Durien
The Planet
Physical
Durien is an old human colony world, 14.819 parsecs from Earth. It is a
small rocky world like Mars, with a low gravity and thin atmosphere, but
with just enough oxygen to support humans. Durien's sun is the K9 V
star Tiera.
Durien is a temperate desert world, with no liquid surface water and thin
polar icecaps. There are some reserves of water underground, but despite
intensive drilling there is never quite enough for the ever-growing
population.
Biological
Durien was a dead world when discovered, although the atmospheric oxygen
was evidence for extensive life in the past. Micro-fossils reveal that a
native fauna of anaerobic microbes produced all the oxygen until the
atmospheric concentration became too high and killed them all, about
30-40 million years ago. Surface oxidation removed some of the gas,
leaving a rusted red planet, but still with plenty of oxygen in the
atmosphere.
Humans have imported many desert plant species and appropriately adapted
animals in an effort to establish a stable ecosystem and atmospheric
oxygen cycle, but to this day the oxygen levels are dropping slowly.
Civilisation
Durien's population is 1.2 billion humans and 120,000 aliens. The harsh
conditions have slowed but not prevented the inevitable population
growth. Most people live in sprawling cities near the more easily
extracted water supplies, including some in the polar regions living off
meltwater.
Economy
Internally, Durien's economy is driven by the quest for water. Factories
produce high quality drilling and water extraction and purification
machinery, some of which is exported. The drive to find a stable oxygen
recirculation ecosystem has resulted in many biochemical and genetic labs,
which produce bioengineered materials and lifeforms used on many other
worlds.
Durien's major import is, unsurprisingly, water. Since it is free on
most other worlds, and Durien is willing to buy it, large tankers can
turn a reasonable profit hauling water to slake Durien's thirst. The
eventual goal is to have enough water imported to produce some small seas
and set up a natural water cycle, though this will take thousands of
years at current import rates.
Politics
Durien is governed by a combination of elected officials and the Durien
Water Company. The DWC monopoly allowed them to rule as a corporate state
for many years, until citizen dissatisfaction resulted in an uprising
and the establishment of the current system. DWC competes with more
normal political parties for seats in the lower house of government, and
normally wins about a third of them. In the senate however, DWC appoints
fully half the senators, with the other half elected from non-DWC
candidates. This ensures that a DWC initiative can be voted down in the
senate by the agreement of all the non-DWC senators, while also giving
DWC an effective veto on any legislation it does not like.
This set up was instituted only 30 years ago and is now seen as
cumbersome by most people, but nobody can think of a satisfactory
replacement. A result is that day-to-day law enforcement is lax and
many things, such as carrying concealed weaponry, though technically
illegal, are regarded with a blind eye. Social stability is tentative
at best, and bloody revolution coud break out at any point, even though
DWC holds all the aces with its water monopoly.
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