Jorus Q. Merrill
I'm a Vima-da-Boda, honey
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: A moon for Wild Space exploration.
- Image Credit: All images are screencaps of Pillio from Battlefront II (2017).
- Canon: No
- Permissions: None
- Links: The Levantine Spur
- Planet Name: Mezokara, meaning 'Moon of the Coral Dawn' in Mon Cala.
- Demonym: Mezokari
- Region: Tingel Arm, Wild Space
- System Name: System LST-379
- System Features: Mezokara is a moon orbiting a brilliant indigo gas giant and a warm yellow sun. The gas giant, which is in the habitable zone, has a number of other barely-charted moons, a few of which are marginally habitable. However, in terms of biodiversity, gravity, and atmosphere, Mezokara is the gem of the system and the region's most promising destination.
- Location: The hex to the right of the Rings of the Rapture and Tash-Taral.
- Major Imports: Electronics, refined fuel and power cells, medication for conditions related to life in low gravity.
- Major Exports: Rare coral (tenacious and useful in healing planets that have been clumsily or partially terraformed), seafood.
- Unexploited Resources: Teniline granules (useful in the manufacture of hyperdrives once refined).
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
- Gravity: 0.6 Standard
- Climate: Warm
- Primary Terrain: Oceanic, and the seawater is very mild, almost sweet, even drinkable with the same precautions one would apply to lake water on another world.
- Atmosphere: Type 1
- Capital City: N/A. As of 900 ABY, the largest settlement is called Port Saint Alna, population two thousand on a good day.
- Planetary Features: Very limited settlements, all from 885 ABY or later, with no ruins or signs of previous habitation. Many colorful coral reefs and associated ecosystems above and below the ocean surface.
- Major Locations: N/A
- Force Nexus:
- Intent: To flesh out the ancient cult of the nearby megastructure, the Ring of the Rapture. The cult, the Followers of the Rapture, fixated on hyper-rapture, the altered state often induced by viewing hyperspace at length. This nexus is a place where Followers of the Rapture have come if they have begun to lose their vision for one reason or another. Their desire to continue viewing hyperspace has melded a mild natural nexus into a place of specific experience.
- Nexus Name: Hall of the Last Sight
- Nexus Alignment: Dark
- Size: Small
- Strength: Weak
- Accessibility: Relatively difficult to find; it is a structure built into coral caves within walking distance of the ocean. It has no particular sensor profile and would not be easily visible from the air.
- Effects: Flashes of visions of hyperspace, sometimes inducing hyper-rapture. The handful of Followers who live in the Hall of Last Sight at any given time claim the visions are authentic and have led navigators to uncharted destinations.
POPULATION
- Native Species: None. Mezokara has never been inhabited by sapient species prior to 885 ABY.
- Immigrated Species: Notably, Mon Cala.
- Population: Sparse. Under 25,000 as of 900 ABY.
- Demographics: The same range of species one would expect to find on an average Outer Rim planet, heavy on the Mon Cala from the Kyrikal system. Ithorian trader clans also have a presence here.
- Primary Languages: Standard Outer Rim trade languages like Basic and Huttese.
- Culture: Mezokara is more colorful and freewheeling than the average Outer Rim port, due to the beautiful scenery, lack of major predators or serious hazards, low gravity, and delicious seafood. It very often plays host to prospectors, surveyors, space navigators, and explorers writ large. Mezokara still feels like a place of possibility even though it is in no way affluent.
- Government: Each settlement is generally led by a local council, a local crime or mining boss, or some sort of corporate delegate, depending on who holds sway over that settlement.
- Affiliation: None. It is typically under the shifting and overlapping interests of corporate and government actors from nearby worlds.
- Wealth: Poor. This is a Wild Space moon, sparsely inhabited.
- Stability: Low. This is a Wild Space moon. Nobody controls the entire moon. New settlements spring up and die off as people move around between opportunities. It is not unusual for crews of one kind or another to feud over good fishing grounds or teniline lodes, with impacts on the small settlements that dot portions of Mezokara.
- Freedom & Oppression: In this diffuse and unregulated environment, it is not hard for bad actors to exercise oppressive control over individual settlements. This is relatively rare, largely because the availability of transportation and work opportunities often let people flow to more appealing places. However, the occasional truly oppressed settlement does exist, and the people in such places rarely have much recourse. There is no law enforcement with jurisdiction over the whole moon. At best, an individual settlement might appoint a sheriff, who might or might not be recognized by other settlements.
MILITARY & TECHNOLOGY
- Military: The local spacers will defend their own. When major threats emerge, the settlements might hire mercenaries or ask help from relatively nearby worlds like Pochi, Midvinter, or Kamar.
- Technology: Outer Rim standard.
The hyperspace explorer Jorus Merrill's firm, Baobab Astrography, charted this system in 884 ABY, two short jumps from the Levantine Spur. The following year, immigrants from the Kyrikal system began to set up small prospecting towns in the area where Merrill and his crew had made landfall. Mezokara acquired a reputation as unusually beautiful and full of opportunity, but the moon's remoteness and general lack of high-value resources did not inspire much of a land rush.
Around 890, a number of Followers of the Rapture whose vision was failing them set up a small cult facility, the Hall of Last Sight. These particular cultists had Force-sensitives among them, leaning toward the Dark Side. The Followers have generally kept to themselves and focused on their visions of hyperspace. (To be clear, these are visions only: there are no actual hyperspace anomalies involved.) There has been occasional friction with wandering Jedi and misunderstandings with local communities, but as of 900 ABY, nobody had died or been seriously injured as a result of the Followers' presence on Mezokara. In fact, certain Force-sensitives from the Kyrikal system, such as Ithorian priests, have cautiously visited the Hall of Last Sight to learn what could be learned.
Apart from its beauty, Mezokara became modestly important by 900 ABY for three reasons: the recent discovery of natural teniline granules in certain kinds of coral; the unexpected utility of certain other kinds of coral for countering the impacts of Bryn'adul terraforming processes; and its position as a jumpoff point for exploration of the Tingel Arm's farthest edges. A complex but not egregious route led from Mezokara to a rare breach point in the hyperspace distortion at the edge of the galaxy, and from there to strange places like Cosm's Well. This meant that Mezokara's trading posts tended to boast true rarities for those with enough fuel or ammunition to trade. Mezokara was one of the last waypoints in the prime galaxy for the Longjumper's Mark expedition in 900 ABY, prior to its 'big sendoff' at the remote trade station called Father Torus. Over a dozen Mezokari found work aboard that expedition, a point of local pride.
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