Habbakuk

Summary

Habbakuk rests easily as the second largest rocky planet in the Chantilas System, its dark blue hues reminiscent of Earth's oceans from above. Unlike Earth these blue seas don't billow and surge, instead they sit in eternal stasis, frozen mountains of ice and rock.

The Desh thrive here. Thick skin and coarse hair-follicles make the icy world a less harsh mistress. Something other races envy, but usually only here. Without the Desh blessings the harsh cold requires careful use of environmental suits when working in the unprotected cold. Successful terraforming engine use has helped create a thin atmosphere of breathable oxygen around the planet, leading to no small bit of warming that now threatens the icy world. Careful management is necessary for Habbakuk to remain as its frozen self, lest the Chantilas system find itself with two watery worlds.

Days akin to throwing a human into the coldest winter in Antarctica on Earth, Habbakuk while beautiful is not a world to be trifled with as yearly dozens die from exposure to the cold. It is far easier than expected to become lost in the shifting Wild-Ice that covers great swaths of the planet surface.

Cities

Ice Domes

Not surprisingly few people outside of the Desh can survive, let alone enjoy the natural world of Habbakuk's ice plains, sprawling mountains, and great fissures without the support of advanced stabilizing suits. Because of this the cities of Habbakuk have evolved into a simple merger of ice and technology. By blending the two the cities are decidedly unique, yet also easily accessible to non-Desh races.

Each city begins with a virgin outcrop ice, shaped and refined the Desh mold it into a neat dome.All about the inside of the city dome reinforcing metal structures are placed and with time a city grows inside. Gates are placed about each city, some have open and close schedules to help regulate heat and energy, while some never close.

Almost every dome-city has small sprawling areas cut throughout the surrounding ice that mimic suburbs as the city outgrows its dome both vertically and horizontally. Ships do not arrive directly at cities, instead - for the safety of the ice domes - they arrive at ports removed from the city centers and then travel via subways beneath the ice. These "White Ways" are glossy rimmed ice-tubes cut below the surface of the planet and like much on the planet, beautiful.

History

Emergence

It was a logistical nightmare - the spread. As humanity pushed out towards other systems how would they acquire the necessary materials to survive? Chief on many lists of needs was H2O - be it liquid or solid mankind needed its staple supply.

As colonization missions could not expect to transport enough to maintain their needs resource scarcity influenced the choice of the first colonized system - Chantilas. Research into suitable systems identified the system as a prime candidate where several large planets existed. One of the most interesting among these marked as the icy Habbakuk.

Named for the second World War plan to create a massive vessel of pure ice Habbakuk was marked for primary colonization in the system to help spread Humanity outward. Utilizing the resource heavy planet as a proving grounds for the methodology of the colonization process, as it had never been put to the test, proved a success.

With the help of early-series Syntek robots the world was molded and morphed with simple terraforming engines that provided a thin atmosphere of icily cold, but breathable air. Using splicing technology and the Heritage 7 genes geneticists molded the first gene-born Desh into existence. This new group of people thrived on Habbakuk, and represented the largest divergence from the stem of Earth Humans that had been seen through the use of the Heritage 7 genes to date.

Chantilas grew on the back of hearty Desh who worked tirelessly along early Syntek units. In these years Habbakuk was tapped for its nearly limitless ice-reserves, shipped far and wide to provide necessary water supplies for the development of other worlds.

Aquilas Rise

Life on the ice-world was fine, business and exports were up and the Desh were growing in population - a true force. Although progress while often times easily gained is just as easily transferred. So it was as colonization of Aquelas began.

Desh are numbered as some of the few in the universe who do not agree with the historic account of Aquelas's rise. The once infertile world was set upon with an ambitious terraforming project, the scope of which would rival the success of the Mars missions - which were no small fluke for the time-period.

However, when the engine failed and the world was forever covered in liquid water Habbakuk froze - figuratively of course. The ice world had one place in the system - resource provider. Suddenly that position was challenged by a sizable and very successfully funded planet. It didn't take long before conflict erupted around the trade of resources, primarily H2O.

Several bodies tried to regulate trade to no clear end, each one replaced as it lost credibility. Today, the governing trade council, Hydra, is a joint effort put together by youthful Desh and Arix who desire something different.

The council has already managed several accords which are showing promise for the depressed Desh home world. Most notable are changes that have seen a push from Aquelas to provide more premium waters to extra-system buyers allowing Habbakuk workers to re-attain local supply contracts.

Other forward thinking Desh say the planet should work to remove itself entirely from the resource trade, citing severe planetary damage already caused after hundreds of years of mining. A conflict not soon resolved.

Points of Interest

Lahris Bowls

The Lahris Professional League or LPL established only fifty years ago by bored Desh youths is a fast-paced high-scoring sport that couldn't have began without Habbakuk. The current CEO of the league, Guan Trave, is also the man who spawned the concept and shared his brain-child with equally bored young people.

Today he presides over the most popular sports network in the Chantilas system. The league operates over a dozen official bowls or stadiums on the surface of Habbakuk. These bowls are widely popular, despite very limited at-field seating, instead relying on attached complexes where the majority of fans watch from climate controlled indoor facilities - taking advantage of the numerous robotic cameras that zip about the stadiums almost as quickly as the players.

Kanega Forests

For a frigid world with a weak atmosphere Habbakuk is home to a strikingly beautiful, yet entirely non-native plant that thrives. Kanega, a vine engineered by a forgotten gene-splicer is likely the most invasive species to ever take hold on a planet.

The greenish-blue plant grows within the ice walls of the planet and forms marvelously intricate webs of the flowering vine. The flowers range in color from blue to purple, and bloom on the inside of the walls. After 4-5 days, the flower dies off and the famous Kanega fruit grows in its place.

Many places across the planet use the vine as decoration, albeit under highly supervised conditions lest it ruin the foundation of ice-structures as it spreads. Several Lahris bowls feature carefully planned works of art using the vine on the inside surface.

Yet to see the vine in its truly invasive nature a person need only travel apart from civilization to the Wild-Ice where the vine entraps great swaths of land, entire ice ranges fallen to its hold.

Wild-Ice

Wild-Ice, frozen expanses of land left virtually untouched beyond the occasional recreational trip by the fool-hearty and adventurous. With great jutting columns of ice stretching to the stars to great fissures left over from the formation of the world, the many areas of Wild-Ice are favorite tourist destinations. Use of skiffs and touring ships is encouraged, while land-travel is left to those with enough life-insurance to cover the risk.

Several Frost Unions have military outposts hidden deep within the Wild-Ice, and are claimed to be responsible for the loss of numerous adventurers yet no proof ties them to the claims. Man-made and natural hazards abound here, where the temperature reaches its lowest points and the ice shifts without anyone noticing.

Mapping software from satellites track shifts in the ice, but predicting where the next shift will occur is difficult and should not be discounted.

Mt. Crayba

Mountains of towering ice are not uncommon on Habbakuk, but Mt. Crayba is an interesting tourist destination that changes constantly. Originally an small city of Desh trade and artisans this dome city beneath the mountain's shadow is home to some of the finest works of ice-art on the planet.

The city's dome connects directly to the giant ice shelf above, where over the years the city's artisan groups have left individual marks upon the great mountain. With sculptures that rival the long-since ruined Mt. Rushmore on Earth anyone visiting Habbakuk should try and spend a weekend at Crayba. For the adventurous types several direct assent routes have been mapped on the mountain. Here climbers are allowed to move up the mountain freely, able to sit overshadowing the city, side-by-side some of the great ice works.

Notable Figures

Frost Union(s)

The Frost Unions are aged remnants of allied Desh who worked in ice mines across the world and engaged in the struggle for recognition as a prominent race. Unions only in the sense that they are organized for a purpose, the Frost Unions are in every sense Desh-only militias.

While the Desh struggle for recognition was often connected to the 20th century struggle for black rights in the media that comparison ignored that the Desh movement was far more violent. The Unions fought primarily disjointedly, and almost exclusively off-world, as they quickly decided their was no sense ruining their own world when they could gain attention doing the same to others.

The fact that these Unions still exist after years of recognition trouble many, and despite calls for dissolution membership remains high in at least nine active groups. These Unions are responsible for much of the animosity towards the Desh race.

Satellites & Moons

• Priot