51-Pegasus

In a 0.7 AU orbit, is 51 Pegasus, a small class F planet with no atmosphere.  Its diameter is half that of Zemlejos Major, and it offers only 0.35G.  Average surface temperature is -100°C.  Its day is 13 Standard Hours, and the planet performs a full orbit every 276 days. 

 

Life on 51 Pegasus is hard and mostly hidden from the brutal, airless surface. Its sub-surface colonies stretch like inverted towers into the crust—fortresses of heat, industry, and flickering neon. The bleak surface is lit only by the harsh glint of starlight, malasite rigs, and the occasional volcanic flare from the nearby moon, LGZ-359, which hangs in the sky like a red-eyed sentinel.

 

Despite the harshness, 51 Pegasus thrives in its own way. It has become an industrial cornerstone in its solar system due to malasite-B, a rare, energy-dense crystalline compound used to power warp cores, terraforming units, and advanced AI infrastructure.

There are 35 settlements in all, with populations ranging from tens of thousands to several millions, but the core feature of each of them is a Glass Well, a giant cylinder made of transparent material.  It is made by isolating a section of bedrock - itself a gargantuan operation - and then irradiating it at certain wavelengths to melt it.  The material of the glass well provides a view straight up to the surface and an unparalleled viewing point for LGZ-359’s eruptions.  It is also, first and foremost, the hub of which the underground sub-colonies are the spokes.

The sub-colonies are all built on the same model.  A large access tunnels stretches horizontally, up to fifty kilometres long, containing all the necessary facilities for the transport and supplying of the colony's miners, and for the transport of malasite-B ore back to the hub.

 

These access tunnels then branch out into the different quarters of the sub-colony, whilst vertical shafts lead to the extraction areas.

Living close by the vertical shafts oriented towards the planet's core is, depending on your point of view, the worst or the best situation.  The fumes that malasite-B extraction produces are intoxicating, both in real and metaphorical terms.  These zones house the poorest of the poor, the maddest of the mad, and also prisoners sent by other planets of the solar system to purge their sentence.  Such a judgement is colloquially known as "Sentenced to Living Death".

Conditions worsen the deeper one descends the Glass Well, since its material is not perfectly transparent, and natural light, or at least the perspective of getting some, therefore gradually fades.

 

The Glass Wells themselves are far from empty cylinders.  Gossamer corridors are spun through them, blossoming into fully-fledged chambers, which house the colony's government, bureaucracy, centralised supply areas, and so on.  They have been compared, from the outside as from the inside, to the ant hills that are often housed in natural history museums, for the public's amusement.

On the surface are the malasite rigs.  Through an excruciatingly delicate process, these extract malasite-B from its ore, and condition it ready for transport.  The rigs are mostly automated, with minimal human input.  Those who do work in the rigs are under constant scrutiny, as a gram of malasite-B is worth several hundred times its weight in gold.  Shuttle docking areas allow the malasite-B to be transported offworld to waiting transport vessels.

 

Travel between colonies across the planet's surface is theoretically possible, but as any Pegasian would say, "Why bother?".  There were plans at the beginning of the century to link the colonies, via mag-trains, to a central starport capable of docking large transport vessels, but it proved impossible to organise. 

Some of the earlier colonies, if they still exist, have a rare form of collective ownership of these resources, each mining family having a share in profits (or losses), whilst dedicating a percentage of their share to renewing the colony infrastructure.  Well managed, these colonies are among the most efficient, but they are generally restrained in size, and are especially prone to political instability, which has been the end of more than one...be it accidental or provoked.

 

The majority of colonies are owned by the corporations, either those born in The Threads, or off-system corpos based in Unity.  There are only two cases of a colony being entirely owned by a corporation; more frequently, a corpo will own one or more sub-colonies, with an appropriate number of seats on the colony's Governing Board.  Tensions between "local" and "foreign" corporations are always high.  Even though the goals of both are basically the same - making money for their shareholders - these tensions are a good way to capitalise for political gain.

 

The Council of Nine

The colonies under collective ownership turn to the Council of Nine when faced with insoluble internal problems.  Upon specific request, the Council can provide mediation, trial and judgement, and even name a Dictator to govern the member colony for a period of time of its choosing, with full executive powers.

With its roots in a coalition of mining families formed during the earliest days of settlement, the Council of Nine is much of the reason that these colonies have survived to this day.

The outside forces that seek to prey on the fragility of the collectivist colonies represent a mortal threat to the Council of Nine; hence only five members are publicly elected, and they then name, in secret, four Shadow Members.  Their very existence helps keeps the entire Council safe. 

The Chain

Maintaining a repressive legal apparatus that is above corporate politics is one of the primary means by which they keep a lid on the boiling cauldron that is 51-Pegasus.

The Chain, so named after the eponymous feature of their uniform that is used to restrain prisoners, is a mix of watchdogs, enforcers and negotiators.  They have ultimate authority over all citizens of 51-Pegasus outside of the collectivist colonies.  Their methods are notoriously brutal and senior officers possess a "judge and jury" capacity that ensures they are deeply feared.

 

The Chain operate from sleek, austere outposts, the only chambers within the Glass Walls whose walls are opaque.  The opulence provided by malasite-B ensures that they are heavily equipped, with advanced AI networks that are rumoured to anticipate criminal activity before it actually happens.  The rumour-mill that drives the algorithms stems from the Whisperers - human agents trained in manipulation, interrogation, and information control.

The Red Hand Accord

The Red Hand Accord is an underground (sometimes literally) resistance movement operating within and around the extraction zones of 51 Pegasus that are manned by prisoners. Their mission: expose the corporate-judicial conspiracy that funnels unjustly convicted people into “Living Death” sentences, and liberate as many as they can.

They operate on two fronts:

1. Legally, by filing appeals and pushing cases through overburdened or corrupt planetary and interplanetary courts — a slow, dangerous game.

2. Illegally, by organizing extractions: smuggling prisoners out of the depths, relocating them into safehouses hidden in uncharted sub-colony shafts, and then getting them off-world, whilst falsifying shuttle logs and setting up new identities.

Theirs is a delicate task.  Those that they seek to save are, at least in most cases, criminals whose guilt no longer needs to be proven, but whose sentence to "Living Death" is disproportionate to the crimes committed.

Membership of the Red Hand is very diverse, and secretly includes some very public figures.  They might be active or retired attorneys and judges, as well as white-hat hackers who have built a career fighting against the corporations.  There is some support amongst the miners of 51-Pegasus itself, although it is not widespread.  Better sometimes to believe in the just punishment of another, than have to work the most dangerous areas oneself.

The Red Hand also employs the undeniably criminal talents of the very prisoners it has helped to escape, to manipulate, mislead and falsify, and also provide a revenue stream.  Their ethical lines are thus particularly blurred, particularly given that the mental health of some escaped prisoners has been severely compromised by the time spent on 51-Pegasus.  Critics also point out that the Red Hand shows no concerns for those non-prisoners who, poorest of the poor, share their harsh working conditions in the malasite-b mines.  There have also been incidents where freed prisoners had clearly committed crimes worthy of their sentence, but had high value for the organisation itself.

Whenever the organisation frees someone, they come back to leave a "red hand", be it in holochit form or, more daringly, graffitied directly onto a wall or corridor, always with an eye in the centre of the palm.   Prisoners often whisper: “The Red Hand sees,” a hopeful mantra suggesting help is coming.

  

Jarik Talon stood at the rim of the Glass Well as dawn’s pale starlight filtered through the crystalline cylinder. Two years earlier, he’d arrived here in chemical shackles—“Sentenced to Living Death,” they’d called it—convicted of a minor offense on a distant world and sold to the malasite rigs. Back then, the bracelet clamped around his ankle had felt like the end of everything.

Two years that made hell sound like a better option.  The chem-stims from his bracelet didn't even let him feel the depression he knew was ravaging his psyche. Then, by some miracle, his request for parole was accepted.  Jarik still smiled when he remembered how his jaw had gaped open in incredulity, only closing it when a well-intentioned clerk pointed out that he was drooling. Was it the Red Hand ?  He would never know, but he suspected it might have been.   They hadn't whisked him off to a safehouse; if it was them, they had just let him carry on with his life.  Or had they - finding a job, a paid one, on 51-Pegasus had come surprisingly easy.  Did he have a debt that would one day be called in ?

Today, the bracelet around his ankle is a relic, that he decided to keep after the chem-stims were deactivated.  He wears a miner’s exosuit instead, pitted with scars and burn marks. He punches in at Dock Eleven: twelve hours of shifting rock, feeding ore through conveyor chutes, keeping the malasite-B veins from collapsing. Each morning, he breathes through a “core mask,” its filters crammed with rig scavenged charcoal and polymer mesh. The air tastes of metal and oil; sometimes, in quiet moments, the fumes send his mind back to prison cell corridors, to the whispered promise “The Red Hand sees.”

His hands are calloused, his back bent, but he moves with purpose.  Although there have been occasions, he has steadfastly refused to found a family.  His friends think it is because he is tired of the world, but in truth, where would wife and children stand if he does, some day, have to repay the Red Hand ?

During breaks, he sits on a steel crate, gazing up through the glass at LGZ-359’s fiery flares. The ant-like corridors above gleam with neon veins of conveyor belts and transport shuttles. Sometimes he wonders about the friends he left behind—other inmates whose sentences ran longer, too long for any hope.

His pay is meager, just enough to buy a ration of hydrogel fruit and a nightly bunk in the communal quarters. Still, it tastes like victory. Each chime of the rig’s sensors is a heartbeat, each ton of crystal he moves a testament to second chances.  He puts enough by to offer himself, every now and then, a trip offworld, to one of the low-grade pleasure vessels hanging in orbit.  Not, unlike most of his colleagues, for the charnel rewards, for gambling, or for a fix of malasite-b fumes.  No; Jarik was born on Zemjelos.  He carries within him the unshakable truth that every day above ground, rather than under neon arcs and silent stone, is a gift he’ll never again take for granted.

 

The Solar Chord Pulse

On the surface and unprotected not by any atmosphere, but only by their thin shielding domes, a number of the older malasite rigs were badly affected.  Full shutdowns were rare, but it is becoming increasingly evident that many of their AI have been corrupted.

Containment is extremely difficult.  There are not enough AI specialists to go around, and bringing in more from other parts of the solar system is a difficult process, with the majority of star-going vessels damaged or even destroyed.  There is a serious risk of rogue AI developping, which means a potential for active malevolence and deliberate interference in other, so far undamaged, systems.

Two incidents have so far been reported in which the Chain have assembled prison battalions, and sent them into rig domes to disable rapidly failing AI.  The systems are programmed to defend themselves and casualties are reported to be high, and success close to zero.

There is also a persistent rumour that certain corporations are cynical enough to fuel the flames of crisis to such an extent that the Council of Nine will have to reveal all nine of its members to face it, in the collectively-owned colonies.  Which would of course be the perfect opportunity to cut the head off the snake, and turn disaster into a comfortable stream of future profit.