Planet II · the quarry that never sleeps
Kharsis
In a nutshell
Kharsis is the second planet of the Aurin system: a desert of canyons, dunes and oases, with thin but breathable air. It is the great quarry of the Zenith, one of the two factions, who work it hard. The other faction, the Nadir, holds out here on the defensive.
There is no Armisticio here to hold us back. Here there is only whoever arrives first.
What is Kharsis like?
Kharsis is the second planet of Aurin, the system’s star. It is 6,300 km in radius. It is arid, but people can live on it.
- Gravity. 8.98 m/s².
- Day. Only four hours. Sunrises and sunsets are short.
- Landscape. Deep canyons, mesas, dune seas and salt flats. There are no oceans.
- Water. Its water is fossil: ancient water stored underground. Where it surfaces there is vegetation, villages and conflict.
- Air. Thinner than on Ithera, the temperate planet, and richer in oxygen (70 kPa, 26%). It breathes like air halfway up a mountain.
- Sky. Pale and dusty.
- Light. It gets twice the light Ithera does. Aurin looks like an almost blinding disc a degree and a half across. That is why MMU equipment, built on the common technology both factions inherited, carries filter visors for midday.
- Life. Sparse and hardy: oasis scrub, rock flora and cave fauna.
Kharsis has three moons, Kravane, Kharun and Erran, plus a captured asteroid, Ashkar.
The Registro Aura, the system’s first catalogue, gave it the suffix -is: arid and rich in minerals. It was one of only two planets the Registro rated habitable.
Who is in charge here?
The Zenith, one of the system’s two factions. Kharsis is the kind of resource their ideology was made for: an immense deposit. Its native life is sparse, and easy to push aside for anyone who does not want to see it.
The Cátedra de Ascensión, the Zenith high command, sees in its seams the fuel for the next generation of the MMU. Its Arquitectos, the Cátedra body that controls the MMU, have raised refineries at speed.
The Nadir, the other faction, cannot match that pace. To do so they would have to break their own principle: ration, do not exhaust. Even so, they have not abandoned the planet:
- They keep up patrols of the Flotilla Libre, their militia.
- Unofficially, the Descarnados, their radicals, sabotage the most aggressive installations.
But the Nadir are the side on the defensive, and they know it.
What happens when an alarm goes off?
Now and then, long-range sensors pick up unauthorised extraction at the Fosa Ámbar, a crater with a unique resource. The alert then reaches both stations at once: El Pináculo, the Zenith station, and El Fondeadero, the Nadir one. It carries the same text and a different sender.
Flight Sergeant Iren Kast flies the Zenith in. She serves in the Guardia Vertical, the Zenith army. As they enter Kharsis, she warns them there is no Armisticio here to hold them back. She means the Armisticio de Ithera, the pact that left Ithera free of armies.
Helmsman Dess Arwick of the Flotilla Libre flies the Nadir in. He puts it another way:
“This place doesn’t forgive anyone, and it’s the same for them as for us. It’s the only justice Kharsis has, and that’s no small thing.”
Helmsman Dess Arwick, Flotilla Libre
How does the ore leave the planet?
The ore is not refined below. Sandstorms and fine dust ruin any vacuum furnace. So it goes up into space:
- On the surface stands the Refinería Yermo, the largest Zenith industrial complex outside El Pináculo. It is worked by The Forge’s operators, and the guild keeps its vendor there.
- Its mass drivers fire capsules of raw ore towards the moon Kravane, day and night.
- On Kravane, the Fundición Alta smelts them in vacuum chambers.
The Yermo-Kravane axis is the richest logistics route in the inner system. It is also the easiest to attack. The Nadir have never tried to take the foundry: holding the furnace without the mine is worth nothing. The way to hurt the Zenith on Kharsis is to hit the route.
Which places should you know?
| Place | What it is |
|---|---|
| La Garganta de Sil | The deepest canyon system on the planet. Sand-laden wind carved it over millennia. Seams of Technalite, one of the system’s five ores, show in its walls. |
| El Reloj de Arena | A sea of migrating dunes that shift with the wind. It has swallowed whole pieces of heavy equipment. The wrecks surface and sink again with the storms. |
| El Silo Perdido | A supply depot of the Flota Aura, the fleet that brought the settlers. It has been half-buried since before the war of Year 1. It sits on the edge of the Reloj, a little over a kilometre from the Garganta. The dunes cover and uncover its hatch. At the bottom, its terminals still hold pre-war navigation data. |
| La Fosa Ámbar | An impact crater. The first flyovers took it for a unique deposit of amber-coloured ore; it is really a thick fluid under the crater floor, the Ámbar Licuado, pumped from three wells. It is fought over by The Forge, the producers’ guild, on the Zenith side, and the Flotilla Libre. Whoever holds it controls it. |
What is there to fear?
- Sandstorms. They cut visibility and damage exposed equipment.
- Collapses. Canyons give way in zones of intensive extraction. It is a direct consequence of Zenith doctrine.
- Temperature swings. Hot days give way to cold nights.
- Gas. Pockets of refinery gas linger in abandoned installations.
What does Kharsis give that no other world does?
Three materials come only from here (see the resource guide):
- Vitrarena. The dry storms make it. The sand becomes charged and lightning strikes dunes of bare quartz. The strike vitrifies the quartz: it turns it into glass. That is the silica of optics and gunsights.
- Resina Fósil. Thermal insulation for suits and equipment.
- Polvo de Cuarzo Férrico. A refining catalyst. Every high-level refiner wants some in reserve.
