Utopia Gregaria

Utopia Gregaria is Gudersnipe's cheif shipyard and site of the large-scale fabrication facilities used to build most of their larger machines.

Utopia itself is a main-sequence star orbited by seven planets and the shipyard itself. Plasma from the star is piped through a 1.8 AU-long series of magnetic coils to heat the massive foundries.

Utopia Minoria

The first planet in the Utopia System, Utopia Minoria is a small, rockey planet with almost no atmosphere to speak of and an extremly hot surface. The planet is known to have a very high iron content. It has been scheduled for demolition when needed.

Utopia Proper and Utopia Polar

Two larger, rocky worlds in the star's habitable zone, and the only inhabited planets in the utopia System. The two worlds share roughly the same orbital path but at different inclinations. Every seven years their orbits bring them close enough together to cause tidal surges in large bodies of water. If these worlds had oceans, this would likely result in major damage, however the handful of lakes large enough to affected are mostly recreational, and have few permenant structures arround them.

History

Originally named Utopia Equator and Utopia Polar, the planets were marked for terraforming in A.Y. 1880. However, more pressing needs of the terraforming fleet delayed the begining of the project until A.Y. 25.

Utopia Proper and Utopia Polar were terraformed in the Second Age when Gudersnipe began the process of transforming the solar system into it's cheif production facility. Both worlds are Generation III, System I, though originaly began life as Generation Is. Because they were converted, initially to Generation II and later to Generation III, some terraforming experts argue that they do not qualify as 'full' third-generation worlds. Proper and Polar were not intended to be test platforms, and were among the first colonized worlds following their "successful" terraforming.

Within two hundred years, both planets had populations exceeding 2 billion. As their Generation I ecosystems headed for total collapse, the population of Utopia Equator was moved to Utopia Polar and reterraforming began. As terraforming crews struggled to repair Utopia Equator, Utopia Polar's system continued to degrade. Reterraforming was halted, and the populations redistributed. Instead, Worldcraft attempted a "live" reterraforming process on the two worlds, with the population in place.

The human population continued to grow, this time to 3 billion per planet, when Utopia Equator was evacuated a second time, and rapid-reterraformed with the newly designed Generation III techniques. The population of Utopia Polar grew to 7 billion during this time(from the 6 billion combined), and 5 billion were relocated back to Utopia Equator, now renamed Utopia Proper.

Live reterraforming continued on Utopia Polar, converting it more slowly from Gen-II to Gen-III, with the whole process completed by the mid Third Age.

From then on, the populations were allowed to skyrocket, to meet the growing needs of the Utopia Gregaria Shipyards.

Characteristics

Utopia Proper has a surface area of approximately 3,169,445,471 square miles, while Utopia Polar's surface area is 3,171,201,017. Each planet now has a stable population of around 10 billion.

The second and third planets of the Utopia system are primarily "bedroom" worlds, with their main function being to provide shelter and housing for the workers on the station. Utopia System is a single-industry star system, with the entire labor force either working for the shipyard, or in some capacity to support the employees of the shipyard.

Both planets sit straight on their axis and offer little geographic diversity. They have mild climates with no seasonal variation. There are a number of manmade and artificial rivers, lakes, and streams, maintained primarily for irrigation or recreation. Food is produced hydroponically, with very little traditional farming.

Aside from recreational areas and cities, the planets are covered almost entirely by suburbs.

Utopia Gregaria

Gregaria was a very large rocky planet from which the shipeyard draws it's name. It was the third planet in the system. During the Second Age and before the terraforming process was begun on Utopia Proper, Utopia Gregaria was delibrately torn apart using a serries of controlled explosions, the goal being to provide raw materials for the construction of shipebuilding materials and the yard itself.

Dozens of moon-sized chunks survived the demolition and fragments of the planet were blown all over the solar system, some eventually forming a ring system around Utopia Senioria.

Utopia Senioria

The formerly fifth, now fourth planet in the system, Senioria is a large gas giant. It has a system of rings formed initially by debris from the destruction of Utopia Gregaria. The ring system later became used as a dumping ground for mining waste and other refuse left over from the shipebuilding process.

Sometime around the early Third Age when production officially began at Utopia Gregaria, the planet itself also became a dumping ground for radioactive materials. Contaminated refuse was loaded into cargo containers or deralict ships and delibrately crashed into the planet where it would be contained. The region eventually became a dumping zone for ammunition and finally was officially classified as a proving ground in the mid Fourth Age(though it had been routine for some time for ships undergoing space trials to use the ring system and moons of Utopia Scenoria for target practice).

The area is off-limits to all unauthorized personnel, with authorization only grated by the Utopia Gregaria Port Authority.

In the Fourth Age, following the closure of the utopia Senioria region, a group of environmental activists staged a protest, calling the use of the planet as a dumping ground and the moons as targets for weapons test "irresponsible" and "bad for the environment". As part of the protest, activists visited the restricted zone. There were no survivors.

The region around Utopia Scenioria is considered highly dangerous.

Utopia Guardia

The fifth planet in the Utopia System is an Ice Giant with four moons. Though none are habitable, the second moon is home to a Gudersnipe base.

The two-part facility consists of a series of bunkers bellow the moon's icy surface, connected to a space station and star docks by an orbital teather. Constructed early in the Golden Age, this is regarded as one of the first orbital teathers built by the Foundation.

The sub-surface base is primarily barracks and living facilities for the contingent of soldiers stationed there; though it also contains a large ammunition storage facility as well as hangers to support at least thirty wings of Harpies. The base is built on the rocky moon surface, protected by a thick layer of ice. The orbital teather is anchored deep beneeth the rockey surface and protrudes through the ice up to the station above.

The space station contains births for four capitol ships and is the primary home port for the the solar system's defensive contingent. Utopia Gregaria being on of Gudersnipe's cheif strategic assetts, it's home guard consists of seven complete battle groups, of which three use the Utopia Guardia base as their home port.

Utopia Ignoria

The Sixth planet in the Utopia System is a very low-density gas giant in the outer solar system. It has a larger diameter than the fifth planet, but significantly lower mass. It's orbit is also nearly twice as far away.

Utopia Ignoria's name is derived from it's history. Though discovered by the initial survey team that charted the solar system in the early Golden Age, the planet was never named or officially classified. It was simply 'ignored'.

In the Fourth Age, the planet was rediscovered by an astronomy class on Utopia Polar, where were later allowed to take a field trip out to visit it up close. They dug through records and found that it had always been known, just never acknowledged. The name was chosen, the textbooks were updated, and Utopia Ignoria continued to be a dreaery giant ball of gass at the edge of the solar system, only now people cared about it.