This is obviously currently a work in progress - comments are welcome!
The Lunion subsector is the Imperial jumping-off point for the Five Sisters subsector, as well as the major trade connection with the Sword Worlds. As a result, trade is the be-all and end all of most worlds' economies; all manner of trade goods - legal and illegal alike - thrive in trade throughout not only the subsector, but the Spinward marches sector as a whole. Key to Stroudens' success as a major trade hub is not only it's commercially strategic position in the region, but it's militarily strategic position and ship construction yards, run by Ling Standard products.
The Ling Standard Products shipyards on Strouden are one of the two major shipbuilding points within the entire Spinward Marches (the other is the LSP yard on Lunion itself). The excellent workmanship, combined with level 13 technology, makes LSP products highly sought after.
Ling Standard Products, originally a mining firm (and still very active in that field), is currently engaged in a wide spectrum of activities including the manufacture of electronic equipment of all sorts, ground and air vehicles, starships and starship armaments, drive systems, power systems, computers and software, small arms, and a variety of consumer goods. Concerned to a small degree with banking, insurance, and stock brokerage, LSP maintains mining and manufacturing facilities throughout the Imperium and beyond. On Strouden, whilst concentrating on the construction of both civil and military shipping, LSP also has weapons fabrication, ship systems, and some of it's banking concerns, on-world.
All of the above makes LSP the worlds' prime commercial concern: Everything else is, frankly, small-fry in comparison.
Strategically, the system is the hub for more than six major high-profit trade routes, and three x-boat routes. It's also home to the Imperial 21st Fleet, the 504th Imperial Lift Marines (an included element of the 21st Fleet), and Stroudens' own Military Defence Services.
The SMDS (Strouden Military Defence Services) incorporates both space, land, and air units, maintaining 150 System Defence Boat Squadrons of eight Dragon-class SDBs each, and 3 Starship Squadrons, managed as a system defence and pirate interdiction fleet. Ground forces comprise a Field Army-strength force, primarily intended for use as a key point guard force in time of war, and a general security army in times of peace, complementing the Civil Security Service (Police) in times of civil unrest. Eight squadrons of 15 fighter/interceptor COACC units are maintained for starport and military site defence.
System Overview:
Strouden System is relatively unusual, comprising a binary star system. These tend to be uninhabitable, since planetary formation can be hampered by the stellar tides which prevent planets forming or, as happens in the vast majority of cases, normally results in planets that are uninhabitable due to formation in regions other than a stars' habitable zone. In Stroudens' case, however, a planet formed in the so-called habitable zone. So-called, as the planet is exceedingly hot all year round in all but the most polar regions - for example, average temperatures on the equator measure 64 degrees centigrade - far too hot for unsupported human life to last. Additionally, UV radiation from the primary star is hideously high - unprotected human skin normally develops lesions within an hour, with massive epidermal burning well before that.
Strouden possesses a small, relatively unremarkable moon, whose only notable feature is that it is home to the Strouden Military Defence Services System Early Warning Network Hub and C3 Relay Centre, codenamed SKYWARN.
The star system also possesses two asteroid belts, which have been extensively surveyed for mining opportunities, but which have yet to be exploited for such, the costs and risks involved for the potential returns being judged to be uneconomic and too high a risk.
Planetary Overview - Strouden:
While Strouden was a relatively normal world following formation, with the usual run of tectonic activity and associated geographical feature formations, the solar tidal forces due to the binary star system have had its' effects. Strouden is unusually volcanically active, with 20 active, and 15 dormant, volcanos. over the last 200 years, 8 of the active volcanos have been erupting constantly, spewing low-levels of magma flow: No explosive eruptions have occurred in this time. An unfortunate by-product of all the volcanic activity is that the atmosphere is permanently tainted with sulphur, and (until recently much unexplained) particulate matter, requiring citizens to use full-face filter/compressor masks when outside. Given the average outside temperatures as well, these have to be specially made for the planet, and contain a chiller unit to keep the oxygen supply tanks from bursting due to heat-induced pressure. this requires that all filter/compression mask units on-world utilise back-pack support systems; currently, a planetary terraforming effort is carrying on, to attempt to remove the atmospheric taint, but results are not expected for at least 200 years - the work has been greatly hampered by the continues volcanic activity world-wide. In addition, all waters on-world are similarly tainted with sulphur. Accordingly, all water must be filtered in order to render it potable.
The local year on Strouden is a shade over 31 days; this makes roughly 11.77 local years to the Imperial Standard year. As a result of the combination of local season rapidity and the average world temperature, no terran-style plants thrive anywhere except in specially insulated hydroponics 'greenhouses'.
The rotational period of 26.55 standard hours is close enough as to make little difference to the Imperial standard ways of doing things on a daily basis; visitors may find themselves a little fatigued after a few days, but that's the extent, normally. For those with a sensitive circadian rhythm to maintain, doctors are available 26 and a half hours a day, seven days a week, at all major cities state health centres, for immediate and free consultations (provided that the optional and reasonably cheap "visitor limited state health plan insurance policy" is taken out on entry to Strouden. Port Customs and Immigration officials always recommend it (Rumours that they receive a small commission if they sell it have regularly been denied by the government). If a visitor does not have the insurance policy, then costs skyrocket - the cost for medial care of offworlders is high, and the government wishes to discourage 'medical tourism' as a strain on resources).
Recent Geological Developments:
Until very recently, the primary goal of the geosciences on Strouden was the early detection and warning for all forms of volcanic event. However, it was noticed two hundred years ago that the only places where volcanic activity did not occur were on Maiz, the main landmass; this lead to some rather heated speculation on the reasons for the lack of activity, which went on until very recently.
The University of Miaz decided to investigate what was hitherto considered to be a super volcano site in the Great Lake on Miaz. Magnetometer, gravitic, and other surveys found nothing untoward, until new equipment was developed by, and donated for field testing, by LSP. These raised the levels of detection for magnetometers and remote gravitic sensing to a higher level than had previously been available to the University, and lo and behold, a super volcano the lake was not.
It was instead a massive impact crater.
Polar Ice Core surveys have dated the impact back some 3,000 years, to a semi-solid-cored HVI (High Velocity Impactor) object (probably a rogue meteorite or comet), that possibly measured some 800 metres across, massed somewhere in the region of 600 metric tonnes, and impacted with an estimated velocity of perhaps 35,000 kph).
Even after 3,000 years post-impact, all the particulate matter spewn up into the atmosphere has yet to return to ground, and scientists estimate that this may take another few hundred years yet - re-examined particulate matter pollution records from the last 300 years have shown that the matter is slowly returning to ground, but at such a slow rate that no-one had noticed until the records re-examination.
Arrival and Departure Protocols:
Strouden maintains a high-quality system, orbital, and suborbital traffic control service. The one orbital port, Strouden Highport, is maintained for vessels which are unable to enter an atmosphere. Given that most commercial ships are streamlined, it goes without much mention that only the larger commercial vessels use the highport. All other traffic is routed to one of the two commercial downports, located either side of the Cadogan Sea, a nearly six and a half thousand kilometre stretch of open ocean. All commercial starship traffic entering the atmosphere is vectored to approach and depart over the Cadogan Sea, and is vectored to either of the downports from insertion, or merged to the outgoing stream on departure.
Since the Strouden system has no gas giant, wilderness refuelling is not possible away from Strouden; given the extensive development of the world, the extensive ocean resources, and the amount of interstellar traffic using the facilities on Strouden, many ships prefer to use ocean refuelling as a means to cut costs (even given the sulphur taint of the oceans), rather than use the refined fuel available at the high post and down ports.
As a result, until a policy on ocean refuelling was instituted close to a hundred years ago, all manner of accidents (many total losses), near misses, and other frankly antisocial refuelling practices were to be found. The new policy of dedicated, controlled ocean refuelling was implemented, on grounds of Airspace control, safety, planetary defence and ecological maintenance.
Five areas were set aside for oceanic refuelling by starships; One is exclusively for the use of military vessels, located near the southern icecap, close to the LSP shipyard; the other four are for civilian ships. All civilian refuelling is conducted in the region of the Cadogan Sea, and consist 1000 km long by 500 km wide 'strips', subdivided to 50km square 'blocks'.
Allocation of these blocks is performed by the Strouden Suborbital Traffic Control Centre, on a 'first come, first served' basis, and is part of the landing/docking fee all civilian ships pay to dock at Strouden. Violation of the control system is grounds for the Strouden Military Defence Services COACC units to intercept, escort, and potentially impound violating ships.
Customs Control and Immigration:
To Follow
Trade:
To Follow
Social and local customs overview:
To Follow
Adventure Hooks:
To Follow
Strategic Overview:
The Lunion subsector is the Imperial jumping-off point for the Five Sisters subsector, as well as the major trade connection with the Sword Worlds. As a result, trade is the be-all and end all of most worlds' economies; all manner of trade goods - legal and illegal alike - thrive in trade throughout not only the subsector, but the Spinward marches sector as a whole. Key to Stroudens' success as a major trade hub is not only it's commercially strategic position in the region, but it's militarily strategic position and ship construction yards, run by Ling Standard products.
The Ling Standard Products shipyards on Strouden are one of the two major shipbuilding points within the entire Spinward Marches (the other is the LSP yard on Lunion itself). The excellent workmanship, combined with level 13 technology, makes LSP products highly sought after.
Ling Standard Products, originally a mining firm (and still very active in that field), is currently engaged in a wide spectrum of activities including the manufacture of electronic equipment of all sorts, ground and air vehicles, starships and starship armaments, drive systems, power systems, computers and software, small arms, and a variety of consumer goods. Concerned to a small degree with banking, insurance, and stock brokerage, LSP maintains mining and manufacturing facilities throughout the Imperium and beyond. On Strouden, whilst concentrating on the construction of both civil and military shipping, LSP also has weapons fabrication, ship systems, and some of it's banking concerns, on-world.
All of the above makes LSP the worlds' prime commercial concern: Everything else is, frankly, small-fry in comparison.
Strategically, the system is the hub for more than six major high-profit trade routes, and three x-boat routes. It's also home to the Imperial 21st Fleet, the 504th Imperial Lift Marines (an included element of the 21st Fleet), and Stroudens' own Military Defence Services.
The SMDS (Strouden Military Defence Services) incorporates both space, land, and air units, maintaining 150 System Defence Boat Squadrons of eight Dragon-class SDBs each, and 3 Starship Squadrons, managed as a system defence and pirate interdiction fleet. Ground forces comprise a Field Army-strength force, primarily intended for use as a key point guard force in time of war, and a general security army in times of peace, complementing the Civil Security Service (Police) in times of civil unrest. Eight squadrons of 15 fighter/interceptor COACC units are maintained for starport and military site defence.
System Overview:
Strouden System is relatively unusual, comprising a binary star system. These tend to be uninhabitable, since planetary formation can be hampered by the stellar tides which prevent planets forming or, as happens in the vast majority of cases, normally results in planets that are uninhabitable due to formation in regions other than a stars' habitable zone. In Stroudens' case, however, a planet formed in the so-called habitable zone. So-called, as the planet is exceedingly hot all year round in all but the most polar regions - for example, average temperatures on the equator measure 64 degrees centigrade - far too hot for unsupported human life to last. Additionally, UV radiation from the primary star is hideously high - unprotected human skin normally develops lesions within an hour, with massive epidermal burning well before that.
Strouden possesses a small, relatively unremarkable moon, whose only notable feature is that it is home to the Strouden Military Defence Services System Early Warning Network Hub and C3 Relay Centre, codenamed SKYWARN.
The star system also possesses two asteroid belts, which have been extensively surveyed for mining opportunities, but which have yet to be exploited for such, the costs and risks involved for the potential returns being judged to be uneconomic and too high a risk.
Planetary Overview - Strouden:
While Strouden was a relatively normal world following formation, with the usual run of tectonic activity and associated geographical feature formations, the solar tidal forces due to the binary star system have had its' effects. Strouden is unusually volcanically active, with 20 active, and 15 dormant, volcanos. over the last 200 years, 8 of the active volcanos have been erupting constantly, spewing low-levels of magma flow: No explosive eruptions have occurred in this time. An unfortunate by-product of all the volcanic activity is that the atmosphere is permanently tainted with sulphur, and (until recently much unexplained) particulate matter, requiring citizens to use full-face filter/compressor masks when outside. Given the average outside temperatures as well, these have to be specially made for the planet, and contain a chiller unit to keep the oxygen supply tanks from bursting due to heat-induced pressure. this requires that all filter/compression mask units on-world utilise back-pack support systems; currently, a planetary terraforming effort is carrying on, to attempt to remove the atmospheric taint, but results are not expected for at least 200 years - the work has been greatly hampered by the continues volcanic activity world-wide. In addition, all waters on-world are similarly tainted with sulphur. Accordingly, all water must be filtered in order to render it potable.
The local year on Strouden is a shade over 31 days; this makes roughly 11.77 local years to the Imperial Standard year. As a result of the combination of local season rapidity and the average world temperature, no terran-style plants thrive anywhere except in specially insulated hydroponics 'greenhouses'.
The rotational period of 26.55 standard hours is close enough as to make little difference to the Imperial standard ways of doing things on a daily basis; visitors may find themselves a little fatigued after a few days, but that's the extent, normally. For those with a sensitive circadian rhythm to maintain, doctors are available 26 and a half hours a day, seven days a week, at all major cities state health centres, for immediate and free consultations (provided that the optional and reasonably cheap "visitor limited state health plan insurance policy" is taken out on entry to Strouden. Port Customs and Immigration officials always recommend it (Rumours that they receive a small commission if they sell it have regularly been denied by the government). If a visitor does not have the insurance policy, then costs skyrocket - the cost for medial care of offworlders is high, and the government wishes to discourage 'medical tourism' as a strain on resources).
Recent Geological Developments:
Until very recently, the primary goal of the geosciences on Strouden was the early detection and warning for all forms of volcanic event. However, it was noticed two hundred years ago that the only places where volcanic activity did not occur were on Maiz, the main landmass; this lead to some rather heated speculation on the reasons for the lack of activity, which went on until very recently.
The University of Miaz decided to investigate what was hitherto considered to be a super volcano site in the Great Lake on Miaz. Magnetometer, gravitic, and other surveys found nothing untoward, until new equipment was developed by, and donated for field testing, by LSP. These raised the levels of detection for magnetometers and remote gravitic sensing to a higher level than had previously been available to the University, and lo and behold, a super volcano the lake was not.
It was instead a massive impact crater.
Polar Ice Core surveys have dated the impact back some 3,000 years, to a semi-solid-cored HVI (High Velocity Impactor) object (probably a rogue meteorite or comet), that possibly measured some 800 metres across, massed somewhere in the region of 600 metric tonnes, and impacted with an estimated velocity of perhaps 35,000 kph).
Even after 3,000 years post-impact, all the particulate matter spewn up into the atmosphere has yet to return to ground, and scientists estimate that this may take another few hundred years yet - re-examined particulate matter pollution records from the last 300 years have shown that the matter is slowly returning to ground, but at such a slow rate that no-one had noticed until the records re-examination.
Arrival and Departure Protocols:
Strouden maintains a high-quality system, orbital, and suborbital traffic control service. The one orbital port, Strouden Highport, is maintained for vessels which are unable to enter an atmosphere. Given that most commercial ships are streamlined, it goes without much mention that only the larger commercial vessels use the highport. All other traffic is routed to one of the two commercial downports, located either side of the Cadogan Sea, a nearly six and a half thousand kilometre stretch of open ocean. All commercial starship traffic entering the atmosphere is vectored to approach and depart over the Cadogan Sea, and is vectored to either of the downports from insertion, or merged to the outgoing stream on departure.
Since the Strouden system has no gas giant, wilderness refuelling is not possible away from Strouden; given the extensive development of the world, the extensive ocean resources, and the amount of interstellar traffic using the facilities on Strouden, many ships prefer to use ocean refuelling as a means to cut costs (even given the sulphur taint of the oceans), rather than use the refined fuel available at the high post and down ports.
As a result, until a policy on ocean refuelling was instituted close to a hundred years ago, all manner of accidents (many total losses), near misses, and other frankly antisocial refuelling practices were to be found. The new policy of dedicated, controlled ocean refuelling was implemented, on grounds of Airspace control, safety, planetary defence and ecological maintenance.
Five areas were set aside for oceanic refuelling by starships; One is exclusively for the use of military vessels, located near the southern icecap, close to the LSP shipyard; the other four are for civilian ships. All civilian refuelling is conducted in the region of the Cadogan Sea, and consist 1000 km long by 500 km wide 'strips', subdivided to 50km square 'blocks'.
Allocation of these blocks is performed by the Strouden Suborbital Traffic Control Centre, on a 'first come, first served' basis, and is part of the landing/docking fee all civilian ships pay to dock at Strouden. Violation of the control system is grounds for the Strouden Military Defence Services COACC units to intercept, escort, and potentially impound violating ships.
Customs Control and Immigration:
To Follow
Trade:
To Follow
Social and local customs overview:
To Follow
Adventure Hooks:
To Follow
