Sol System

Sol
Age	4.568 billion years
Terran Alliance Grid Square	0,0,0
Nearest Star	Proxima Centauri
Planetary System
Orbit of Outermost Planet	700 AU (104.7 billion km) (Viidus)
Planets	9
Known Dwarf Planets	7 (Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, TBD, TBD)
Politics
Owner	Terran Alliance (however the planet Jupiter and its moons are considered territory of the Teuthidoid Peoples)

Other Names: Solar System (Humans), <thought-concept relating to the area around home> (Teuthidoids), HakO (Proximans)

Native Sentient Species: Humans (H. Sapiens sapiens, H. Sapiens magii, H. Sapiens mentis), Teuthidoids (Xenoanimalis Solis Carbonicus Teuthidus majoris)

The Sol system is the seat of the Terran Alliance and the home of both Humans and Teuthidoids (who share a common biological ancestor). The Sol system is relatively mundane, it contains no spatial anomalies, exotic planets, binary stars, brown dwarves, and minimal exotic resources. Consequently, this left the two native species free to develop and advance in a relative state of isolation. No major power attempted to influence them, but there is extensive evidence for visitation and some minor influence by non-native species throughout the system.

Mercury

Power Groups

• Solar Dynamics – Founded in the early 2000s, Solar Dynamics is a company specializing in solar power R&D, manufacturing, and deployment. Officially headquartered on Earth, their primary venture locations are on Mercury, in underground facilities and surface testing stations. Due to the small size of the staff at their Mercury facilities (several hundred researchers, engineers, and support staff), and the non-permanent basis of staff there (staff is rotated out on 6-month shifts), Mercury is not counted as a colony. The Solar Dynamics facilities are not fully self-sufficient, but they do get fresh vegetables from on-site greenhouses which also serve as oxygen sources. Solar Dynamics is an extraterritorial corporate installation, and as such does not receive representation on the People’s or States Chambers.

Major Hazards

• Intense Solar Radiation – As the closest planet to Sol, Mercury is constantly bombarded with high amounts of solar radiation. The planet is exposed to high amounts of varying frequencies of radiation, making it a dangerous place to be without proper shielding.
• No Atmosphere – Mercury is a barren, airless rock of a planet. Atmosphere suits are required for any species incapable of withstanding a vacuum.

Venus

Notable Locations

• Venusian Experimental Atmospheric Space-capable seTtlement (V-EAST) – V-EAST is a continuing experiment in the habitation of planets traditionally regarded as uninhabitable. Constructed in Earth orbit in 2021, V-EAST is a disk-shaped, aerodynamic structure, roughly half a mile in diameter. An early triumph in inertial-manipulation technology, V-EAST has an extremely low inertia for it’s size, allowing it to be suspended inside the eye of Venus’s northern polar hurricane. It’s position is maintained through the use of lighter-than-air gasses and large propellers on the underside of the structure. After it’s construction, it was crewed by an international team of planetary scientists, mechanics, engineers, and their families, and sent in a low-energy transfer orbit to Venus, which took approximately a year of travel. It is currently a hotbed for research in the fields of hostile environment survival and terraforming, including the planning of a future terraforming of the planet Venus. V-EAST is not self-sufficient and relies on regular resupply runs. As such, it is governed by a governor appointed by the Colonial Council.
• Venusian Weather-resistant Exploratory Space-capable seTtlement (V-WEST) – V-WEST is the second atmospheric colony on Venus, usually located in the eye of the southern polar hurricane. An adaptation of the V-EAST design, V-WEST has been further reinforced and given the ability to move outside of polar hurricanes for research on Venus’s atmosphere. It was launched in 2025 and reached Venus in early 2026. V-WEST is not self-sufficient and relies on regular resupply runs. As such, it is governed by a governor appointed by the Colonial Council.

Major Hazards

• High Atmospheric Pressure – Don’t go down into the lower layers of Venus’s atmosphere.
• High Temperatures – Seriously, don’t.
• Sulfuric Acid Precipitation – Just what part of “DON’T” do you fail to understand?

Earth

See the dedicated page for this planet.

Luna

Population: 5,000,000

While technically Luna began as the natural satellite of the Earth, and still is, it is best categorized as a separate entity from Earth. After the first manned landings by the Americans and Soviets in the 1960s, Luna was seen as the logical first step to the rest of the Sol system. Both nations established a permanent manned presence on Luna in the late 1960s, but these bases were still mostly dependent on regular supply runs from Earth to keep them operational. It was not until the mid-1990s that the bases would become truly self-sufficient and colonies in their own right, thanks to advanced hydroponic and protein synthesis technologies developed in anticipation of a manned mission to Jupiter (the Zeus I mission). Each of the major spacefaring powers had their colonies on Luna before the Third World War, with the United States’s colony located in the Sea of Tranquility, the Russian colony located inside Tycho Crater, and the Chinese colony at Tsiolkovskiy Crater on the far side of Luna. Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, several other locations were settled by other nations, but the original three colonies remained the largest. After the outbreak of World War III, the lunar colonies belonging to the United States banded together to form the Independent Lunar Colonial Organization (ILCO), and affirmed their neutral stance on the war in order to protect themselves from possible attacks by the other nations in the war (in particular, Russia, who had stationed military personnel at a facility close to the Sea of Tranquility). During the conflict, ILCO allied itself with the United Martian Colonies and the United Nations in a mutual defense pact. The first major act of ILCO was to write the Lunar Neutrality Treaty, which was a rehashing of the old Outer Space Treaty of the 1960s. The new treaty, which was signed by the other powers with facilities on the moon – China and Russia, allowed for the continued presence of military force on the moon (which had been allowed since a 1988 amendment to the Outer Space Treaty), but prohibits the use of that force against another Lunar facility. Combat on the Lunar surface was too risky for all parties involved, so it was better to not do it at all. The Treaty also stipulated that any military force stationed on the moon must come to the aid of any settlement or vehicle in distress, regardless of that settlement’s or vehicle’s nationality. ILCO’s secession was met with apathy by the Abraham administration – President Abraham had never liked that the United States had facilities on the moon, he felt that it was a waste of money to constantly be sending supplies up there. After the war, the other Lunar colonies made a bid for independence from their home nations, and were able to secede without major incident and join ILCO. These days, the colonies on Luna are linked using high-speed surface rail connections, as well as orbital transports.

Power Groups

• Independent Lunar Colonial Organization – The official government of all of the moon except for the Alliance portions of Tycho Base, ILCO is one of the founding members of the Alliance.
• Pizzuto Industries – Pizzuto Industries maintains several starship construction stations in orbit and on the surface of Luna.
• Terran Alliance Leadership – Headquartered outside of the Tycho Colony, the Alliance’s headquarters are considered sovereign territory of the Alliance and not ILCO.

Notable Locations

• Fra Muro Highlands Base – The headquarters for the Terran Marines, the functional office of the Brigadier of the Marine Corps is located here (but the official office is located at the Terran Alliance Headquarters in Tycho). Also located here is the headquarters of Assault Command and Marine Command, as well as some training facilities – but the vast majority of training takes place on Titan.
• Gagarin Station – Gagarin Station is the location of Navy Fleet Operations and is controlled entirely by the Navy. Gagarin Station was originally built as a transfer station to move supplies from Luna to Mars, and was been upgraded numerous times throughout its lifetime.
• Taurus-Littrow Colony – The newest of the Lunar colonies, work began on Taurus-Littrow in 2025.
• Tranquility City – An underground city, built in lava tubes and excavated tunnels throughout the Sea of Tranquility. The Apollo 11 landing site is a park a short trip away from the city.
• Tsiolkovskiy Colony – Located in a crater on the far side of the Moon, the Tsiolkovskiy Colony does not have the industrial development that Tranquility City and Tycho Colony have – but it does have an extensive research and development community, along with the most advanced and most sensitive radio telescopes in the Earth/Luna system. Navy Spacewatch (SpaceCom) is headquartered here.
• Tycho Colony – The headquarters of the Alliance leadership, Tycho Base functions as the capital for the Terran Alliance.

Major Hazards

• No Atmosphere – For all intents and purposes, Luna has no atmosphere. There is a tenuous atmosphere of gasses, but the density is so low that it is of no real consequence

Mars

The colonization of Mars began in 1980 with the USSR’s founding of the Valles Marineris base (and eventual colony). Several other bases, outposts, and colonies were founded on Mars before 2013, when the people living there sensed an opportunity to declare independence while Earth was busy dealing with the aftermath of the Day of Fire. No protest was made, aside from a few hardliners who declared the dwellers of Mars to be traitors and called for their extermination, and the people banded together under the flag of the United Martian Colonies. Resupply runs quickly became trade missions, with Earth sending supplies to Mars, and Mars sending back scientific data, advances in hydroponics, and other research advancements. During WW3, Mars sided with ILCO and the UNNS as neutral parties in the war and sought a peaceful end to the conflict. In the aftermath of the war, the population of Mars has exploded, with increased immigration and the change in child limits from 2 children to 3 children. Consequently, colonial expansion has skyrocketed with colonies claiming more and more ground on the red planet in earnest. The initial stages of the terraforming of Mars have begun, but it is estimated that it will be at least 2048 before any improvement to the Martian atmosphere is made. Tackling the largest challenge, restoring the magnetic field, is still on the drawing board. Mars is self-sufficient, and is not under Colony Board oversight.

Colonies on Mars are best compared to large metro areas on Earth. There are extensive public transit systems inside colonies, rendering groundcar use pointless inside the colonies. Transportation outside the colonies is done using publicly-owned groundcars, which can be rented by anyone with the proper license on their identicard. The cars are maintained using funds drawn from residential taxes, so residents pay no fee for use of these cars, and visitors are charged a small hourly fee for using these vehicles. Longer-distance travel is accomplished using sub-orbital transports, or in cases where there are several nearby colonies, high-speed maglev trains.

Power Groups

• United Martian Colonies (UMC) – The UMC is the oversight organization and planetary government for the colonies on Mars. Functioning more like ILCO than the United Nations, the UMC’s main job is to ensure that all colony-related technologies used on Mars remain standardized, so that colony module used at one colony can be used at all of them. The UMC also maintains the rail and suborbital transportation links between colonies, and oversees the terraforming of Mars. The UMC Government is led by an elected President (Head of State), Chief Executive (Head of Government), the Planetary Assembly (a single-house, 60-seat legislative branch (2 members from each Quadrangle)), and the Judiciary of Mars.
• Martian Terraforming Organization (MTO) – The MTO is the arm of the UMC government responsible for planning and overseeing the terraforming of Mars.
• Local Governments – Originally, each colony on Mars was its own distinct political entity, comparable to a State of the old United States of America. However, as more people began to migrate to Mars after the end of World War III, this began to lead to a concentration of political power in the largest colonies, alienating the smaller colonies – some of which controlled important resources such as the polar ice caps. To avert a crisis and possible civil war, the UMC redistricted the governmental breakdown of Mars to be based on the pre-war cartographic quadrangles that had been used to divide Mars into 30 roughly-equally-sized regions. Each quadrangle had equal political power in the UMC, which was an unpopular decision with the larger colonies. This served to accomplish the UMC’s secondary goal – convincing people to spread out on the planet a bit more. Every quadrangle is headed up by a Governor elected by the citizens of that region, and each quadrangle is named after the largest colony within its borders.

Notable Locations

• Cydonia – Major Colony. Also the site of a mysterious defacement of a natural landmark to make it look like a large face. The responsible party was never caught.
• Deimos (Mars II / Sol e II) – Deimos is the location of a high-security prison facility run by the Terran Alliance Judicial Bureau. It is primarily utilized for housing criminals who have committed offenses against the Alliance.
• Elysium Mons – CLASSIFIED by order of the Joint Chiefs.
• Eos Chaos – CLASSIFIED by order of the Joint Chiefs.
• Grissom Station – A tethered orbital facility in aerosynchronous orbit and ground station on Mars’s equator, Grissom Station is the primary training location for Navy personnel. Basic training for the Navy takes place here, and one of the Navy’s officer academies is located here.
• Noctis Labyrinthus – This canyon system located at one end of the Valles Marineris canyon system is CLASSIFIED by order of the Joint Chiefs.
• Olympus Mons – While not a notable colony site by any means, Olympus Mons is a popular tourist destination on Mars, with people taking week-long vacations to hike up and down the largest mountain in the Sol System. There are small facilities spaced along the popular climbing routes to allow hikers to remove their pressure suits to rest for the night.
• Phobos (Mars I / Sol e I) – CLASSIFIED by order of the Joint Chiefs.
• Syria Planum – Major Colony
• Utopia Planitia – Major Colony
• Valles Marineris – Major Colony. The original plans to build a multi-level roofed colony inside sections of the rift valley were abandoned when it was decided that Mars would be terraformed. The colony is currently scheduled to be decommissioned as the terraforming proceeds, with the colonists relocating to settlements currently under construction on either side of the rift valley – this has been a controversial decision that was not popular with the inhabitants of the colony. Valles Marineris is the headquarters for the Valles Marineris Shipyard, which comprises ground facilities near the colony and several orbital facilities. The current Valles Marineris colony is located inside a narrow area of the Tithonium Chasma section of the Valles Marineris canyon system. The Valles Marineris colony is primarily inhabited by people of Russian and Chinese descent.
• Volkov Station – A former Russian colony, Volkov Station is an underground facility located near the North Pole of Mars. It is the primary source of all non-recycled water on Mars, and is a major hub for the terraforming project due to its proximity to the ice cap.

Major Hazards

• Cold Weather –
• Duststorms –
• Non-Breathable Atmosphere (to humans) – Mars’s atmosphere consists mostly of carbon dioxide, with a small amount of argon and nitrogen, and trace amounts of various other compounds. Though terraforming of Mars has begun, the atmosphere will remain non-breathable by humans for quite some time. In addition, the atmospheric pressure of the Martian atmosphere is low enough to be hazardous to human health, ranging between 30 and 1155 pascals, well below the Armstrong limit. Exposure to the Martian atmosphere without a pressure suit is hazardous to health.

Asteroid Belt

Power Groups

• Belter’s Coalition – The Belter’s Coalition has a rather unsavory reputation in the eyes of corporations, even almost ten years after the Belt Rebellion. It has its origins in the labor union that was one of the two instigating groups of the Rebellion. These days, the Belter’s Coalition is the de-facto government of the asteroid belt, and as such it receives 1 seat on both the People’s and State’s Chambers.

Ceres

Major mining facility

Pallas

Major mining facility

Vesta

The “unofficial capital” of the Belt, Vesta was the first mining base opened, back in the 1990s, and has since been mined out, the tunnels and caverns converted to living quarters, offices, and hangars. Vesta is unique in that it is self-sufficient and therefore has representation in the People’s and State’s chambers (separate from the Belter’s Coalition), but it also is overseen by the Colony Board. The Colony Board, however, does not appoint a governor for Vesta, as it does with smaller colonies.

Jupiter

Jupiter is a special case in the Alliance. Technically, the Jovian System does not belong to the Alliance, instead falling under Teuthidoid jurisdiction.

Power Groups

• Teuthidoid Peoples – It is their territory, after all.

Europa

The homeworld of the Teuthidoid Peoples, Europa has no Terran Alliance facilities except for the First Contact monument and the Alliance Embassy.

Io

Arthur C Clarke Station is currently the only base on Io. A research station built to study Io and the Jovian System, it has a relatively small population, consisting primarily of researchers.

Orbital Facilities

The large majority of the Jovian System’s alliance population lives and works in orbital facilities. For the most part, the facilities are gas-collection (primarily Helium-3) and zero-g manufacturing operations. Collectively they are referred to as the Jovian Economic Colonies.

Saturn

Notable Locations

• Orbital Facilities – There are numerous gas-collection facilities orbiting Saturn (collecting Helium-3), and zero-g manufacturing is beginning to put down roots as well.
• Titan (Saturn VI / Sol g XXII) – Titan is under the jurisdiction of the Marine Corps, and serves as the primary training location for Terran Marines.

Neptune

Almost all the facilities at Neptune are under the control of Yang Enterprises, who has the construction contract for almost all ships in the Terran Navy larger than a frigate. The Yang Enterprises Astroconstruction facility is an autonomous independent territory owned by China, but is effectively under the day-to-day purview of Yang Enterprises, who relocated their headquarters there in 2024.

Power Groups

• Yang Enterprises –

Notable Locations

• Yang Enterprises Astroconstruction –

Pluto

“…Maybe it planet, maybe not, Sasha fall asleep that day of astronomy class as boy in Moscow. Let eggheads at Tycho debate while we do grunt work.” – Brigadier Alexander “Sasha” Markovic, Terran Alliance Marine Corps

The Pluto Outpost serves two purposes. Its original function was a high security research lab, a hub for testing new weapons technologies in the Kuiper Belt. Its second function added in 2029 is an early warning hub, monitoring the drone monitoring stations and picket ships placed in the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt for any signs of intrusion into the Sol System.

Notable Locations

• Charon (Pluto I / Sol j I) – Charon houses an extensive array of sensor platforms, originally designed to locate, identify, and track Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud objects. Charon also is home to sensor arrays that are dedicated to monitoring Pluto, which are used to examine weapons tests.
• Hydra (Pluto III / Sol j V) – CLASSIFIED by order of the Joint Chiefs.
• Kerberos (Pluto IV / Sol j IV) –
• Nix (Pluto II / Sol j III) –
• Styx (Pluto V / Sol j II) –

Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud

There are a few enterprising individuals and corporations making a profit by mining hydrocarbons and other volatiles in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, and some of them have already been contracted by the Martian Terraforming Organization to bring comets in to act as a water source for the terraforming operations. Additionally comet mining is being used as a water source for environmental cleanup operations on Earth, but this is still prohibitively expensive to see widespread use.

At best speed, the Kuiper Belt takes between 30 and 50 hours to reach, not factoring in traffic and gravitational diversions, making it a much more commonly frequented location than the Oort Cloud. To reach the nearest Oort Cloud object requires 83 days of travel at maximum safe sublight speed – making Oort Cloud mining expeditions a rare and risky endeavour. The vast majority of Oort Cloud expeditions are undertaken by small private enterprises, leaving the more easily-reachable Kuiper Belt to the larger corporations. The Kuiper Belt is rich in badly-needed hydrocarbons, allowing the larger corporations to secure a hold on these volatiles which are dwindling on Earth. The Oort Cloud, however, has been found to be rich in more rare elements, including the occasional isolated deposit of rigarium. Hushed whispers in bars frequented by the comet-jockeys who plumb the depths of the Oort Cloud speak of even more lucrative finds – antimatter comets, rocks laden with mysterious artifacts, derelict spacecraft, and so on.

Viduus

Long suspected, but never proven to exist, Viduus is the scientifically-inferred "Planet Nine" (or Ten depending on who you ask) that is responsible for the orbits of certain Trans-Neptunian objects and Sednoids. While the planet itself had been mathematically proven to exist for years and was for all intents and purposes indirectly discovered through its effects on other bodies orbiting the sun, direct detection of of Viduus was finally achieved by ILCO astronomers in 2016. However, because of the ongoing war, knowledge of the discovery didn't become widespread until 2018.

Travel to Viduus is slow at best since there is no 'acceptable' path to plot a Higgs flight path for civilians - there is one flight path under the control of the Terran Alliance Armed Forces, however it has only been charted for a single lane, and the other end of the path is outside the Sol System. Consequently, most to and from Viduus must be done at sublight speeds using the SKK Drive. The 'standard travel time' to Viduus is roughly 45 days, making visiting this distant ice giant an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. However, for those who can afford a vessel equipped with inertial fields allowing for acceleration beyond 1G, this travel time can be brought down to 11 days, 15 hours by using the SKK Drive to its full 1 AU/hour potential.

Much of what goes on at Viduus is unknown, with rumors running rampant about clandestine military experiments and sinister corporate plots.

Power Groups

• Foundation for Xenological Studies
• Äußerereichweiten, GmbH
• ResourceInc
• Terran Alliance Armed Forces