The Confederation Handbook

by Peter F. Hamilton

  The Habitat

  Tranquillity follows the structure, general layout, and internal functions of Edenist habitats; however, at 65km long, and 17km wide, it is the largest so far germinated in Confederation territory. It orbits 590,000km above Mirchusko, outside the Ruin Ring, and has the usual band of starscrapers around the center, 500m long. The cavern climate is sub-tropical, and there is a circumfluous saltwater reservoir at one end, 8km wide and 300m deep, with several islands. The central cavern vegetation is a mixture of many different kinds introduced from terracompatible planets across the Confederation.

  There are two voidhawk/blackhawk docking ledges on the endcap, with radii of 2.5km and 5km respectively. The non-rotational spaceport is a disc 4km in diameter, supported by an axis spindle 3km long; it is powered by fusion generators, and does not receive electricity from the habitat induction cables. The maw endcap is orientated to galactic south (corresponding with Mirchusko’s magnetic field). The population in 2610 is 3,100,000.

  Tranquillity was designed to support 5,000,000 people, so while there is no need yet for a second habitat above Mirchusko, one will eventually have to be germinated if its population continues to expand at the current rate. Since it will have to be funded by the Lord of Ruin, this notion gives credibility to the considerable speculation of a new Saldana dynasty arising there.

  Habitat Consciousness

  This is the principal difference between Tranquillity and an Edenist habitat. While able to communicate with Edenists using affinity, the consciousness is answerable only to the Lord of Ruin himself. There is no multiplicity since, on dying, the Lords of Ruin choose not to transfer their memories into the neural strata, nor will the personality accept the memories of dying Edenists (though it will store them for retrieval by voidhawks should an Edenist die while resident). It is a singleton mentality.

  As with Edenist habitats, the personality provides the civil administration and financial service, and in these respects is incorruptible. However, as the inhabitants are not Edenists, a physical security construct has been included in the habitat servitor genealogy. The personality, in conjunction with the Lord of Ruin, is reasonably tolerant of wayward human behavior, but comes down hard on major transgressions. The habitat contains a great number of rich immigrés essential to the economy, and their peace of mind is paramount.

  The Tranquillity Sergeants

  The sergeants act as a police force for the habitat personality, enforcing the law. They are not individually sentient, but are controlled by the habitat personality, and their brains are forms of bitek processor circuitry enabling them to perform simple functions such as patrolling and observing without constant supervision. They are also responsive to the Lord of Ruin, who can use his or her affinity to direct them, but they do not receive affinity commands from Edenists.

  Sergeants are humanoid bitek constructs, 2m tall with a reddish-brown exoskeleton, their joints covered by segmented rings allowing limbs full articulation. Their heads have a sculpted appearance, with the eyes concealed within a deep horizontal gash for protection. There is a mouth with a hinged jaw, but no teeth; the nose is a simple oval inlet hole between the mouth and eye gash; each ear is a hole at the center of a petal pattern on either side of the head. Their hands have five fingers and a thumb, enabling them to use any equipment designed for humans. Their feet have no toes, however. They have the ability to talk, though individual units simply relay whatever the habitat personality itself wishes to say, normally informing wrongdoers of which law they have broken, why they are being arrested, etc.

  Sergeants digest a special protein paste exuded by the habitat food-synthesis organs. They have no sexual traits, and their eggs are produced inside an ovary organ within Tranquillity’s servitor facility. The hatchery is contained in caverns in the southern endcap and, after they hatch out, sergeants take fifteen months to reach full size, living for approximately fifty years.

  All sergeants are armed with nervejam sticks; projectile or beam weapons are only issued in times of emergency. Their size and threatening appearance are often enough in themselves to quell any disturbances in pubs and clubs.

  Tranquillity Defense

  When Michael took control of Tranquillity, the Royal Kulu Navy left behind seven strategic-defense platforms, capable of providing close-range cover around the habitat. The cloudscoop anchor asteroid was protected by its own beam weapons.

  Since then the Lords of Ruin have extensively upgraded the SD platform network as the starship traffic requirements have expanded. Manufacturing and service contracts are awarded to astroengineering companies which have local stations, and Tranquillity is now self-sufficient in its defense requirements. A 100,000km emergence exclusion zone is in force around the habitat. Like Edenist habitats, Tranquillity is linked into the defense net via bitek processors, and runs it without human intervention (with the exception of the Lord of Ruin). Maintenance is performed by locally based companies.

  The habitat personality also monitors the Ruin Ring to ensure that starships are not engaged in illegal scavenging operations. If one is found, then either a blackhawk will be contracted to intercept, or if the starship jumps outsystem before interception, a Confederation regional law violation alert will be issued, empowering national governments and navy vessels to apprehend the offending ship, with no statute of limitations.

  Blackhawks are usually hired by Tranquillity should any naval-type action be required (specifically anti-piracy), and a store of combat wasps is maintained for this purpose. The simple presence of so many blackhawks in the star system should be deterrence enough to Adamist starship pirates. The blackhawk captains do show a certain loyalty to the Lord of Ruin for opening Tranquillity as a base for mating flights. And, of course, Tranquillity supplies the blackhawks with the nutrient fluid they digest.

  The Ruin Ring

  The ring is actually fairly small in cosmological terms. The main section is a band 3km thick and 70km broad, which orbits 580,000km above Mirchusko. Small particles extend some 100km either side of the main band, tapering away from the center. The ring is shepherded by Erinus, orbiting at 583,000km, which is largely responsible for its stability.

  Ring particles are made up entirely from the debris of the Laymil habitats, which includes shell sections, soil, ice crystals, petrified vegetation, mummified animal and Laymil bodies, artifacts, etc. All of the larger particles are extremely fragile due to vacuum evaporation. Certainly animal or Laymil bodies cannot be touched without extreme care, and finding an intact corpse is very rare. It is estimated that this gradual decay process will abrade all these particles down to sand and dust within another 3,000 years.

  The Laymil

  Substantial remains have been recovered, and a comprehensive picture of Laymil physiology has been built up. They were a three-gender race, with two males and one female (two sperm carriers, one egg carrier), but there was some distinction between the two males. They were trisymmetric, standing approximately 1.75m high, with three legs, three arms, and three sensor “heads.”

  The head resembled a terrestrial serpent’s, with a breathing and speaking mouth equipped with olfactory sensors; above that was a single eye, and an ear was positioned on top. One mouth was larger than the other two, suggesting that although all three could form sounds, one of them was more fully developed, thus giving a broader vocal range. Their necks were small and thick, all three sprouting from the top of the torso. The digestive mouth was in the cleft between these necks, and was equipped with needle-sharp teeth.

  Their arms possessed a single elbow, and a shoulder socket that permitted considerable range of motion. There were four fingers, triple-jointed, 10cm long. Each leg featured a single knee-joint, and the foot ended in a hoof; vestigial toe-bone remains suggest that these had evolved considerably from their pre-sentient form.

  The female grew some kind of sac below her torso to contain her three embryos (one of each sex), and she would appear to have been immobile in the last stages of pregn
ancy. A female was capable of reproducing up to five times (see The Laymil Research Project, page 143), but it is not known if the social unit was marriage as practiced by humans. At least, housing units within the habitats were always equipped for three adults. Laymil were warm-blooded herbivores breathing an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, and evolved in a 0.85 standard gravity field. Their skin color was a light grey, and they wore clothes but no shoes.

  It may be that the Laymil had performed some genetic engineering on themselves, as a sequence similar to the human affinity gene has been identified in their DNA. Tranquillity geneticists are studying the prospect of Laymil clone production in an attempt to bring the species back to life, since enough DNA samples have been located to provide an adequate gene pool.

  The Laymil Habitat

  The Laymil habitats had a similar layout to Edenist habitats in that they were cylindrical, 50–60km long, and used induction pick-up cables as a power source. Although the outer shell was made of a tough layer of silicon similar to the monobonded hulls of starships, this may have been secreted by the living inner structure. If so, Laymil genetics were considerably more advanced than human bitek. There were no starscrapers, and no food-secretion organs. The Laymil ate the vegetation grown in the central park. Both endcaps had long spires extending 15km along the axis, with an outer layer of photoradiant cells emitting a spectrum identical to the local system’s star, with only the infrared band reduced. Taking this into account, the climate inside the habitats must have been sub-tropical.

  All animal species shared a common structure, i.e. they all came from the same planet. So did all the plants. No insects have yet been discovered.

  As far as can be ascertained, the habitats destroyed themselves. The cells of the living, inner structure underwent some kind of convulsive spasm, cracking the silicon shell. The conclusion must be made that this convulsion was deliberate, since every habitat was destroyed in a period of approximately fifteen minutes. If it was the result of some weapon used against them, it had to be extraordinarily powerful. No evidence has yet been uncovered to counter the theory of suicide.

  Laymil Spacecraft

  The remains of several spacecraft have been found, all of them interplanetary fusion craft with artificial organs providing life-support functions. There is no evidence of the Laymil ever building FTL starships. This raises the fundamental question of where the Laymil originated from, as no planet in their local system ever evolved any life form. The current conclusion is that they came to the system in a multigeneration arkship in a similar fashion to the Tyrathca, although this itself has not been discovered.

  Their spacecraft fusion drives used He3 as a fuel, so it is inevitable that some kind of mining operation was conducted in Mirchusko’s atmosphere, yet no remnants have been found. If it was a cloudscoop venture, then the orbit of its anchor asteroid would have started to decay as soon as it stopped operating. And it is extremely doubtful that any aerostate would survive intact for 2,600 years in a gas giant’s storms. No detailed search for one has been conducted so far.

  Scavengers

  Scavenging the ring is an occupation followed by upwards of 3,000 inhabitants of Tranquillity. There is no standard craft used; vehicles vary from MSVs with strap-on auxiliary engines to adapted ion-field flyers (the ion field gives some protection from dust abrasion).

  Pilots drop down from Tranquillity into the ring, or slightly above it, and try and spot any interesting item there. As 95 percent of the mass is habitat-shell material, this is very much a hit-or-miss activity. The normal procedure is to find a section of the inner shell and explore it for artifacts. Records (the Laymil used a solid-state crystal for storing data) are the most valuable find, followed by manufactured items and animal or Laymil bodies (only two Laymil bodies have ever been found intact since 2420).

  The Lord of Ruin does not allow starships to scavenge the Ruin Ring (there are some transgressions, but all minor ones). All finds must be returned to Tranquillity, where the scavenger will usually hand them over to an auction house. Laymil artifacts fetch enormous prices, right across the Confederation. The legendary “big find” is the basic motivation for most scavenging. However, Tranquillity itself has the right of last bid in all the auction houses; after the price for an item has been agreed Tranquillity can then match that price plus 5 percent to secure the item. In this way, the habitat’s research specialists can acquire the most interesting and unusual items without having to employ their own teams to scour the rings.

  The Laymil Research Project

  There are some 3,000 specialists on xenoc culture, covering all disciplines, working for the Lord of Ruin on interpreting items scavenged from the ring, and building up a picture of Laymil life. As well as humans, six Kiint are involved with the project in order to provide much needed alternative viewpoints. All findings are eventually released to universities across the Confederation, but the Lord of Ruin reserves the right to restrict military technology.

  They have had considerable success in re-creating the physical parameters of both biological and technological aspects; which means they know the mechanics of the Laymil, but their culture remains somewhat veiled. The scarcity of records is mainly responsible, since the solid-state storage crystals have been badly damaged by 2,600 years of exposure to vacuum, and few coherent bytes remain.

  The Laymil electronic technology was equal to that of the Confederation circa 2300. Decrypting their programming language was completed in 2495, and accessing the storage crystals became relatively easy after that. Their written symbols are geometrical: circles, triangles, and squares, either singly or in combined pairs, some with cross-strokes and dots. Their alphabet has thirty-two separate characters. Grammar and syntax follow a logical formula, and a vocabulary of 25,000 words has been established.

  Naturally, examples of writing have so far been of a technical nature, relating to the equipment that each storage crystal was part of. No paper, or paper analogue, has yet been located.

  The Laymil possessed some arts, mainly painting and sculpture, although interpretation of these is difficult. No recordings of music have been found.

  Only three examples of Laymil speech have been found, which together last for just seventeen minutes. They had deep voices, employing many guttural sounds. Most of the words employed have been identified, although the sounds blend together since they did not appear to separate these words in the human fashion. The subjects of the three recordings are what appear to be:

  1) an exchange between a spaceship pilot and some kind of flight controller;

  2) a discussion involving five Laymil, on how a habitat interior could be improved;

  3) the recital of a family tree, where every member is assigned an economic value.

  Mirchusko Helium Mining

  The original cloudscoop was retired in 2550, after a replacement was constructed. The Edenists offered Maurice Saldana a partnership, but he refused and raised the finance from an interstellar banking consortium instead (including the Jovian Bank), and the loan should be paid off by 2625. The scoop itself was built at Jupiter, and the anchor asteroid refinery came from the O’Neill Halo, with subcontracts spread across the Confederation. No Kulu Kingdom companies bid for any of the contracts.

  One cloudscoop is quite sufficient to supply the habitat industrial stations and visiting starships. The present cloudscoop has a design life of 125 years.

  5. Avon

  Avon is a terracompatible planet ninety-three light-years from Earth. An ethnic Canadian world, it was discovered in 2147, and opened for emigration in 2151.

  Star System Physical Data

  The Avon star system has five solid planets, and two gas giants, and there is a single asteroid belt. The star is a G2 type.

  There are five solid planets.

  The asteroid belt orbits between 305m and 470m km from the star.

  There are two gas giants.

  Avon

  Physical Data

  Avon has one moon, Nepe
ta, 3,000km in diameter, with an orbital altitude of 437,000km. It has a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere, and the surface is lightly cratered.

  Avon’s gravity is 0.97 standard. There are eight continents, covering a third of the surface. Rotation takes 23 hours 32 minutes. The year is 350 days long, with a leap year every three years. The capital is Regina, with a population of 8,000,000. The planetary population is 834,000,000.

  History

  Avon has progressed along almost standard lines. Its first century saw the dumping of 73,000,000 people there by Earth’s Govcentral. The economy was essentially agricultural throughout this time, and it wasn’t until 2230 that real industrial development began.

  The constitution is standard for a democratic republic. It provides for a Parliament on each continent, and an overall planetary Parliament with a president. Avon does not have a state religion. There is an independent judiciary.

  In 2271 Avon hosted a summit for the planetary heads of state, called in response to the increasing use of antimatter as a weapon, and has served as home to the Confederation Assembly ever since. There are over 1,500,000 accredited diplomats and their staff, providing a substantial boost to the local economy. As well as the Assembly compound, the Confederation Navy has its main headquarters in Trafalgar, orbiting 110,000km above the planet. This asteroid was moved into position by the Avon government, and handed over in its entirety to the Confederation. Avon corporate orbital industry stations provide the systems to maintain the asteroid, and Avon companies performed the civil engineering work needed to produce the caverns.