitating mass extinction event following the incident of 2287, which threw ecosystems into freefall as vital niches have gone unfilled for over a century. New extinctions roll in every month or so. While the plight of the native biology is a cause championed by some, the mercantile authorities of the planet are hopelessly indifferent to the affair, and legislate with the same indifference.

Despite their ill fortunes, a few dominant species have managed to maintain robust populations. All life native to Pactolus has evolved around the cycle of the tides - almost all fauna on the planet is aquatic or semi-aquatic, either burying themselves in the sand when it is dry above, or following the tide out to its next location as it follows the moon. While no native flora or fungi analogues ever developed on the planet, hardy terrestrial weeds such as dandelions and chickweed may occasionally be found growing atop the slopes of volcanoes, though the sediment in tidal areas is too salty for them.

Unicellular Life

Most life on Pactolus is single-celled; they compose the vast majority of its total biomass, they are responsible for the oxygenation of the atmosphere, and they comprise the bedrock of every ecosystem. Vast algal blooms occasionally cast the ocean in an otherworldly atmosphere, prompting it to radically change colour and even occasionally glow with bioluminescence at predictable times of the year.

Photosynthetic Pactolamorphs - Giant Stromatolites One of the most striking features of Pactolus are its Giant Stromatolites. These are sedimentary formations formed by adhesive solutions secreted by large colonies of photosynthetic microbes; whereas terrestrial examples are rarer than a few feet tall, specimens on Pactolus can be as tall as a stout office block. Alongside volcanoes, the largest of these are the sole areas of Pactolus that always stay above high tide, prompting them to be a regular site for development by expanding mercantile interests. Regrettably, the species that create these monuments are severely endangered - the debris cloud above the planet blocks enough sunlight to make their survival difficult, leading to nearly half of all Giant Stromatolites on the planet to already be biologically inert. More are expected to follow. Chemosynthetic Pactolamorphs - 'Lily-of-the-Valley' One of the more infamous of its biosphere, 'Lily-of-the-Valley' is the nickname applied by the many sifters and quarriers of the planet to a particular kind of chemosynthetic microorganism found in hydrothermal springs and in pools fed by them. These organisms feed off the chemicals in the water to balloon rapidly in population, turning a pool to any vivid colour inclusive of a deep crimson, a royal purple, and a dense black. They are diffused sparsely into the ocean water at high tide; the specimens lucky enough to have been deposited back into a pool at low tide bloom again. Unfortunately, these microorganisms are extremely hostile to human biology. Within days of exposure to the bloodstream, Lily-of-the-Valley will have eaten sufficiently at the brain to render the patient comatose or outright deceased. Treatment for this condition is limited, prompting every corporation which hires organics to provide thorough training and how to avoid exposure. Actual fatalities are vanishingly rare, owed in no small part to the small number of humans on the planet, although it still has a sufficiently fearsome reputation that even many synthetics will hesitate to risk exposure to it.

Multicellular Life

Multi-celled native organisms on Pactolus are usually either a hard-shelled arthropod of some kind - many of which possess long, cylindrical bodies - or a sedentary creature similar to a terrestrial sponge or sea lily. Many of these organisms are moderately hazardous to a human, but are far less threatening to a synthetic without an organic body to puncture or poison. Invasive fauna has had extremely poor luck taking to the planet on account of its outlandish and highly acidic environs, although there is quite a large population of stray cats, rats, and other common terrestrial pests in and around Eurydice.

Ambulatory Segmented Multicellular Pactolamorphs - Tidal Rockworms The largest surviving animal on Pactolus is the Tidal Rockworm, a clade of several species of segmented carnivorous worm reaching lengths of as many as twenty feet. They are ambush predators and detritovores, burrowing into the silt of the seabed in tidal areas, awaiting something edible to cross its path, and promptly dragging said edible thing into the sand to be consumed between their pair of chitinous jaws. These are the apex predators of the planet - although, with many of their traditional prey species recently extinct, they are also highly cannibalistic, subsiding ubiquitously on their own young for survival. While the legend of the fully grown rockworm has become sensational, they are seen in the flesh rarer and rarer as their population descends slowly into a pit of self-inflicted extinction. Their eating of their young has earned them associations with the mythological Saturn in the Pactolan consciousness; a symbol of selfish dogma, and self-destructive overinvestment. Sedentary Multicellular Pactolamorphs - Rock Sponges & Slime Molds Make big rocks.

City of Eurydice

Culture

Little Xanu

Religion

Tidal Outskirts

Ruins & Anomalous Activity

During its time under the Alliance, what is now Pactolus underwent significant infrastructural development. Several permanent settlements were built on relatively low-lying plateaus adjacent to major mineral deposits, building a robust economy off exports prior to the colony's cataclysmic end. These settlements, as well as the infrastructure surrounding them, are now blasted ruins located almost exclusively within what are now tidal areas; they are rows upon rows of colonial concrete reduced to headless foundations buried partially under the sand, shrouded altogether under dense tidal fog, often hidden by the tide. Due to their remote locations and the number obscured at any time, these ruins are poorly explored, poorly understood, and are treated with a modest degree of caution by the local population.

This caution originates from an apparently consistent trend of unusual phenomena and events limited primarily to these ruins. Disappearances among explorers are common, in addition to a higher-than-usual rate of crippling accidents. Strange silhouettes in the fog, or disembodied voices, are frequent reports. Some witnesses theorise a degree of time dilation near the sites, claiming adamantly that they felt more time had passed after they left the ruins than their route should have actually entailed, despite all their equipment telling them that time has passed normally.

Such a reputation has earned Pactolus and its ruins a favoured position among conspiracy buffs, ghost hunters, and other such entertainers. A rich tradition of popular cryptids has developed from these reports, producing an entire rogue's gallery of strange and unexplained beings alleged to subsist in the ruins. While the scientific establishment places little stock in such theorists and cryptozoologists, it is impossible to deny that the disappearances around the sites are real. Throngs of locals remain vehement that real anomalous activity surrounds the human ruins, proving troublesome to dissuade, and a great many entrepreneurs have made a living off selling merchandise relating to these many cryptids and urban legends to tourists eager to be sold a phenomenal narrative.