Here's a summary of this Sistina thread so far. Of course, the standard representation should contain more information about the wasteland itself, the different people on Sistina (feral tribals, raiders, mutants, techno-bandits, powerful nations, etc), but this is a good start.
History of Sistina:Originally colonised pre-M30, Sistina was always a dedicated agri-world exporting food stuff, wool, etc to other worlds in the Archaios subsector. It was conquered by the Imperium during the Great Crusade, renamed Sistina after an Imperial saint by the very religious colonists, and became a major export of grox meat. Some time after the Age of Apostasy however, Sistina's ancient star started changing. Nuclear reactions began to subside, throwing off the equilibrium between the pull of gravity and the expansion from heat. As a result, the star begun contracting and expanding, which greatly affected the star's luminosity.
On Sistina, extreme changes in temperature occured and the natural balance all but disappeared. Not only was the world's ecosystem greatly damaged by this, but long periods of intense radiation from the expanding sun threatened human life as well, leading to mass mutation and extreme disturbance to electronic machinery and equipment.
Before long, the world could not even produce enough food to sustain its own population. With no value as an agriworld, and not enough minerals to serve the Imperium in other ways, the Imperium decided that the world had so little value that Sistina was evacuated of all Adeptus Terra personell. Riots broke loose as the population fought for scarce resources and for a way off the planet. When the last ships had left the planet and enough people had starved to death, only a population of a few million, a fraction of the original population, remained on Sistina, forsaken by the Imperium.
The ocean citiess;Several more or less decaying cities in the oceans of Sistina still remain, some populated, but most abandoned. Of these, some are built on huge pylons, as they were once great docks and supply stations for the naval trading ships on the planet. These cities typically use heat sinks to absorb the heat from the world's inner core to convert into energy, though few of these cities still have operational power plants.
Other cities lie deep on the ocean floor, originally built for mining.
Yet another type of ocean cities are floating constructions, used as ultra-large fish harvesters that both catched fantastic amounts of fish in nets and proceseds the fish so that it was a finished consumable product when it reached the mainland.
Many of the ocean cities of Sistina find themselves fighting an eternal war against the forces of nature, as the oceans of Sistina freeze and melt as the star varies in size and luminosity. Some of the cities are forever trapped in the ice, ghost cities that are perfectly preserved and contain much lost technology.
The remnants of the Imperial creed:Not everyone from the Adeptus Ministorum fled when disaster struck Sistina, and not all of the population abandoned the Imperial creed as centuries passed. Still marked by the great faith of the original Imperial colonists, Sistina is still dotted by cathedrals, shrines and temples devoted to the worship of the Emperor. Though many of these are abandoned ruins, long ago sacked by raiders and mutants, some still stand, containing ancient treasures and fiercely guarded by warrior-monks with arcane weaponry.
The different churches on Sistina vary tremendously in philosophy, tradition and power, from single independent shrines spread across the wastelands, to great nations with armies of followers.
One such nation is
Reinstad, governed by the tyrant Cardinal Wulfric. A relatively powerful nation located in in the cold north of Sistina, Reinstad is a brutal and harsh culture. The tyrant Cardinal rules his followers with an iron fist, sucking the citizens dry, killing civilians at whim and keeping great harems and slaves for his own amusement. Still, few flee from the nation Reinstad, as few can survive alone in the cold wastelands of the north, and those who do survive on their own and establish villages and small towns are usually forced to serve the tyrant, threatened with war if they do not follow his demands.
Another powerful nation built on the foundation of Imperial creed is
Lustera, whose citizens believe that to join in communion with the God Emperor, they must cleanse themselves in the burning light of the sun. Because of this, all criminals and sinners receive penence by walking the wasteland without clothes, letting the unforgiving sun burn and blister their skin. The cult of Lustera is a fanatical one and its citizens live a strict and hard life.
The stealers of children:In one of the highest mountain ranges on Sistina, another unique culture exists, cut off from the rest of the world. When Sistina was evacuated, this people fled to the mountains to escape the riots and civil wars that ravaged the world. Many of them were highly educated and had access to high technology equipment, and the culture is now a technological aristocracy, similar to the Adeptus Mechanicus in some regards. Unfortunately, increased exposure to the radiation of the sun has made this people sterile. Though their high level of technology gives them a longer life than other people on Sistina, these people cannot have children. To keep their civilisation, they occasionaly venture down into the wastelands of Sistina, kidnapping small children whom they bring up as their own.
This culture is much hated and feared by other cultures on Sistina, but are protected by their high altitude citadels and superior technology.
BTW have you given any though to a star name? Sistina Prime sounds kind of boring. I was thinking about perhaps Casida or Cirrus. Any thoughts?
Casida and Cirrus both sound good to me. If I were to choose, I would choose Cirrus since Sistina sounds a bit similar to Castida (_ida, _ina). But either's fine by me
No preference. At all.
Your hands are free! Free, I tell you!
Again, I have no preference. I'm not sure that the changes in the stars luminosity would change the planet's orbit after only centuries or millennia, so I'm fine with just sticking with the first. If the orbit is so easily shifted, take the average. If it's not too much work.
This figure was calculated using the mass of the star as 9.2 (M9) If you wish we can run the calculations again based off 7.4 mass (M5 star). If it varies between M5 and M9, perhaps the sun was originally M7, and perhaps M7 is the average, and thus best to use in these calculations?
I would prefer to make the atmosphere as breathable as possible, otherwise you lose all the low-tech cultures (unless they flee to special locations, but that doesn't really help, since I want to see as much diversity as possible).
So... what do you suggest?
On Proteus, I had three different temperature conditions (north/south pole, equator and in between), and made three different temperature sheets without too much hassle. Think you can do the same for Sistina?
Perfect ;D
How did you wish to proceed on the matter of the variation in the star? did you want to use the average of the two or just stick with the information generated for the star as a M9? I'm open to either option, I just need to know, Because it will have sme impact on such things as temprature differentials and seasons.
As I've mentioned above in this post, I think most calculations might be best done with M7 as an average between M5 and M9, but that three different temperature sheets would be great, since the contractions and expansions of the star take so long.