Overview

Swati Palolas was the first system the Fleet reached after its flight from Atlas, entering it in the 1st fortnight of 3200. Three inhabited worlds are known, Hypylao, Papolli and Zercoulos, along with the gas giant Altius, which the Fleet drew its fuel from. It turned out to be a divided system. Zercoulos, the largest and most powerful of its states, fears psychics and keeps them as a lower class, and a statute ordering their summary execution was later entered as evidence at the trial of Ola Hudson. The Hypylao Military Industrial Conglomerate, or HMIC, takes the opposite view, living in a large underground city on Hypylao and worshipping psychics as gods. The two were in détente all the same.

Both peoples are said to have come from Papolli. A Zerc prisoner said the HMIC's attacks had made that world too toxic for life, and that his people had migrated to Zercoulos some five or six hundred years before, bringing "the lessers" with them, though the Fleet's own people noted that neither side's account of its history could be trusted. So Papolli was thought to be uninhabited. It was not. A third people survived beneath the sea in force-shielded cities, and their existence was kept from the other two worlds.

The Fleet's first stay lasted a little over six fortnights. In the first fortnight, after its own water supply was found to be contaminated, it secured fuel-collection rights at Altius from the ageing Altius 9 station, and in the second it made first contact on Zercoulos Prime, "the nicest planet in Swati Palolas". That meeting ended in a firefight between the local forces and the HMIC, and with two prisoners extracted. Mining the system's belts then turned up psionic metamaterial crystals, a Mandate-era satellite held inside a telekinetic force bubble and, more dangerously, an autonomous self-replicating Drone hive (Von Neumann swarm). The hive was assaulted twice, in fortnights 3 and 4, and the second attempt, made after an HMIC briefing, failed when the hive's fabricator turned out to be producing military warbots.

Life aboard the Fleet was not untouched by the system's conflict either. Dissident cells under Mr. Cortez tried to steal dropships and ordnance for an attack on Zercoulos, with the stated aim of drawing out a group of sentients on a world thought to be uninhabited, and the plots aboard the Hercules, Archon and Macaria were all stopped. Odessa City on Hypylao, a sector trade centre much of which had been bought by Manticore Industries, was where the Free Rain was hunted down and stolen back. On Papolli an Archon survey team looking for food found the undersea city beneath a shield bubble and agreed a trade of moss for Atlas loquats, under a non-disclosure agreement that binds the Fleet never to reveal the society to the other two worlds. With rutters to two systems in hand, the citizens' forum chose Ragnhil over Mardis, and the Fleet drilled out in fortnight 7.

The system stayed the Fleet's nearest market after that. The Goliath traded there on its voyages between Ragnhil and Kos, buying a one-year-old rutter to Kos on its first call and selling navigation components for about 16M cr in fortnight 18, when a local strongman, Roral Mirelwartes, was faced down without a shot being fired. After the Ragnhil Skirmish the Hercules drilled to Swati Palolas, and the whole Fleet gathered there in fortnight 19 before moving on to Kos. Zercoulos, the only food exporter then known in the sector, supplied a bulk purchase of meta-wheat and meat at that time, a fifth of which was stolen in transit. The drone hive was finally destroyed in the same period, alongside the stranded crew of the RSN Churchill, a cruiser of the Papolli society's Regular Secret Navy.

I. Star and regional layout

No star data are held for this system.

II. Worlds

Hypylao (Region C)

• IC: Home of Odessa City, a sector trade centre where respirators and raincoats are worn against polluted rain and food is processed and imported; much of the city has been bought by Manticore Industries, whose headquarters are there, and protests had recently been quelled. The HMIC's large underground city lies on the planet. Odessa-Net, the local network, was used by Akira Aurius to create the Nova Ltd. cover.
• OOC (old site, corrected): Two moons. Corrected: the old site gave Hypylao's and Papolli's descriptions the wrong way round.

Papolli (Region D, "the third planet")

• IC: About 80 % water, with marshes across four main continents and the ruins of a collapsed civilisation on every one of them; tall buildings lie on their sides where the corrosive atmosphere has eaten through their superstructures. The atmosphere carries a hydrophobic corrosive agent which does not affect water, and all surface water is fresh; the locals go outside "when it rains". Gravity is within Fleet norms. The Papolli skag, a six-legged ambush predator with an alligator-like maw, hunts the marshes, and reptilian flocks and quadruped trails were seen in the moss. By the Zerc account the atmosphere was poisoned by the HMIC's attacks five or six hundred years ago.
• IC: A living undersea city lies beneath civilian-grade force domes at coastal sites, entered through a 30 m shield bubble over a submerged hangar. Its society has a rotating prime minister, wishes to ease its "cousins" back into working relations, will not share weapon or security technology, and warned of the system's drones. Its shields date from the Swati "psychic period" (upper TL4). Swati moss, compressed into dried bricks, is its staple. Breaking the NDA would place the Fleet at war with Papolli (GM ruling, Oct 2026: known to the Fleet, secret only from the system's other inhabitants).
• IC/OOC: Its navy is the Regular Secret Navy (RSN); the emblem was identified by Hemejef to the players as that of "the faction that lives underground on the third planet of this system, the one that threated the fleet until we accepted never to reveal their existence to the other two planets".
• OOC (old site, corrected): One moon; the smallest planet; a hidden population with which contact was made on the promise that it would not be revealed.

Zercoulos (Region E)

• IC: "Zercoulos Prime", with Spaceport, Bazaar and Resort districts, natural springs, and an illegal fight club entered by ordering "blood wine"; a book found there spoke of ridding the world of "psionic impurities". The world had no native life when first colonised, all of it having come from Terra. It executes psychics and was the only food exporter known in the sector. A battleship was watched being completed there.
• OOC (old site): The primary planet on which the Fleet conducts trade; one moon; a military space station.

Altius (Region B)

• IC: The local gas giant, from which the Fleet was granted permission to collect fuel. Named Altius, after its station, by GM ruling (30 Oct 2026).

III. Stations and major bodies

• Altius 9 (spelt Alitus 9 in the recaps): an ageing fuel station some maintenance cycles behind, whose own fuel-refining plant had recently broken down; it granted the Fleet fuel-collection rights in fortnight 1.
• Zercoulos military station (old site); a secret station around Zercoulos was the target of an expedition planned in fortnight 3.
• The asteroid belts: three belts mined by What's Mine Is Yours; an asteroid core of psionic metamaterial crystals; a Mandate-era comms satellite within a telekinetic force bubble, which yielded a telekinetic shield generator; the HMIC patrol ship Zacharias; and an unidentified stealth shuttle.
• The drone hive: a self-replicating Von Neumann hive in an asteroid, ruled by a central "Queen". The RSN cruiser Churchill, sent by its admiralty to destroy it, had been swarmed by the hive's "Harvester" drones and dragged inside. The hive was destroyed in fortnight 19, when a seismic self-destruct shattered the asteroid and scattered drone pods "like pollen". In fortnight 23 the Goliath was offered to volunteers to recover fabricator cores from the debris.

IV. Rutters and travel

• OOC: Entry points from Mardis, Kos and Ragnhil (old site). The Goliath's crew bought a one-year-old rutter from Swati Palolas to Kos on 6/13/3200. The system was often called "Swati Polis" in 2022, a mix-up with Polis. MvdMax gave its position on the sector map PDF as 07-13.

V. Government and force

• Zercoulos: the largest power; a fascist society in the players' summary, subjugating psychics as a lower class; détente with the HMIC; able to match the Fleet in force (OOC).
• HMIC (Hypylao Military Industrial Conglomerate): underground city on Hypylao; worships psychics; ran the patrol ship Zacharias; briefed the Fleet before the second hive assault; regarded by the players as close allies, and told of the hive early on as a warning.
• Papolli undersea society and the Regular Secret Navy: hidden; see Papolli. Chief Anastasia Rhodes and the engineer Palmer were among the Churchill's survivors.
• Manticore Industries and Red Sun Trading: commercial interests in Odessa City.
• Roral Mirelwartes: a local strongman extorting protection fees from the factors.