Acropolis

The Planet

Physical

Acropolis is one of the old human colony worlds, located 24.68 parsecs from Earth. It is a pleasant Earth-like world, with a slightly higher gravity and denser atmosphere. Acropolis' sun is the K0 V star Zeus.

Acropolis has a temperate climate, with 82% water cover and medium humidity.

Biological

Acropolis was a dead world when discovered, but its oxygen atmosphere bespoke of some life activity in recent times. Paleomicrobiologists have found evidence of unicellular life in organic compounds in the rocks, but why or when this died out is a mystery.

Humans have since imported a full complement of Earthly flora and fauna. Other aliens have brought some examples of their own native life, and Acropolis now supports an extensive wild ecosystem.

Civilisation

Acropolis has a population of 7.3 billion humans and several hundred thousand aliens, mostly Pachekki. Although the planet has less land area than Earth, almost all of it is arable and there are many settlements spread throughout the three continents and many islands.

Acropolis has three beanstalks, tethered at the equator and reaching up to orbital space stations. All ships registered off-world must dock at a highport and passengers and cargo may only travel to the surface via the beanstalks.

Economy

Acropolis relies on its strong bio-engineering industry for much of its trade credit. The most advanced human cloning technology available is to be found here, as well as state of the art genetic engineering and biotechnology. The planet exports both technology and biotech products.

The main imports are gems, radioactives, and other rare minerals.

Politics

Acropolis is administered by an Athenian democracy. However, only naturally born sentients are considered citizens - clones and vat grown bioengineered people are classed as slaves and have no voting rights. Clone slaves are treated as property and can be bought and sold. A slave owner can free the slave, though this is not often done.

All people born or decanted on Acropolis are tattooed at birth with an invisible fluorescent indicator showing whether they are clones or not. Police are equipped with ultraviolet wands to reveal these marks, and any place where identification is required has UV lamps for the same purpose.

Each citizen has a legal right to his or her genotype, and can have clones constructed for any purpose. Cloning rights to a genotype can also be sold or traded. Naturally, this has produced a large black market for such commodities.

Though many other worlds find Acropolis' slavery laws abhorrent, there is little that can be done, since the world rigorously defends its own rights and interests on interstellar councils, and has the population base and military power to defend itself.

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