IS Atlas / System / Detail

Description:

Though it orbits farther out than any other body in its system, Zebebelgenubi is a warm planet dominated by mountains that often completely surround several orphaned seas and lakes. The interior lands of all five major continents are mostly rugged wastes of rock, broken only by the occasional river that has stubbornly cut its way through over eons of history. Many of these mountain ranges are covered by petrified woodlands, fossilized remains of a long-lost era when water flowed more freely across the planet's surface. Only in the coastal areas is there sufficient flatland on which to build, and it is in these regions that the bulk of the planetary population has lived since the planet was first settled in the twenty-third century.

But, despite its rugged frontier appearance, Zebebelgenubi soon became home to a booming electronics and robotics industry, thanks to the discovery of precious gems and industrial-grade silicon in the mountains. These industries only grew more lucrative when Zebebelgenubi became part of the Terran Hegemony and Ulsop Robotics, headquartered in the planetary capital of Gray Valley City, became the prime developer for artificially intelligent space defense system networks. Ulsop's SDS networks became the Star League standard, protecting every valuable system in the Hegemony with a combination of fast, artificially intelligent drones, orbital defense satellites, and even surface-to-orbit weapon batteries.

Unfortunately, this crowning achievement of Zebebelgenubian engineering also led to the world's downfall when Stefan Amaris, the Usurper, staged his coup and his troops swept down all over the Hegemony. After forcing the scientists to teach them the secrets of the SDS networks, Amaris's troops executed all of them and attempted to destroy all of Ulsop's facilities, ravaging many of the planet's major cities in the process. Centuries of Succession Wars did the rest, demolishing the remnants of Zebebelgenubi's once-mighty industrial and technological base. Though rumors persisted of caches of lostech left behind in hidden mountain facilities, none materialized that could save the planet from a long, slow decline.

Today, Gray Valley City remains the largest and most industrialized of Zebebelgenubi's cities, but it is the city of Nantucket, on the nearby Wurscht continent, that boasts the planet's largest spaceport - half a kilometer longer than Gray Valley's, to accommodate more aerodyne DropShip traffic. All three of Zebebelgenubi's other continents - Hershaim in the north, Valius and Zeibleria in the south - are sparsely populated, with the majority of towns and smaller settlements located on the shorelines.