I have a world in my sector that rolled the following qualities: Mercenaries Out of Contact Corrosive Atmosphere Biosphere Remnants Variable Temperate to Warm Billions of Inhabitants TL 4+
I could certainly modify the qualities to make more sense, but I know that some here enjoy the challenge of making sense of what was rolled, as I do, so have at it.
Posted Sep 14, 2023, 2:12 PM UTC
First thought that comes to mind, Rocky Planet with a population that lives in giant Utapau style Sinkholes, that have these massive energy shield coverings that keep out the corrosive atmosphere. Towering vertical hydroponics, buildings stuck to the sides of cliff faces, pools of open water and generally nice places to live inside, but much of the population lives buried in solid rock honeycombs out into the bedrock with no sunlight. Kind of like Italian City States in the Rennaissance, they don't officially have armies and these large Mercenary bands live in smaller, less permanant settlements and wander around in large ruggardized vehicles in the badlands between cities. The atmosphere is Corrosive but not Corrosive Invasive so TL4+ *can* be hardned against it, especially if thats the local specialty, so people can homestead between cities in small communities. There's wildlife descended from Terran Mandate Bio-Terraforming, twisted and mutated versions of earth plants and animals that were meant to survive the atmosphere and slowly convert it into Earth Normal gasses, or possible intentionally introduced as an invasive species to try and outcompete a native biosphere that produces the corrosive gas, but this effort has largely failed since the Silence and now strange monsters and earth\alien hybrids are all thats left.
Atmosphere is toxic enough that air travel is impractical and nobody is willing to risk landing their starship on the surface for fear it won't make it back into space, so trade is very limited or non-existant.
Good ideas, thanks!
The inhabitants of [World] survive and thrive in an impossibly harsh environment of a planet that had been through a Global Catastrophic War. This war choked their skies, ruined their ability to sustain life, and killed billions. Hundreds of years later, these people have learned to be tougher than the planet trying to kill them, and thus have become brutally infamous mercenaries. After many worlds contracting them out, the sector realized that these people are Too Good at Killing and come close to destroying other worlds like they did their own. For those reasons, the sector has blacklisted them from contact (so they say).
[World] was a lost, uncontacted world where the inhabitants had retreated underground when the Scream caused their atmosphere processing to break down, filling the air with poison.
Things carried on in this way for centuries, with the overpopulated human survivors scratching out low-tech livings in the caves.
Then, a mercenary company with access to powerful weapon technology suffered a spike drive mishap and happened upon [World]. Their ship was irreparable, so they used their advanced tech to make themselves kings of the underground kingdoms.
I never thought of living underground. Great idea!
My brother-in-law, who I was hanging with when I was typing this and is also a sci-fi guy, had another good suggestion. The mercs are the only ones who know where this out-of-contact world is, and basically use it as a training/hunting ground and weapons testing range. The TL4+ aspect is the result of the weapons tests - they have the best bombs, having tested them carpet-bombing the helpless locals.
God I love the tag system.
Alternatively the settlements are probably overpopulated due to the high population and relatively inhospitable planet. So well established habitats may ease their overpopulation by encouraging residents to take up mercenary work for local mining interest, with corporate warfare common throughout the tunnels. And less established Habs fighting over ideal locations to set up, requesting mercenaries from their home habitats, which are using them as colonies to bring fresh materials in, but unwilling to risk direct conflict with any powerful neighbors. This way you don't have the mercenaries breaking the no-contact tag [since there is a separate minimal contact tag] it may be that the locals have a space station, but lack the knowledge to build a spike-drive, or are too busy trying to survive having wasted too many resources maintaining order before realizing that the mandate fleet isn't coming to resupply them, and losing the power to get off the planet without jeopardizing their survival during the resulting panic & Civil wars.
So basically Chemos/Olympia.
For added value, I suggest let the Outside doing increasingly dangerous expenditon, in the hope of finding something to repair their ship. Being king is nice, but not really fun when you dont have tech
I'm not familiar with these.
Both from Warhammer 40k.