Hallger is a frozen world in the Pujaya Nita trinary star system in Hex #0611. Since the Scream, and even before if the legends are to be believed, this once budding ecumenopolis in the snow has been wrecked by successive apocalyptic events. In the chaos of the Scream, untold hundreds of billions Hallgerians died, but even now an estimated ten billion people are believed to still live in the underground vaults, in the ruins of the three continent-sized pre-Scream megacities, or wandering the surface in nomadic landships.
The Hallgerian biosphere is effectively split in two. One thrives on the open surface of the planet, a hybrid biosphere of purple plants and noseless animals with liquid nitrogen-based blood who drink liquid oxygen to breathe. The other is the biosphere of human habitation, huddled around pretech insulation and heat generation, or deep within the abandoned mines of Hallger's underground. The two interact, but do not overlap, as the hybrid life burns under humane temperatures, and humans flash freeze if exposed to the frozen surface.
Recently, the planetary government has come under the control of the Society for Ethical Reform through Aid, Protection, and Humanitarianism.
Etymology[]
Though records are sparse, knowledge gleaned from pre-Scream relics suggest that the original imperial name of the planet was Halaregerit, believed to be a reference to the liquid oxygen oceans. Over time, as the planet's population grew massive, people began to shorten the name in casual conversation, a practice that eventually bled into official communications as well. In this way, the pronunciation had shortened to Halgerit around the time of the Scream, after which the process continued to eventually arrive at the current name of Hallger.
However, as Hallger lacks a unified language, there are many regional variations: Halger, Halg, Halgert, Hag, Alger, Gerit, are all in use. The name Hallger became the official modern name due to it being the pronunciation and spelling of those communities that had the most intense contact with the rest of the Empire following the Velan reconstitution of the sector map.
As it stands, SERAPH has continued use of the Hallger variant of the name in off-world communication due to its already established convenience. Official imperial records sometimes use Halaregerit when the writers wish to emphasize Hallger’s claim (spurious or not) to pre-Scream imperial prominence.
The names of the three ruined megacities have undergone similar contractions. Magnificanti became Magcanti and is now generally called Maganti in the local dialect. Glorificanti became Glorcanti and is now called Gloranti. Amplificanti became Ampcanti and is now Amanti. For official and off-world business, the original long name and current shortened names are used interchangeably depending on what the speaker considers apt.
History[]
Pre-History[]
In its geological pre-history, Hallger was a temperate world orbiting the Pujaya star in the binary Pujaya-Nita system. Life evolved on said world, and thrived. Extensive fossil fuel deposits deep beneath the surface are evidence for this primordial flourishing.
Several hundred million years ago the Pujaya-Nita binary star system became a trinary system when a passing red dwarf star, Sala, was captured. The event disrupted orbits across the system, and sent Hallger into a new orbit around the dimmer Nita star. In its new orbit, Hallger temperatures dropped to near absolute zero. Halger’s original oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere condensed into massive oceans, with carbon-dioxide solidifying into dry ice that covered much of the planet surface.
All multicellular organisms that had evolved on Hallger in temperate climates died out, but a small number of single-celled organisms managed to adapt, evolve, and survive. Switching out liquid water for liquid nitrogen, life developed a new carbon-liquid nitrogen biology that could thrive in the new frozen climate.
It remains a topic of debate whether any alien civilizations developed on Hallger during this period. No conclusive evidence has been uncovered for either hypothesis. The earliest surviving records date to the Golden Age of Humanity, and they show native Hallger life as consisting of nothing but single-celled life with a few species of primitive moss and molds.
The Golden Age[]
Separated from the rest of the sector for a very long time, not being reconnected by Velan explorers until over a century after the Scream, records of Hallger’s pre-scream history are almost entirely corrupted, and most beliefs about Hallger’s history are simple conjectures based upon spotty or incomplete data.
The narrative considered to be the most supported by the available evidence goes as follows:
After the initial colonization of the sector, Hallger was found to have deposits of ore and precious metals in unusual abundance for a planet of its size. Though most of these were found many miles deep beneath the frozen surface, the cold temperatures made them much easier to reach than on warmer planets. Hallger became a mining world, and for a period of time that may have lasted centuries, materials were shipped from Hallger to support construction across the sector.
Eventually, likely due to its small size and locally available constructon material, Hallger was chosen to be the site of a new ecumenopolis, a city planet, to house the ever-growing human population of the Empire.
Construction was to be centered on multiple urban cores, to be built in sequence and continually expanded outward. The first such core was named Magnificanti, and situated in the central plains of the central continent. After several years of massive construction, the first urban core was complete, and millions of imperial citizens began migrating to Hallger.
To help feed the enormous and ever-growing population, techniques were developed to isolate the genes of the native lifeforms that were responsible for their unique biology, and splice them into Earth lifeforms. Various terrestial crops and livestock were thus gengineered and cultivated across the surface.
After Magnificanti had reached sufficient size, construction was expanded to include a second core, named Glorificanti, located to the south, across the mountains and on the coast. Eventually, as Magnificanti and Glorificanti continued to grow in size, construction was again expanded to a third core, Amplificanti, situated at a much greater distance from the previous two. Fragmented records suggest that a fourth core, Titanificanti, had begun construction as a floating city somewhere on Hallger’s ocean. However, records on the size and progression of Titanificanti's construction have not survived, and its possible location is as of yet undetermined.
Between them the three colossal continental cities, Magnificanti, Glorificanti, and Amplificanti, housed hundreds of billions of human inhabitants behind protective pretech materials and energy shielding, with more expansion and construction underway and more immigrants arriving right up till the fated hour of the Scream.
The Scream[]
With a massive population that was reliant on advanced technology to make the planet even mildly habitable, the massive failure of said technology in 2665 had apocalyptic consequences on a scale that dwarfed that of most other worlds. Countless froze to death, just as many died from starvation and infighting while huddled around the few pieces of functional pretech shielding. Innumerate millions saw themselves fleeing underground, into the warmer climate of the deep mines that had been used to harvest the ore needed to build the great cities above. The oceanic megacity of Titanificanti is believed to have broken up into pieces and sunk to the bottom of the ocean, another reason why its precise size and location remain a mystery to this day.
All in all, the scream caused waves of mass deaths, over ninety percent (90%) of the pre-scream population perished as psionics torched, technology failed, and supplies ran out.
Survival[]
Even before the Scream, something had never been quite right about Hallger. Though all that survives are the oral histories of The 1,313 Dooms of Hallger, many of whose tales strain credulity, it seems likely these are not all fabrications, and the initial mining and construction that took place on Hallger was indeed plagued by setbacks and catastrophe.
As a result, there had already been a considerable prepper culture on Hallger, with larger communities having worked together to construct so-called F.A.U.L.T. (Forever Assured Uncompromisable Lifesaving Technology) Safe-Spaces. Presumably some kind of local or sector-wide corporation was involved in these constructions, but no record remains of them except the F.A.U.L.T.™ logo stamped on various fortified doors and (usually long-since looted) pretech caches.
Unsurprisingly, those who had been active members of the Hallgerian prepper community found themselves with a much higher survival rate than their less prepared neighbors. Those that could reach their F.A.U.L.T. Safe-Spaces fared well, at least until their pretech generators broke down. Many others found life in the metro, sewers, and other municipal utility tunnels. What remained were isolated communities huddled around barely functional surface pretech or deep within inoperable mines.
Many of these early shelters failed anyways, with survivors fleeing to different shelters built up around newly uncovered F.A.U.L.T. caches of functioning or repairable pretech. Such shelters also rarely lasting much longer than their pretech remained functional. These early faulty starts played a key part in furthering the ingrained pessimism and expectations of inescapable doom that have become the center of local Hallgerian culture.
It was the discovery of minable veins of simple combustion-based fuel sources, cultivation of underground flora in the mines, and harvesting of surface life, that led to the semi-stabilization of Hallger’s population. With surviving rock borers, trains, and other machinery the people of Hallger expanded down into warmer levels of the planet’s rocky crust. Though far from stable, settlements began to survive longer than a single generation, and having to leave everything behind because of a generator failure or loss of insulation against the cold became the exception rather than the norm.
Lines of communication, however, remained weak, and innumerate different local cultures formed. In the deep vaults, each settlement developed into its own independent city state with its own unique government. On the surface, those living in the ruins of the megacities divided into various turfs, lines of allegiance and community determined by which metro-line was still traversable enough for people to stay in touch.
Rediscovered[]
In 2769, Hallger was rediscovered by House Vela. With renewed contact came an impetus towards rebuilding society. However, few outside organizations were interested in investing in what by all accounts was a hopelessly lost cause. Attempts to improve life on Hallger often seemed to invite nothing but even more disaster.
Cah-Binn explorers came to Hallger in the period before the Aquilan-Cah Binn Conflict, and traded with the local population, offering new and inventive ways to make life on the frozen world more sustainable again.
With help from these human and alien traders, the Hallgerian survivors found a way to jump-start a new technological infrastructure centered around scavenged prescream material and combustibles mined from the deep or harvested from the surface life. The technology to build and repair landships, using scavenged pretech technology, was developed. Nomadic landship living became a key part of life on Hallger, filling a crucial economical gap in their ability to exploit the technological and biological resources of the surface much more effectively than sedentary settlements. No longer merely ‘stable’, for the first time in a century, Hallger’s population began to grow again.
Some geneticists from House Cygnus took some interest in the challenge of the planet's harsh conditions. Only a small number of hybrid species had survived the chaos following the scream, but the hubris of House Cygnus endeavored for even more improved life. Hallger served as a site for Cygnus research and a testbed for those scientists wildest creations. The noble house took residence in the satellite Research Base Bam.
During the First and Second Imperial Civil Wars, some refugees of these wars struck out a living on Hallger, but many perished not long after they arrived. On the surface and in the near-surface ice caves some small communities still trace their origins to these settlers.
A.C.R.E. also found limited interest in Hallger. Although mostly used to inflate their customer numbers, A.C.R.E. provided Hallger with large quantities of L.O.A.V.E. rations and simple processed goods in exchange for scavenged pretech and valuable ores that the planet could not refine locally. Most of these trade goods weren't produced in any industrial manner, their gathering more the byproduct of billions of people living in mines and ruins, than of an organized extraction process.
In addition, with security and maintenance of underground freight lines the purview of the locals, this formed a bottleneck limiting A.C.R.E.’s reach to the planet as a whole. However, much trade did take place, and L.O.A.V.E.s provided an alternative food for those that could afford them and in many places became a symbol of status.
In the early 29th century, when A.C.R.E. was looking to expand its mining operations, scouts sent to Hallger quickly reported back that all easily reachable veins had been drained during the pre-Scream era, and that between the local squatters and overall sorry state of planetary technology and infrastructure, it could take centuries before a Hallgerian mining operation would produce a single credit of profit. The issue was permanently settled when A.C.R.E. choose to direct its resources to exploiting Shān instead.
Rusiyyah Arrive[]
In 2946 Hallger began to fall prey to the Rusiyyah, a pre-Vagrant group of pirates and raiders. Formed after Shānite clans commandeered the A.C.R.E. bulk freighter The Salum (later known as The Drunken Slattern), the Rusiyyah starfarers provided the clans with an avenue for self-reliance. They repeatedly raided Hallger--and other “sector-south” worlds--for foodstuffs, equipment, and experienced personnel. Their main goal was always to send food and supplies back to Shān to bolster its infrastructure.
To these discerning folk, Hallger provided ample pretech materials scavenged from the fallen cities and plenty of food from herds of surface fauna. Several times Rusiyyah nearly brought a surface species to the precipice of extinction after hunting them down for their meat. Each time the Rusiyyah visited Hallger, locals who witnessed them called them agents of the apocalypse and harbingers of doom. Communities touched by the Rusiyyah were hardest hit and often collapsed when their food stockpiles were taken, medical caches looted, or if technicians were taken to work on Shān. Among surface and near-surface tribes, “Rusiyyah” is a forbidden word or might only be cast against one’s most greedy enemies. Later Rusiyyahn raids against Hallger became, if anything, more efficacious, as the individuals raided by the Rusiyyah integrated into clan and Shānite culture, bringing their own local knowledge, traditions, and expertise regarding Hallger.
Synthetic Laborers[]
During the reign of the Betrayer of Humanity, House Cygnus increased its control over Hallger, and expanded its research activities. They turned their attention beyond experimenting with simple livestock and wildlife, to that of adapting synthetics to survive the extreme cold. House Cygnus’ synthetic humans were marvels of modern engineering and some of the noble house’s crown jewels. Hallger proved a unique challenge, but after a decade of research Cygnus successfully created a cold-immune breed of synthetic humans. They were affectionately, or insultingly, called “Nonos”, because like the local hybrid fauna they lacked noses; instead drinking liquid oxygen to breathe.
This adaption did come with the drawback that, like the other local hybrid lifeforms, Nonos cannot survive at human habitable temperatures. In the rare case that Nonos had to enter into human habitats, they needed to wear a special type of vac-suits that worked in reverse, simulating the Hallgerian cold inside of the suit to protect the Nonos from the human habitable climate.
With workers able to walk across the surface without requiring expensive and cumbersome technology, the untapped resources of Hallger’s surface were ripe for exploitation. Under Cygnus guidance, massive surface farms were established cultivating calorie rich crops. The population boomed to levels not seen since the Golden Age, and there was even talk of restarting the ancient pre-scream project to urbanize the whole planet’s surface. But, like every good thing that ever came to Hallger, it wouldn’t last.
War Against the Artificials[]
The War Against the Artificials levied a great toll on Hallger. Taking much of their research to Gats and Imperial Prime, the local Cygnus left behind no more than a skeleton crew in Research Base Bam to control the synthetics on the surface and maintain their infrastructure. During the war, the satellite was heavily damaged in a House Crux assault and was abandoned; it remains an orbital ruin. Under instruction from anti-Cygnus force, the local population killed off the majority of the Nonos, only scattered remnants surviving by hiding in unpopulated areas of the surface. Due to the prevailing pessimism of local culture, many inhabitants had long since been preparing for just such a war against the synthetic servants, as they had and continue to prepare against many even less likely scenarios.
Cygnus emplacements on the surface have not seen maintenance in decades, and have gone to ruin or even been scavanged for their tech. Rows and rows of cold-immune crops, growing unchecked in massive fields, mar the landscape. Without the Nonos, no source of tech or manpower exists on Hallger to harvest even a fraction of extant crops. To make matters worse, the unharvested crops release corrosive compounds into the atmosphere, strengthening the corroding power of the fog and winds.
RAPTURE Initiative[]
In early 3201, the Society for Ethical Reform through Aid, Protection, and Humanitarianism (SERAPH), a progressive charitable foundation, began a large scale movement of personnel and supplies to Hallger, to aid in education, infrastructure development, and reintegration of the planet into the Empire. This operation, named The RAPTURE Initiative (Restoration of Abandoned Peoples Trapped Under Recurring Extinction) was kept a secret in the charity’s nascent stage. Due to the Ankhayat Coffee Company's stake and control in the starships used to ferry over the personnel and supplies, the coffee organisation took the opportunity to make coffee export and cultivation a larger part of the operation's goals. Much of the charity’s work is conducted through advising and partnering with local governments who represent each of the thousands of independent communities.
Many SERAPH associates are followers of The Repentant Faith and seek to bring the doom-stricken people of Hallger into a closer connection to God. Delivering their messages of salvation through repentance, these agents travelled all across the planet and down into the deepest depths of civilized tunnels. They provided humanitarian aid to the struggling people of Hallger and offered access to more. The charity built supply depots and secured transit terminals to better provide food, tools, education, and information to the planet.
Above the planet, SERAPH revitalized the refueling station Luga and the system station Manah 6. With more reliable and supplied stations, transit to and from Hallger improved. SERAPH installed permanent offices there to control customs and more efficiently deliver aid to the planet. A vast quantity of Ankhayat ships pass through these refueling depots ensuring a fresh cup of coffee for every paying visitor.
Under New Management[]
In mid 3201, SERAPH worked to established a government on Hallger that could consolidate information about the needs of its people, coordinate efforts on the planet, request and utilize the resources of SERAPH, and serve as a centralized, recognized mediating body to the rest of the sector.
What resulted, in the end, was a small body known as the Advisory Templancy of Hallger, headed by the Grand Templar and Viceregent. As an autonomous stakeholder in SERAPH, this government of Hallger serves and supports the charity, but has a considerable sway in the allocation of the charity’s resources. The installed government is dedicated to improving the lives of Hallger’s population, and negotiating and communicating the needs of Hallger to SERAPH, the noble houses, and the Emperox.
SERAPH's presence has also done some to secure the planet and deter external raids, but personnel and enforcement remain thin, and such events remain a recurring problem. The Confederation of the Upright Vagrant also has a presence around the planet, and along with pursuing salvage claims, works to deter various kinds of illegal pirate activity in the area as part of its Imperial mandate.
Planetary Characteristics[]
Orbiting Nita, the secondary star of the Pujaya Nita trinary star system, Hallger experiences a chaotic path through its stellar system. Many different techniques are used to measure and predict the cycles of Hallger’s orbit, but few local calculations are more than guess work. A complex and interconnected four-body-problem, only pre-tech computers capable of observing the four celestial bodies can reliably forecast the state of the system. Despite the chaotic orbit, Hallger currently experiences only minor temperature variations; many point to the dimness of the stars and importance of geo- and biothermal energy as stabilizing factors.
Day and Night Cycle[]
Hallger has three suns, but orbits at considerable distance from all of them. The two closest, Pujaya and Nita have the luminosity of a fairly weak and small sun, whereas the third, Sala, is more akin to an extremely bright star. Due to Hallger's general instability and irregularities, all possible combinations of all three suns rising or setting may be visible dependent on the place, time of day, time of year, or decade. As a result, the day and night cycle on Hallger is so convoluted that only astronomers know how to properly keep track of it. The common Hallgerian uses clocks, which matters little as the vast majority never go outside regardless. For those who do go outside regularly, the common lingo is to speak of "True Day" when all three suns are up, and "True Night" when all three suns are set, and anything in between as "Quarter/Half/Three-Quarters Day" or "Quarter/Half/Three-Quarters Night" dependent on the current brightness. Circumstances of "True Night" on Hallger are extremely dark, as Hallger has no moons. However, "True Day" is still only about as bright as a winter's day on more Earth-like planets. Hallger is, unsurprisingly, not only cold but fairly dark all around.
Terrestrial Characteristics[]
Hallger is a small planet, with a circumference of approximately 25,000 kilometers (16,000 mi). However, an abundance of heavy metals gives it a surface gravity of 0.8G (only mildly lower than that of Earth.)
Hallger’s chemical composition is defined by a unique and mysterious absence of hydrogen and simultaneous abundance of oxygen. Hallger’s dry surface is dominated by expanses of dry ice, frozen carbon dioxide, with rivers of liquid oxygen and nitrogen. Most of the planet is covered in blue-purple vegitation, part of a hybrid biosphere of flora and fauna that has adopted to the extreme cold, carrying liquid nitrogen sap and blood and drinking liquid oxygen to breathe.
The liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen function similarly to how water does on warmer planets. Primarily present in the oceans, these liquids also condense into fog and clouds, and eventually rain down onto the dry surface forming vast rivers and lakes that lead the liquid back into the oceans to close the cycle.
At ground level, the Helium atmosphere contains corrosive compounds that are spread through the winds and nitrogen fogs. Regular temperatures hover around negative two-hundred degrees celsius (-200°C/73K).
The vibrancy of the hybrid biosphere may deceive humans into thinking the surface is not so inhospitable, those so deceived rarely live long to regret it. Surface temperatures are almost instantly fatal to human life. Even when enclosed within a fully-charged thermally regulated vac-suit, human life (and other life with similar biology) will often only last a matter of hours before the combination of extreme cold and the corrosive atmosphere compromise the suit. Most human surface transport takes place via specially built and highly insulated vehicles, so-called landships, with its occupants only exiting the vehicles for short amounts of time when absolutely necessary. Whenever possible, subterranean travel is preferred, though one needs to go many miles deep to reach proper human-habitable temperatures. Similarly, surface habitation requires constant heating and constant application and maintenance of proper insulation.
Atmospheric Characteristics[]
Hallger’s atmosphere is predominantly composed of Helium, a light and inert gas. At lower altitudes, gaseous nitrogen, which may boil out of the oceans during periods of "True Day," may create low-lying clouds and fog. These fog clouds carry complex corrosive compounds that eat away at engineered structures.
Human-made vehicles, buildings, roads, bridges, and exo-suits are rapidly compromised by the corrosive atmosphere. The application of neutralizing coatings, active anti-corrosive surfaces, or the use of highly advanced thermal energy shielding--which all require constant maintenance--can protect materials from these effects. Without such treatment, however, only the most durable of pretech material maintains its structural integrity for more than a week or two.
Oceanic Characteristics[]
Liquid on Hallger’s surface is an oxygen and nitrogen mix. With hydrogen being a rare, fires are almost always the result of the direct combustion of carbon compounds that is in direct contact with liquid oxygen. Such carbon compounds exist primarily as a result of the hybrid ecosystem, as the Halgerian flora absorbs dry ice through its roots and separates it into liquid oxygen and carbon compounds.
As the atmosphere is mostly inert helium, on Hallger the requisite for fire is not ‘air’ but the presence of ‘liquid’ (as the liquid on Hallger is, in fact, liquid air.) Although few things on the planet are hot enough to cause it naturally, uncontrollable blue flames occasionally erupt across the planet’s liquid bodies, such as oceans, seas, and lakes. Visitors to the planet are advised to avoid flying low over the liquid surfaces of the planet lest a starship ignite an ocean.
Destructive as they may seem, these fires are also part of the natural cycle of life on Hallger. They can burn for months, but leave in their wake new dry ice soil in which hybrid flora may grow.
Hybrid Biosphere[]
Natural life on Hallger is adapted for the inhospitable conditions of the near absolute zero temperatures and the corrosive atmosphere. The original development of this strange carbon and liquid-nitrogen based biology was an evolutionary adaptation to a change in Hallger’s orbit in prehistoric times. During the Golden Age, humanity hybridized species they had brought with them from earth with the native life, creating new versions of earth species but with the same carbon-liquid nitrogen biology.
Post-scream, House Cygnus resumed the project and further expanded the number and population of hybridized life on the planet. As a result, almost all of Hallger’s life is, by design, edible to humans.
However, the hybrid life is not only adapted to the frozen temperatures, it also requires said temperatures. At temperatures warmer than -190°C (83K), Hallger life may experience hyperthermia. Temperatures significantly higher than that cause hyperpyrexia, i.e. severe trauma and imminent death. At human habitable temperatures most Hallger hybrid life will just spontaneously combust. This means standard human life and hybrid life (the latter including cold-resistant synthetics) require mutually incompatible environments. When the two meet ‘face-to-face’, one side or both will always require some form of insulation or even a full exo-suit separating them.
Flora[]
Plants on the planet combine the dry ice in the soil with various rarer elements, including hydrogen and nitrogen, into carbon compounds by using the solar radiation from Nita and nearby Punjaya in a process similar to standard photosynthesis (the third star, Sala, is too weak to meaningfully power photosynthesis). Liquid nitrogen carries solutions of dry ice and water ice to the cells to be converted into carbon compounds and liquid oxygen.
As a result, liquid nitrogen functions fairly similar to water on more temperate worlds: flora require some form of access to it, and the most abundant flora is found in places where liquid nitrogen is likewise abundant. Liquid oxygen, if not already present along with the nitrogen, subsequently becomes common in these places, as the plants excrete it as waste products.
Fauna[]
Hallger’s terrestrial fauna lack means to breathe the atmosphere, and in fact have no nostrils at all, a good thing since the atmosphere is made up of helium, a noble gas, along with various highly corrosive compounds. Aside from being able to survive in extreme cold, and being unable to survive outside of extreme cold, the lack of nostrils is the main defining feature marking Hallgerian life as hybrids.
Instead, of breathing gaseous air, Hallger life ‘breathes’ by drinking the liquid oxygen that is abundant on the planet. Where creatures from temperate worlds would have their lungs, Halgerrian fauna instead have sacs that carry stores of liquid oxygen. In essence, they drink their fill of oxygen, then ‘hold their breath’ while moving, hunting, or eating. When the sacs run dry, the creature must drink again or else suffocate.
Many fauna also excrete compounds from their skin that neutralize the corrosive substances in the atmosphere, these excretions generally either take the form of a thin layer of slime covering otherwise smooth skin, or are incorporated as a prime substance in the creature’s fur.
Aquatic creatures thrive in the planet’s oceans, lakes, and rivers. Drinking in the nitrogen and oxygen mix, and consuming algae-like flora, they have no need for the cumbersome sacs of terrestrial fauna. However, they are more vulnerable to the carbon fires that can spread through the aquatic flora and fauna alike. Life in Hallger’s oceans is a constant ebb and flow of such fiery destruction followed by new life growing and repopulated the newly desolate, but newly fertile, areas.
Nonos[]
Before the War Against the Artificials, House Cygnus successfully created a cold-immune breed of synthetic humans. They were affectionately, or insultingly, called “Nonos”, because like the local hybrid fauna they lacked noses; instead drinking liquid oxygen to breathe.
This adaption did come with the drawback that, like the other local hybrid lifeforms, Nonos cannot survive at human habitable temperatures. In the rare case that Nonos had to enter into human habitats, they needed to wear a special type of vac-suits that worked in reverse, simulating the Hallgerian cold inside of the suit to protect the Nonos from the human habitable climate.
The vast majority of Nonos were killed during the War Against the Artificials, but small bands of survivors still roam the planet surface, nigh impossible to catch due to the lack of local infrastructure and extreme cold.
Human Biosphere[]
Much of human habitation on Hallger has no meaningful biosphere, being contained to enclosed technological spaces, such as landships or city ruins. However, most long-term habitats will have some variety of potted crops and pets around to keep humanity company, and as emergency food supplies.
Deep underground, where temperatures are at human habitable level, various common fungi and algae brought in by human settlers grow. These plants survive on a primary diet of geothermal energy and recycled water. Strange air-recycling plantlife covers the walls of many tunnels, evolved remnants of earlier attempts at engineering a human-sustainable underground ecosystem. In more cultivated caves and tunnels, many species of moss, lichen, and certain ferns can grow under simple gas or candle lighting. Though yields are small, most underground societies have farms to grow these plants as a more reliable source of food than shipments brought down from the surface.
Habitation and Settlement[]
Landships[]
Hallger’s surface is much too cold for humans to survive even seconds without proper technology. At the same time, advanced technology is scarce, and locally-built vacsuits (using scavenged pretech materials) are expensive and unreliable. The most common way for humans to get about on the surface is in lumbering vehicles called landships. Though the exact origins vary, many of these are converted starships. Scavenged of much of their advanced technology, the still insulated starship hulls have been outfitted with mechanical treads and rudimentary steam engines.
These landships are reliant upon fuel from the planet’s mines or its surface peat to keep their engines going. These engines serve a double purpose, however, since without it a landship will not only stop moving, but stop being heated, and will slowly freeze along with everything inside it.
The Hallgerian surface is littered with broken down landships full of frozen corpses. Though, in more inhabited areas, it rarely takes long before some group of people decide to salvage the hull for the construction of a new landship. Hoping that they’ll end up with a better fate than its previous inhabitants. Since this is Hallger, they rarely do.
Megacities[]
Hallger’s three great pre-Scream cities, Magnificanti, Glorificanti, and Amplificanti, (aka Maganti, Gloranti, and Amanti) were burgeoning metropolises, part of process intended to result in the full urbanization of Hallger's surface. Hundreds of billions lived in these climate controlled spaces, pretech insulation, energy shielding, and heat generators nullifying the frozen surface climate. The Golden Age of Humanity was a marvel of technology and Hallger’s cities utilized every piece of their advanced tech to maintain the comforts of civilization.
The Scream put an end to most of that. What remains are husks of its former glory. While hundreds of millions still live in isolated pockets of habitation, huddled around barely functioning ancient generators or carefully insulated city blocks, for the most part, the cities are frozen overgrown monoliths to humanity’s past grandeur. Pre-Scream materials and generators are critical for the survival of the city-folk, but they are also one of the planet’s greatest exports. Scavengers prey upon the city scrounging up parts to sell on the sector market. Life in the city is tied to the maintenance of crumbling infrastructure supplemented by primitive combustion-based technology, and a pseudo-religious reverence of pre-Scream equipment is prevalent throughout urban communities.
The artificial heat generated and insulated by some surviving pretech even allows for arctic-like temperatures in some open spaces, but these are the exception as opposed to the rule. Urban agriculture is not wide-spread enough to sustain the current population, but is practiced wherever possible to reduce the reliance on off-world rations, such as L.O.A.V.E.s. Not as insular as the underground societies, urban communities are home to refugees from the sector’s many conflicts.
Megacity Infrastructure[]
While each of the three cities has its own geographical idiosyncrasies, the planetary urbanization project of which they were part was extremely uniform and precise, with the vast majority of areas being essentially indistinguishable from another one of the same type, regardless of their location or which of the three cities they were constructed in.
The basis of this uniformity is the hexagonal sector grid. All sectors are of similar hexagonal shape, and size, fitting inside a square of roughly 15x15 km (10x10 mi). There are five main types of sectors:
- Government and utilities: These sectors held administrative centers and power plants, forming the nexi which facilitated the needs and governance of the cities.
- Industrial and transportation: These sectors held manufactories, as well as the subrail lines responsible for mass transportation of people and cargo within the cities themselves. They also connected to the numerous mines deep below the surface, some of which are still accessible and inhabited. Above ground, suprails and shuttle services were responsible for moving people and goods locally between places not part of the subrail grid.
- Commercial: These sectors held both leisure and business districts, focused on providing services to the citizenry.
- Residential: These sectors held the majority of residential districts.
- Hub super-sectors: These sectors are a fusion of Government and utilities with Industrial and transportation sectors, as the name suggests they were the true hubs around which all sectors were built. They are the entry and exit points of the deeprail lines, which connect the different hubs as well as the different cities to each other. They also held the primary space-ports for shipping and receiving offworld cargo.
As indicated above, transportation between sectors and between districts within sectors was divided between four different modes of transportation. From slowest to fastest these were:
- Shuttles: Standard flight-capable vehicles, seating one or multiple passengers, which could fly above or between buildings to move people or cargo directly from point to point. Due to the sheer number of people and materials that needed to move through the city on a daily basis, the number of shuttles was highly regulated and limited, so as to prevent continual mass congestion and associated inefficiency.
- Suprail: A contraction from supra-rail, the term denotes the monorails and trams that ran above ground, connecting individual sectors to each other and individual districts and buildings within sectors. These were the primary means of daily transportation for the vast majority of citizens, and virtually all the streets in these cities were and are suprail lines.
- Subrail: Not to be confused with suprails, these are the underground railways that connect the Industrial and transportation sectors to each other and to the Hub super-sectors. The suprail lines, in addition to connecting sectors in general, are structured to run through and from Industrial and transportation sectors so as to connect the sup- and subrail networks as efficiently as possible. At various points, these also go down into the planet to connect to the mines deep below the surface.
- Deeprail: The fastest and deepest part of the transportation system. Aside from maintenance shafts, the deeprail lines can only be entered and exited at Hub super-sectors. As the vast majority of citizens lived and worked locally, and those who don’t could invariably afford private shuttles, the deeprail lines were almost exclusively used for cargo transportation. In particular, they were used to ship cargo to and from the spaceports which were and are also located in the Hub super-sectors.
Currently, none of these lines of transportation are still operable as they were intended to be. Many tunnels have collapsed, and virtually all trains and other TL4 or TL5 vehicles have long since failed or been salvaged for parts.
However, many are operable. In places where the tunnel’s insulation was intact or repairable, and where a community of survivors was near enough to maintain it, new primitive TL2 combustion-based railway lines have been built to make use of the ancient tracks. Heavy, smoke-emitting, trains run through these rail-lines to connect different communities and jointly constitute a fragmented but functional city-wide transportation net.
In addition to these, most communities have maps that show which nearby tunnels are still traversable by foot or by landships. This is much riskier, as most of these routes will not be maintained, and the quality of insulation will be questionable. However, it usually is still safer than trying to travel openly on the planet's surface.
Small city-dwelling communities that otherwise could not afford to build or maintain a railway connection are linked by these tunnel routes.
The deeprails between the three cities were constructed to be much larger than those within the cities themselves, and even now are still traversable by landships, but the route is very long and some form of danger or disaster inevitably befalls every caravan that makes the journey. Areas may flood or collapse, leaving no choice but to go back or spend days clearing a path for the landships. In addition, local raiders with knowledge of various maintenance tunnels often attempt to demand toll or just straight-up ambush passing caravans.
Nomads[]
Outside of the cities humanity’s movement above ground is limited to specially built vehicles. Whether in solo landships or in massive convoys of dozens of vehicles, Hallgerian nomads traverse the icy surface of the planet often following herds of native fauna, harvesting peat-like fuels for their vehicles, and collecting surface water-ice.
In some instances convoys of vehicles are linked together in train-like constructions for safety and security.
Another sub-set of nomads traverse the Hallgerian oceans. Even more isolated than other communities, they rely on the relative abundance of native life for food and fuel. Though, as one might expect, in case of disaster these aquatic caravans are even more unlikely to survive than those on the surface. Legends of the lost city of Titanificanti are particularly prevalent amongst ocean-going nomads.
Underground[]
A large portion of the planet’s surviving population lives underground. Often isolated from the world above, subterranean communities have operated autonomously as independent city states with little centralized control. Each polity organized itself differently and is wary of outsiders, for doom has always followed them.
At first those underground relied upon scavanged pretech generators, but as more and more of these failed, digging further down to warmer rock was a necessity. As Hallger had originally been a mining planet, there was a glut of material still available to repair or repurpose for expanding the tunnel network further down. Now, a vast array of cave networks and mines criss-cross under the surface, in each nook and cranny lives a different community. Deep underground, four resources govern life: Fuel, Food, Water, and Air.
To stay warm, fuel--often in the form of solid carbon called koal or hallgrite--is burned. More refined fuels, such as so-called gralzine, power lamps and more efficiently heat spaces, but for most communities they are luxury goods. Koal heated water vapor is used to power turbines for simple electricity and for heavy machinery. Beyond hydration and power, liquid water is also necessary for the production of food underground. Calorie dense flora similar to ferns, lichen, and moss are grown in specialized areas called green rooms, using electric or gralzine lamps for light. In dark caves, algae, and fungi are cultivated to provide much of the protein requirements of Hallgerian underground society. All of this burning of fuel requires oxygen, and so too do the humans down there. Liquid gas, often a Nitrogen-Oxygen mix to prevent uncontrolled flames in pure oxygen environments, from surface lakes is transported down to keep the atmosphere breathable. In addition, plants are grown in wherever possible; any space in a tunnel that can be filled and tended this way will be, providing both air recycling and a more humane living environment than bare walls.
Many of these plants are remainders or evolutionary outgrowth of an early subterranean, human-sustainable plant and food ecosystem, introduced to the underground before the Scream and Hallger's tech level crash. While pretech would often break and prove irrepairable, this biological infrastructure had greater resiliency and capacity to spread and grow. Nevertheless, too many individuals in one place will tend to overload the capacity of the ecosystem, and may cause a local collapse. This has become a feature of life that has reinforced the historical Hallgerian reticence toward grouping together too much or building anything too big.
Orbital Bodies[]
Bam[]
An orbital ruin and the husk of Research Base Bam, a former House Cygnus research base. The site was heavily damaged in a House Crux raid during the War Against the Artificials and all records of Cygnus’ Hallgerian Synthetic project are believed to have been thoroughly scrubbed from the orbital base’s archives or simply destroyed in the attack.
Today, Bam is little more than a hunk of space debris to most. Large sections of the base were damaged in the assault and power to the station is limited. Some government agents continue to investigate what records Cygnus may have left behind pertaining to non-Synth research. Finding the missing pieces of the House’s bioengineering project for Hallger may give way to a path for bettering the planet and its people, or so they hope.
The otherwise quiet nature of the ruin has habitually attracted smugglers, pirates, and outlaws to hide in its shadow. Bam’s resident researchers have attempted all manner of nonviolent means to keep unauthorized personnel away from the site. Additionally, the research they are undertaking has attracted the attention of fierce anti-synthetic forces who doubt the effectiveness of the war-time data purges on the old station.
There has recently been extensive activity by the Confederation of the Upright Vagrant around Bam, owing both to the massive amounts of potential salvage in the area and, it is rumored, interest or expertise by certain members of the Vagrant fleet regarding data related to Cygnus.
Luga []
When SERAPH brought assets to bear on Hallger in early 3201, the refueling station orbiting the planet was revitalized. The massive shipments to Hallger in what was known internally as the RAPTURE Initiative required a logistics network that could support it. The station is named after its caretaker, Luga, whom many have deridingly called a “half-crazed hermit.” Luga has operated the facility for many years and was sort of adopted by SERAPH personnel when they began their initiatives on the planet below. Luga may speak about wild conspiracy theories and fixate on mundane aspects of the station, but they have always ensured that the place is clean and is regularly stocked. The Ankhayat Coffee Company invested heavily in updating the infrastructure of the station for prospected traffic to and from the planet. With the consent of the station’s caretaker, the coffee company has developed a new blend of Cabinan coffee roasts available only on this remote station.
As one of two voidbound refueling stations in the Punjaya Nita systems--with Manah 6 as the other one--Luga is well known for officials who indirectly extort those stuck in the system. A cabal of corrupt customs agents are believed to hike up fuel costs and the price of common out-of system goods. Traffic from other systems hoping to avoid pirate fleets operating out of Hild often faces heavy docking fees and unreasonable fines that can be as expensive as unannounced Shānite raiding parties.
Politics[]
For most of Hallger’s post-scream history, no single entity has truly, properly, governed it. The divisions and fractures between its various communities above and below ground that resulted from the century of post-scream isolation have never been healed to the point of effective global unification. Across these various local communities, various different political constructions, monarchies, kleptocracies, republics, even anarchic communes have been tried with various success. Globally, current and past attempts at planetary governance from have simply had to make do with what was possible, and place themselves on top of the existing, heterogenous and disunited, political landscape.
Planetary Governorship[]
Its recurrent dooms, hostile climate, and low level of technological sophistication played a large role in Hallger's continued isolation from the rest of the Empire. However, another key cause was the planetary population's distrust of any variety of centralization. This resulted in a recurrent unwillingness and inability to put forward any variety of cohesive planetary government that the rest of the sector could interact with and recognize for diplomacy or trade. The occasional ambitious warlord might stake a claim to such a position, or delude the unwary group of outsiders into having succeeded at it, but no state of such magnitude ever lasted longer than a few decades at most before some doom befell it.
In mid 3201, recognizing the problems caused by absence of any central governance, SERAPH worked to established a government on Hallger that could consolidate information about the needs of its people, coordinate efforts on the planet, request and utilize the resources of SERAPH, and serve as a centralized, recognized mediating body to the rest of the sector.
What resulted, in the end, was a small body known as the Advisory Templancy of Hallger, headed by the Grand Templar and Viceregent. As an autonomous stakeholder in SERAPH, this government of Hallger serves and supports the charity, but has a considerable sway in the allocation of the charity’s resources. The installed government is dedicated to improving the lives of Hallger’s population, and negotiating and communicating the needs of Hallger to SERAPH, the noble houses, and the Emperox.
The Grand Templar[]
One of the things that most struck Cabinans about the inhabitants of Hallger was their religiosity, most often framed through the lens of catastrophe, doom, and rebirth. As members of a religion that had recently gone through a drastic upheaval and institutional death, Repentants from Cabina found strange resonances between their own experiences and those of the people of Hallger.
What resulted in the end was the conviction that the care of Hallgerian souls mattered as much as care for the body, and as they set about to form a new government they wished to see both aspects respected. Respect for the souls of Hallger is demonstrated by the office of the Grand Templar.
The Grand Templar is a "spiritual head of state," an individual whose purpose is seen as bearing witness to the spiritual life and lessons of Hallger's people, directing yearly edicts on these matters, and appointing Viceregents. In recognition of Hallger's own cycles of death and rebirth, they vacate their position every 10 years to an appointed successor. Their position is considered the one most responsive to the will (as far as it can be determined) of the people of Hallger, including mechanisms whereby the people of Hallger can override the Grand Templar's choice of successor -- or even its current occupant -- with a vote of No Confidence. The Grand Templar takes a backseat role in practical daily governance, concerning themselves mainly with study, observation, and spiritual disciplines, only occasionally interjecting into the governance of the state. The vast majority of the responsibility to govern Hallger is off-loaded to the other key individual in Hallger's government, the Vicegerent.
It is known that the current Grand Templar favors repentant interpretations of the universe and views the eventual spread of the Repentant Faith to Hallger’s billions as their mission. Their position's official commitment to prioritizing observation and learning, instead of overt proselytization, has had some minor impact in addressing concerns raised by the High Church faithful of Hallger as well as other outside parties. The official restrictions of the position have also ameliorated the concerns of Repentant faithful worried about what any eventual High Church successor in the same role might do.
The Viceregent and VALHallger[]
As administrative and bureaucratic leader, the Viceregent organizes the day-to-day governance of Hallger. Directing charitable aid, maintaining order, and building a better world for the people all fall under the Viceregent’s duties. As part of their administration, the Vicegeral Advisory League of Hallger (VALHallger) serves alongside the Viceregent. The league is a council of academics, business people, charities, investors, bureaucrats, and spiritual leaders who advise the Vicegerent on how to adequately serve the planet’s population. As an appointed body, VALHallger only represents the concerns of the people without democratic mechanisms. Supermajority consent of the advisory league can depose the Vicegerent from the office, after which another member of VALHallger is selected by the Grand Templar to fill the vacancy. The deposed rejoins VALHallger. Upon death, or unanimous consent of the league, members of the league are replaced via appointment by the Grand Templar, who chooses from among up to a dozen candidates proposed by the league.
Hallgerian Response[]
Ever distrustful of outsiders, many Hallgerians are wary of the Templancy and its semi-centralized structure as well as the obvious attachment of any Templars to the government. While many communities cautiously embrace particular forms of aid and development presented, others remain stubbornly isolationist, with increasingly troubling rifts and resentments growing between the two camps. Interactions between SERAPH personnel and Hallgerian natives are not always peaceful, either, with SERAPH's idealists, missionaries, and armed volunteers often ill-equipped for the practical realities of cross-cultural understanding and governance.
Moreover, among Hallgerians, there are predictions abound that another calamity will strike and topple this newly formed government. Throughout the planet, rumors are spreading of SERAPH’s designs and goals for the people of Hallger. Certainty that SERAPH will destroy the ecosystem with coffee crops, or that the planet will become engulfed in the greatest holy war since the 764th recorded Doom of Hallger, remain the most popular predictions. Rumors about offers to ship parts of the population offworld have developed mixed responses. Some embrace the “so-called rapture program” as salvation from their misery, while others are convinced that any effort to offworld people is bound to invoke another doom.
The Unknown Masters[]
An unconscious force is ever present in the governance of Hallger. While the SERAPH aligned Grand Templar and Viceregent believe they are alone in governing the icy planet, an unknown cabal operates behind the scenes. No one quite knows who they might be, if they’ve infiltrated the Government’s operations, or if they simply pull the strings of the disparate communities across the planet. What is known is that non-SERAPH personnel, assets, and infrastructure have outsized influence on the people of Hallger and most chalk it up to the dispersed nature of the population.
Culture of Doom[]
None can list all the vast variety of faiths, political structures, rituals, and languages on and under the surface of Hallger. Not only are there so many, but countless are only accessible through labyrinthine routes through flooded mining shafts and collapsed railway tunnels. However, all the myriad Hallgerian cultures all share one uniting factor: Doom. Since as far back as the oral and written histories can indicate, the planet has suffered from perpetual cycles of doom and destruction. Apocalypse in its many forms is, in some ways, the fickle friend of every Hallgerian. Each resident of the planet can point to at least one catastrophic event in their past that has led them to be alive in the present. As much as it has been a burden on communities, generations, and the population as a whole, each individual may see their life as the product of every doom that didn’t end their lives or those of their ancestors.
The 1,313 Dooms of Hallger[]
See also: The 26th Doom of Hallger (Short Story)
An oral history of the planet and its people, The 1,313 Dooms of Hallger is a collection of stories, myths, and tall-tales of the multitude of catastrophes that have plagues and tormented Hallger. The standard opening of each tale, though there are local variances, is: "This is the telling of the Xth Doom of Hallger, the Doom of X that befell the X of X."
Although many fables within the collection are incredulous to offworlders, it is treated as a form of gospel for a large portion of locals. The primary method of transmission of these tales remains, to this day, oral storytelling within and between local communities. Individual tales or collections of multiple tales have been published in written form, but a complete collection has never been assembled and published. Many anthropologists and artists have attempted to compile a complete account, but all that did not give up are believed to have paid the price for their efforts by perishing in one of the planet’s infamous calamities. Some observers doubt that there ever were 1,313 stories and that the mystique of gathering the completed work has ironically drawn scholars and writers to their own doom in pursuing it.
The Number 1,313[]
The number 1,313 is treated with respect by locals. Though a minority also treat it as a straight-up lucky number, 1,313 is most commonly used as a ward against the apocalypse. Though Hallgerian's believe apocalypse to be inevitable, they still prefer for the inevitable to happen later rather than sooner, and invoking the number 1,313 is seen as a way of both respecting the inevitable and asking it to not be inevitable just quite yet. Some may mark distances by 1,313 steps, never stay in one place more than 1,313 sleeps, not climb more than 1,313 units in elevation, keep communities no larger than 1,313 persons, or other such superstitions.
A local colloquialism is to refer to the number as “double thirteen”, as in: “Jake, you double-thirteen-ed bastard, how did you do it?” Some particularly superstitious people may consider this disrespectful and tempting doom, but like happens to all such human swearing, it has long since been ingrained in popular culture.
Classification of Dooms[]
Though outsider's first reactions to Hallger's Doomsayers is often one of bemused tolerance and laughing at local superstitions, a careful examination of the lore and traditions of Hallger shows a people deeply aware, to a sometimes uncanny accuracy, of various natural and sociological phenomena that regularly upend life on their planet.
Major Cycle[]
This is the variety of doom most often referenced by Hallgerians in pointing to their history and memory. It goes by many names, from "the wheel" to "pralaya" to "natural doom," but consensus exists that it is influenced by these recurrent factors:
- Corrosive fog: a phenomenon that goes through cycles of thinning and rising vs condensing and sinking into surface clouds. This cycle is largely dependent on planetary temperature, geothermal activity, and industrial output.
- Population and food supply: Mired at Tech Level 2, Hallger's populations and communities have bounds within certain stable limits, before a boom and time of plenty overrides carrying capacity, and impels conflict, war, and famine.
- Planetary orbit: the four body problem orbit. While overall the orbit is stable, there are still recorded apogees and perigrees to Hallger's position in this orbit relative to all three stars, and accompanying temperature extremes. Hallger's flora and fauna exist in a narrow band of tolerable temperature. Deeper freezes kill off or drive into hibernation vast swaths of its life, and higher temperature starts ocean-fires, and boil and explode flora and fauna. The deaths and migrations these temperature-changes induce can cripple the food-supplies of much of the planet.
- Geothermal instability: Hallger's underground communities are not immune to cyclical shifts, and plate tectonics can sometimes pair with planetary orbit to devastating effect.
- Communal cohesion: The values placed on marriage, class structure, religion, cooperative prepping, and communal childrearing fluctuate, as does openness to new ideas. The dispersal of Hallgerian communities is viewed as a countermeasure both to largescale epidemics of physical disease, and also to any one ultimately counterproductive innovation in a community infecting the whole planet. But sometimes this happens nonetheless, particularly during periods when food production supports a higher population, and more opportunities for trade, leisure, and innovation.
In themselves, none of these factors or cycles are enough to count as a "Major Cycle or "big one" or "Doom." Rather, it is when events such as, for example, the extreme of a solar cycle, effecting various natural cyclical phenomena, combines with the memetic spread of a new cultural idea: these kinds of confluences are the signs of an impending Doom.
Many of the 1,313 Dooms of Hallger are seen as warnings against any major change to Hallgerian cultures and traditions, in an attempt to mitigate the sociological interplay that can lead to a Major Cycle.
Due to their records and traditions, Hallgerian communities, even without the ability to run complex digital calculations of orbital or seismic activity, are often quite aware of these subcycles, and the harbingers of a compounded Major Cycle, many years in advance. (This includes the fact that assuming "this time it will be different" is itself one of the signs). Their predictors nevertheless will tend to declare many false positives (as most cycles do not ultimately reach the compounding extremes of a Major Cycle), leaving communities always prepping and always on edge, and the dangers of a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" contributing to the next true Major Cycle.
Choshek[]
Even deeper in Hallgerian memory lies warnings of another variety of Doom. This one goes by many names, with "Choshek," "the Reset" or the "the Godcycle" being the more common ones. Many of the 1,313 Dooms of Hallger are references to these varieties of calamities - their similarity being that they are unpredictable, except for perhaps always coming (or so it seems to Hallgerians) just when the planet might have been on the verge of a corner-turn into stable change and the ability to deal with its natural Cycles. At such times the Choshek seems to be inevitable, plunging Hallger back into a chaos that even the most prepared are never fully prepared for. A madness that drove the inhabitants of the megacities to collective suicide. Raiders from other worlds. A new disease that blighted most of Hallger's underground engineered plantlife. Terraforming catastrophes. Asteroids. Emergence of a new apex predator. A Preacher who enthralled the planet. If the oral legends are to be believed, the number and types of Chosheks have been endless.
This classification is neither discrete nor simple, and debates rage among Predictors and Doomsayers as to whether certain Hallger dooms count as a Major Cycle, highly influenced by sociological factors, or a larger Reset. Because many of these Godcycles coincided with new ideas or new technology, attribution to the former is common among Hallgerian skeptics. But other Hallgerians look at these events and see something else: A planet that looks like a petri dish and a science experiment, with some force that never seems to let anything change too far from some baseline before a "reset" is hit.
The Scream is universally acknowledged as a Reset and time of Choshek.
Vault-Dwelling and Prepping[]
The Pre-Scream culture, by all accounts, was plagued by dooms. Perhaps the technology of the Golden Age of Humanity protected the majority of the population from the planet’s regular upheavals, but the threat of “the big one” is likely to have sent shivers of paranoia through that ancient world. From oral histories of the Scream and its immediate aftermath, those that had prepared for what they believed as “the big one” turned to underground shelters for salvation. Archaeological evidence shows that for those that could afford and had the wherewithal to plan for it, had vaults full of the conveniences of the time to survive the storm. A large portion of Hallger’s population claim to trace their ancestry to these preppers who knew that one could never be too comfortable with the current state of things. As a result, Hallgerians value preparation in all things, both the expected and the unexpected. Some members of local societies are assigned the responsibility of preparing for all eventualities. Each time a community is affected by a deleterious event, a Prepper is tasked with rallying the community to safety.
Caches of valuable pretech materials are believed to still be around, waiting to be found, buried by earthquakes or other disasters. Substantial numbers of vault-hunters seek them out, though over the centuries the chances of success have steadily diminished.
Isolation[]
Insular to a fault, Hallgerian societies are fearful of large groups and gatherings. With larger congregations of people, many locals believe they are more susceptible to harmful events. Disease and famine are most often considered when communities grow beyond normal sizes. The more people huddled together, the more likely a bad harvest, delayed L.O.A.V.E. shipment, or infectious disease could decimate a population. Additionally, in the event of an earthquake, cave-in, or flooding a larger community is more cumbersome to move to safety. Only in warfare is a large population beneficial. In such cases though, networks of alliances and feudal relations are considered preferable sources of military strength as opposed to large concentrated populations.
However, what constitutes "too large" of a population wildly various. In the megacities, a hundred million may be considered an acceptable population, whereas in some of the deepest underground communities anything more than several dozen can be viewed as ill-omened.
Communal Child Raising and Childhood[]
Living in the shadow of constant calamity, many generations of post-Scream Hallgerians considered it an exorbitant luxury to allow child-rearing to rely solely on close blood ties, to assume that most children would not be orphans before adulthood.
At first, communal child-rearing was simply a case of necessity, as the number of orphans was greater than the number of non-orphaned children. Over time, it became custom, and has long since become an ingrained part of almost every Hallgerian community.
In addition, the constant dangers and frequent mass deaths led to communities valuing and encouraging those willing and able to conceive and bear as many children as they could. On Hallger, to have children is not simply a private decision or even something done to continue a specific family or bloodline, it is a vital service to help ensure a community's survival and to continue its culture and honor the sacrifices previous generations made in keeping the community alive through previous dooms.
Differing access to food and living space limits the number of children in a given community. And the exact organization of communal child-rearing may take a variety of forms. In some communities it may simply involve an expectation that parents can always rely on neighbors and extended family to help relieve them of some of the child-rearing duties. In others, children may spend more time at public daycare than they do at home, if they spend time at home at all. In either situation, the raising of children is considered a public affair, both the responsibility and duty of all members of the community, not just the biological parents.
That said, children are also a resource that Hallgerians would consider underutilized on other worlds. Child-labor is all too common in many industries. The narrow confines of cave networks, mines, and machinery are seen as natural places where child workers can excel. Programs from offworld charities such as AIDSERFS are positioned to provide cleaner and safer jobs to children and also to help out families and communities so that child-labor is no longer necessary. These efforts have received considerable push-back from locals as challenges to the Hallgerian way of life, and, of course, disruptions that will inevitably cause another doom.
Language[]
Comprised of countless isolated societies, Hallger lacks a unified language. Many locals who interact with offworlders might know Imperial, but, for the most part, Hallger’s multitude of communities have each developed their own individual languages and dialects.
When people refer to ‘Hallgerian’ as a language, they are either referring to some specific local dialect, or they’re referring to an imagined proto-language that only truly exists in linguistic reconstructions. Linguists have theorized that the pre-scream culture of the planet spoke a language with strong influence from Earth’s Romani language. Knowledge of this proto-Hallgerian and one or two major dialects will suffice the local or offworld polyglot to be able to communicate adequately in pretty much any local dialect.
However, the changes caused by many centuries of linguistic shifts and minimum communication between communities have left considerable differences between local pronunciations, slang, and even grammar. Within the pre-scream cities some regional similarities in vowel formation and accents can be found, but the vertical distance between surface and subterranean communities can also show countervailing linguistic shifts. Even the most learned linguist will generally find themselves encountering unfamiliar words or pronunciations as soon as they move beyond the most major dialects and languages.
Classes[]
Due to its isolation and general inhospitality, especially to anyone used to a high technology noble lifestyle, the class structure on Hallger has diverged from the Imperial standard as commonly found in, for example, most core worlds and as expressed in the orthodox High Church interpretations of the chain of being.
In addition, there is considerable divergence between individual Hallgerian communities, so the below should be seen as a general guideline more than a universally applicable template.
Nobility[]
It is believed that in pre-scream time, the great megacities were divided into mega-sectors, each being the demesne of a single noble family, but the records are lost to the scream and barely any nobles see value in trying to leverage scavenging rights or taxes from the already hard-pressed Hallgerian serfs. That burden is deemed cost prohibitive by most and the imperial bank rarely, if ever, approves loans or business plans to try and set up shop on Hallger.
The last time a noble House took serious interest in Hallger, it was House Cygnus, and that did not end well for anyone involved.
Before that, Hallger has been largely ignored by imperial nobility. Having nothing to offer except billions of serfs living in squalor, the stray enterprising noble would occasionally make their way to Hallger, to help or to exploit, but never in sufficient numbers to make much cultural impact. Zealous preachers of both the High Church of Messiah-as-Emperox and the Church of Humanity, Repentant would likewise come down to the planet, but all such visitors have always been regarded with suspicion by the local populace, and their impact rarely spread beyond a few communities.
Those nobles or preachers currently active on the planet are generally found on or near the surface, while some of the deeper communities may not have had any offworld contact in generations.
Only in very recent times have nobles associated with SERAPH made concerted efforts to reintegrate Hallger into the imperial community. As of mid 3201, the charity has not impressed renewed direct noble rule on the people, but preferred to set up structures that try to respect the local autonomy of the various disparate Hallgerian communities. Some effort has begun to trace lines of ancient landclaims, but.the nobles that have arrived on Hallger are mostly devoted to the betterment of human lives through aid and faith, with noble guidance a distant tertiary vector.
Diggers[]
Miners and engineers were, and still are, the most valuable members of subterranean communities. The ability to dig through the planet’s rock, whether by pick, explosives, or with surviving machinery, allowed underground societies to reach human habitable climates and survive. Expansion of living areas, excavation of fuel and water, securing foraging grounds, and digging deeper are all vital to the success of an underground Hallgerian community. Expertise from this class is the bedrock of human flourishing. At the same time, it is a dangerous job even for the well trained.
The pillars of many societies, the digger-class of miners, technicians, geologists, and engineers are given extensive rights and privileges in a community. Local geology and the structure of politics affect the standing of these diggers amongst their peers and may equate to voting powers, better food or fuel, first selection of scavenged goods, etc.
Growers[]
No human can survive without food. Sure some Hallgerian folk heroes may recount the years of doom that they survived trapped in a cave with nothing to eat save for the minerals in the rock, but few who try to copy such feats live to tell the tale. The billions of people on Hallger rely upon their daily food for survival, either grown locally or shipped in from offworld. The grower-class are the closest the planet has to a traditional feudal farmer. Rather than tending to the plants directly, these growers tend more to the soil. While the hybrid fauna on the surface produce a form of soil for their growth, the frozen temperatures make it both dangerous and difficult to harvest these hybrid crops and, if taken inside climate controlled spaces, most of this soil evaporates and what remains is barely fertile for temperate life. With few native microbes to process and decay plant matter into nutrient rich soil, excrement is a highly valuable commodity in composting. Processing excrement for the subterranean farms is a dangerous occupation, if not done correctly illnesses can spread and an entire communities may end up needing to be quarantined.
Quality compost, in both its ability to provide plants the required nutrients and its comparative cleanliness, is the mark of a skilled grower. This trade is not perceived as an honorable or worthy profession by offworlders, but is essential to make and keep Hallger livable.
Scavengers[]
Hallger is a planet of treasures ripe for the taking. As a ecumenopolis under construction at the time of the scream, vast amounts of pretech materials and tools were present on the planet at that point. Caches and vaults of the stuff is a much sought after commodity and attracts the attention of offworld scavengers like the Rusiyyah, but it is also a valuable asset to locals. The scream, and the cyclical dooms that have plagued the planet have kept much of society stuck at the level of combustible engines. Scavenged pretech, both in the utilization of it and it’s value as a trade-good to offworlders, is one of the few ways a community may better their situation. Most communities, especially those inhabiting the surface cities and the immediate tunnel networks below them, have dedicated teams of scavengers and treasure hunters to support them. Medicine and modern fusion cores are also sought after. Rival scavengers fighting over turf and loot are often instigators of conflict between communities.
There is a distinction, however, between the local scavengers and offworld scavengers. To those offworld, their target is those rare examples of functional pretech that cannot be cheaply produced on the many more advanced world across the sector. To the locals, almost anything, including just the basic pretech alloys and pipes, are of value, as these are then re-purposed to be used as insulation or to enhance the durability of the local combustion engines.
Religion and Cults[]
Isolated from the sector and internally divided, Hallger is said to be home to as many faiths as dooms have afflicted it. Especially on the surface, many practice some version of faith of the High Church of Messiah-as-Emperox exists, albeit with often-questionable relations to orthodoxy. Many common expressions of faith also come in Repentant tones or the preoccupations of specific local cults. Recent activities by Cabinan immigrants, especially those considering themselves Templars and advising the government, have sought to categorize the multitude of faiths into frameworks aligning with the Three Tenets of the Repentant faith, to mixed success.
The Eternal Hum[]
Deep underground in some of the most remote parts of the planet, a belief in the Eternal Hum runs through several communities. Down there a constant, but barely perceptible noise pervades everyday life. A faint hum or vibration is felt by all that spend time there. It is uncertain where the sound comes from but some say it is the sound of the spirit of the planet. To residents in these deepest depths communion with the spirit of Hallger is perceived as a way to keep caves and mines safe from its wrath. Ceremonial chants by these believers echo the felt hum and seek resonance with it. Sounding like a swarm of flying insects, they project the eternal hum of the planet through themselves and their machinery to appease the planet and find harmony with it.
For many the Eternal Hum is not simply a religious practice but a complete way of life. Matriarchs of families and societies that follow the ways of the Eternal Hum lead chants and choirs in amplification and harmonization of the subterranean vibrations. Typically, these communities are structures around a strong monarch and a working class of equals. Of the many societies on Hallger it most reflects the idealized noble structure, with many hypothesizing that the Eternal Hum is a perversion of High Church teachings by a now lost noble house.
The Predictors[]
With doom always on the horizon, having a way to predict the next one can mean the difference between extinction or survival. Throughout the planet’s history thousands have claimed the ability to anticipate and understand the next calamity. Going by various regional names and lofty self-given titles, they are collectively known as Predictors. Despite evidence of many predictors saving lives through their claims of foresight, the historical record shows that most succumb to disastrous fates of a doom that they failed to predict. Other predictors simply vanished before they could be proven wrong about their prophecy. Many chalk up both the gift and the instability of many of these predictions to untreated or under-treated MES, particularly psionic precognition.
Leaders arise every few years claiming the gift of foresight and usually have strong evidence to back up their claims. Cults of personality often grow around them and they amass substantial followings. They may speak of the next great doom or Choshek that will shake a community or class, and it may even come to pass but it is rare for the next claim to hold water. A simple truth of statistics will show that by sheer luck, one of the planet’s billions of superstitious people will correctly predict a sequence of bad luck, but the math rarely holds out for long. However, once in a generation a true, psionically gifted, Predictor may rise above the lucky guessers.
Templars (the Order of Repentant Siblings for our Temple of Divine Mercy) []
In the formation of Hallger’s government, Repentant individuals working for SERAPH led the charitable and faith-based efforts to reintegrate the planet into the sector. A number of these individuals continue their missions to better the lives of the planet, along with select Hallgerians who shared their values formed the Templars of Divine Mercy or simply Templars. This new order, formed ad hoc, at first, among these early individuals, now includes an increasing number of individuals working within SERAPH institutions and the Hallgerian government. Most of them are among the administrators and envoys sent forward to the disparate city-states and communities across the planet. The mandate of their order is to deliver aid, serve as financiers, proselytize the repentant message, and to carry out edicts from the Grand Templar. They deliver reports to VALHallger regarding the state and situation of the political and spiritual lives of the population. The order has managed to inspire a following of willing supplicants through their acts of repentance and leading by example or simply because people have participated in their programs or accepted money from them.
The Sky is a Lie[]
Though more famously associated with Demnoph and Haqani, the Sky is a Lie is a nominally Repentant sect that seems to pop up wherever large numbers of people live permanently underground, and even in some places where people don't.
There are no clear records as to how the Sky is a Lie spread or appeared on Hallger. Evidence indicate that, much like other planets, local conspiratorially minded people mingled with Sky is a Lie believing serfs brought in by nobles, and the belief grabbed hold of a small but stubborn segment of the population.
Within the doctrines of the Sky is a Lie, space does not exist and the sky is a lie. The entire universe is a single planet, with the warm and life-giving Divine Core at its heart. Hallger is, then, considered a cave system at considerable distance from the Divine Core, receiving less of the holy warmth than cave systems more closer to the Divine. Believers argue this lack of Divine radiance also explains the continual dooms that befall the planet and its people.
Ankhayat Coffee Company Programs[]
As part of the establishment of SERAPH presence and aid on Hallger, the Ankhayat Coffee Company decided to bring their expertise in cold-acclimated coffee beans to the Frozen planet. The challenge the company has set before itself is gargantuan. The natural climate and atmosphere of Hallger is difficult for any species to thrive, let alone coffee beans. Coffea cabina is a uniquely hardy plant but the hybridization process required to adapt the beans to survive the local elements is projected to take at least several years without any surviving Cygnus or pre-scream techniques. Potentially, Cah-Binn may be able to speed the cultivation of a sustainable coffee crop, and the Ankhayats have a lot to do to make it plausible.
Even if the Cabinan coffee moguls can’t create a Hallgerain coffee bean, they are quick to jump on the marketing campaign for their drink. Quantess Eridanus Ankhayat Kirsten hopes to seize the consumer base of Hallger's billions, without giving the Cabina Cups Tea Company a competing share of the local caffeine market. Some have claimed that this is a needless revitalization of the Cabinan Caffeine Wars, but the Ankhayats see it as a reward for their generous help in SERAPH logistics. In either case, more and more Hallgerians are brewing pots of Cabinan coffee on their stoves.
Inspirational Artwork[]
Below are collections of artwork gathered from the internet that can be used as an inspiration for imagining the people and places of Hallger.
Planet Tags[]
Cyclical Doom[]
The world regularly suffers some apocalyptic catastrophe that wipes out organized civilization on it. The local culture is aware of this cycle and has traditions to ensure a fragment of civilization survives into the next era, but these traditions don't always work properly, and sometimes dangerous fragments of the past emerge.
Enemies:[]
- Offwolder seeking to trigger the apocalypse early for profit
- Local recklessly taking advantage or preparation stores
- Demagogue claiming the cycle is merely a myth of the authorities
Friends:[]
- Harried official working to prepare
- Offworlder studying the cycles
- Local threatened by perils of the cycle's initial stages
Complications:[]
- The cycles really are a myth of the authorities
- The cycles are controlled by alien constructs
- An outside power is interfering with preparation
Things:[]
- A lost cache of ancien treasures
- Tech or archives that will pinpoint the cycle's timing
- Keycodes to bypass an ancient vault's security
Places:[]
- Lethally-defended vault of forgotten secrets
- Starport crowded with panicked refugees
- Town existing in the shadow of some monstrous monument to a former upheaval
Secret Masters[]
The world is actually run by a hidden cabal, acting through their catspaws in the visible government. For one reason or another, this group finds it imperative that they not be identified by outsiders, and in some cases even the planet's own government may not realize that they're actually being manipulated by hidden masters.
Enemies:[]
- An agent of the cabal
- Government official who wants no questions asked
- Willfully blinded local
Friends:[]
- Paranoid conspiracy theorist
- Machiavellian gamesman within the cabal
- Interstellar investigator
Complications:[]
- The secret masters have a benign reason for wanting secrecy
- The cabal fights openly amongst itself
- The cabal is recruiting new members
Things:[]
- A dossier of secrets on a government official
- A briefcase of unmarked credit notes
- The identity of a cabal member
Places:[]
- Smoke-filled room
- Shadowy alleyway
- Secret underground bunker
Orbital Ruin[]
Bam[]
Occupation: Government researchers
Situation: Fighting outside interlopers
Refueling Station[]
Luga[]
Occupation: Half-crazed hermit caretaker
Situation: Has corrupt customs agents
Research Base[]
Nereus 3[]
Occupation: Scientists from a major local corp
Situation: Selling black-market tech
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