ʜᴄ sᴠɴᴛ ᴅʀᴀᴄᴏɴᴇs
"If you can hear this, I want you to promise something -- the last kind of promise that can mean anything to us, when we're all gone. Don't mourn us. We may have never gotten to meet, to share this moment, but even now I can't bear the thought of leaving behind any more sadness. This isn't a home anymore, not even a memory, because none of us will be left to remember -- and that's not something I regret. If it's not a tragedy, then it can be art. If it's not a memory, it can be a story, and even endings can be beautiful."
-- Anonymous Testimony; Collected Records of the Zhur-Rem Hive
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
GENERAL INFORMATION
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
MAJOR LOCATIONS
Solar Array Fields: My father loved to take his repulsorcraft out over the churning waters of the Murathic Sea; he loved to skim the waters for fish and take them home, it was peaceful. It was almost religious, those moments of quiet solitude. He was there on the last day we had the oceans, the last moment before the waters were locked up. Now, metal stretches from horizon to horizon, and energy courses on to the Becoming. The atmosphere has been degrading rapidly, and the temperature rises with the heat of chemical reaction -- even now the air ripples, but soon it will be boiling to even be near. The electricity will be the blood for the new kind of life. My father's bitter tears have long since turned to vapor, and nothing will be left to mark what we lost.
Becoming Nodules: I breathe air from a cylinder nowadays, through a mask. One of the people keeps assuring me how brave I am, for separating myself from the Becoming; I chose to not journey into the New Life. Desiring death does not make me brave -- it is selfish, to deny my thoughts and memories to it. I will not join them in these spun spheres, I will not let the Harvesters mix circuits into my brain tissue, replacing it with such deft elegance I will not notice when flesh is gone. I will not intermingle with a million other minds to make the sum of myself. I will watch. I will build spheres so sturdy that no hail of meteors could harm this sea of data and memory played and replayed in computer, I will let no fire from the sky burn it. I will die, I will die alone. That is the peace that I want, the rest I deserve at the end. I have faced life and the unknown once, and once was enough.
Broadcast Spires: I think I'm the last one. The last of our race... it's been so long since I last met anyone else. I see some bodies, somewhere, in the streets. They were the stragglers. The machines are already breaking them down into their mineral parts, something in the floor that does it to them. I guess if we're making our planet a mausoleum, we may as well keep it clean. I can hear it today - it's the anthem. Back when we had countries, when we weren't just Pherux, it was something to be proud of. Now, apart from all that, it's a rather grating tune. But I only have to wait -- some days it's music, others, it's speeches from politicians, from religious figures, a loop so long that I'd starve before I heard the end of it, going for months, streams of data in every direction, but none of it matters now. It's been a day since I last ate. One day, I went up to the food line and they gave me a pill. I threw it back in their faces, I knew what the pill was. I was so angry then. About all of it, about this whole thing -- it wasn't my idea, it wasn't me that wanted this, no one I knew did. Now I just scrounged it back off the floor, I'm hungry, and I know it's done, past the point of fighting. I still don't know who asked for this. Who it matters to that we can't just keep going until we stop, that we need this show and fanfare. That I can't eat until I die. The pill says "dignity" on it. Nothing could be more wrong.
POPULATION
GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY
MILITARY & TECHNOLOGY
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
"If I believed that compassion could move whatever organs pumped the blood of the butchers that dwelt on Iokath, I would think that Pherux was left untouched by their twisted 'Gods' due to their desire to not disturb such a site, out of reverence for the dead. No, they just couldn't get any data from it."
The world called Pherux was discovered in the time of the original First Order in the immediate aftermath of the war between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, during a period of surveying. Seeking inspiration for their 'Starkiller Base,' they sojourned to the Iokath system in hopes of harnessing the superweapons of legend against the Republic. Unfortunately for them, since the time of the Eternal Alliance, things had changed, and the weapons that once could have annihilated entire systems were missing.
In that time, they stumbled upon a planet in the same system, of a startlingly different character. No purifier droids roamed it, no monitors scoured intruders with heat rays. It was empty, and every valley filled in, every mountain flattened, every ocean dried. It was Pherux, and the planet bid them to look, and listen.
Explored under quarantine, data-files were unearthed, the testimonies of its cephalopodic inhabitants.
"It was far from the shock it should have been, when we learned that the planet was dying. It should have been, but... well, birth rates were declining, entire species were falling to new diseases, ancient forests were just... withering. Studies would show that the it was one of the atmospheric antibiotics we used, that it had caused some lasting genetic damage that we couldn't see until it was far too late. But that wasn't a shock. It was something we could all feel, deep within ourselves, and it was a lifted burden, nearly, to admit it. The planet was at the end of its lifespan, we had just given it a push."
[...]
"They called it 'The Becoming.' Some called it suicide, but it was something more. The melding of every kind of life into machine. The covering of every surface. We would broadcast our sacred songs and prayers until the end of time. We would recite into eternity our histories. And beyond that, deep in the pools of thought, we would understand. We would go to a place where there are no secrets. A place where there is no 'myself,' or 'alone.' Not immortality, but rather an end that has meaning. You may wonder, but no one forced this on us. We chose this. We chose to use our last breath to shout into the darkness, because a quiet end is just death before you die."
[...]
"I can feel it in the back of my skull. The shining lights. Disease can't hurt me when I don't have a body. Pain doesn't exist anymore. The atmosphere, we stripped away, and all the plants, but we have pictures. It will be like nothing ever happened. I hurt my neighbor's feelings once. I can remember it like I was them. It's slow, but it feels like something's trickling out of me, like I'm letting go. I should scream, but I only want to sigh with relief."
[...]
"Maybe it doesn't hurt because I know that no one will miss us. Or maybe that's the reason it hurts so bad. We're leaving it all to them now. Maybe they'll figure it out."
[...]
"I hope so."
[...]
[...]
[...]
-- Anonymous Testimony; Collected Records of the Zhur-Rem Hive
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: A submission to the Dead Planet contest with the intent of avoiding both violence and the Force in the planet's demise.
- Image Credit: Visual Record; Other Sources Listed Beneath Image
- Canon: N/A
- Links: Iokath (Wookieepedia)
GENERAL INFORMATION
- Planet Name: Pherux
- Demonym: Pheruxian
- Region: Unknown Regions
- System Name: Iokath System
- System Features: Pherux, as a planet, existed in orbit of what would later become known for the tremendous, solar construction of Iokath around its central star. The planet always orbited relatively far from it, and was dead before even the ancient makers of the superweapons of Iokath arrived. Some galactic historians posit that the technology that overtook Pherux helped kickstart the grand designs of the mysterious warmongers of Iokath, but such views are contested on grounds of astro-meteorological records suggesting Pherux may have been enveloped in an Ion Storm for most of the reign of the Architects. It is still a matter of debate as to whether or not the storm was some form of self-preservation field.
- Coordinates: (14, 3)
- Major Imports: If re-colonized, the planet will need vast terraforming efforts -- it has no viable plant or animal life and no breathable atmosphere. This likely will mean that these things will be brought from stable worlds.
- Major Exports: Although the planet itself has been entirely mined over, and produces no plant or animal products, it would be possible for not only the salvaging and reverse-engineering of its advanced technology to be used to turn a profit, but likewise the mining of its memorials and empty cities, or simply the transference of the massive amount of energy being stored by the planet.
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
- Gravity: Five-Eighths Standard
- Climate: Uniformly Temperate
- Primary Terrain: Urban Terrain, Solar Array, Metal Surfacing
MAJOR LOCATIONS
Solar Array Fields: My father loved to take his repulsorcraft out over the churning waters of the Murathic Sea; he loved to skim the waters for fish and take them home, it was peaceful. It was almost religious, those moments of quiet solitude. He was there on the last day we had the oceans, the last moment before the waters were locked up. Now, metal stretches from horizon to horizon, and energy courses on to the Becoming. The atmosphere has been degrading rapidly, and the temperature rises with the heat of chemical reaction -- even now the air ripples, but soon it will be boiling to even be near. The electricity will be the blood for the new kind of life. My father's bitter tears have long since turned to vapor, and nothing will be left to mark what we lost.
Becoming Nodules: I breathe air from a cylinder nowadays, through a mask. One of the people keeps assuring me how brave I am, for separating myself from the Becoming; I chose to not journey into the New Life. Desiring death does not make me brave -- it is selfish, to deny my thoughts and memories to it. I will not join them in these spun spheres, I will not let the Harvesters mix circuits into my brain tissue, replacing it with such deft elegance I will not notice when flesh is gone. I will not intermingle with a million other minds to make the sum of myself. I will watch. I will build spheres so sturdy that no hail of meteors could harm this sea of data and memory played and replayed in computer, I will let no fire from the sky burn it. I will die, I will die alone. That is the peace that I want, the rest I deserve at the end. I have faced life and the unknown once, and once was enough.
Broadcast Spires: I think I'm the last one. The last of our race... it's been so long since I last met anyone else. I see some bodies, somewhere, in the streets. They were the stragglers. The machines are already breaking them down into their mineral parts, something in the floor that does it to them. I guess if we're making our planet a mausoleum, we may as well keep it clean. I can hear it today - it's the anthem. Back when we had countries, when we weren't just Pherux, it was something to be proud of. Now, apart from all that, it's a rather grating tune. But I only have to wait -- some days it's music, others, it's speeches from politicians, from religious figures, a loop so long that I'd starve before I heard the end of it, going for months, streams of data in every direction, but none of it matters now. It's been a day since I last ate. One day, I went up to the food line and they gave me a pill. I threw it back in their faces, I knew what the pill was. I was so angry then. About all of it, about this whole thing -- it wasn't my idea, it wasn't me that wanted this, no one I knew did. Now I just scrounged it back off the floor, I'm hungry, and I know it's done, past the point of fighting. I still don't know who asked for this. Who it matters to that we can't just keep going until we stop, that we need this show and fanfare. That I can't eat until I die. The pill says "dignity" on it. Nothing could be more wrong.
POPULATION
- Native Species: Pheruxians
- Immigrated Species: None
- Population: Uninhabited
- Demographics: The planet was inhabited, throughout its entire existence, by only the Pheruxian race, as they rendered it utterly unwelcoming to life in the process of their passing.
- Primary Languages: Pheruxi; Basic
- Culture: Although the Pheruxians once had a culture strongly based around the abstract philosophic idea of 'the elements in balance,' a religious ideal focused on moderation and mildness, it quickly transformed into a morbid culture focused primarily on preservation of its past with the dissemination of knowledge of the planet's death.
GOVERNMENT & ECONOMY
- Government: Oligarchy // Anarchy (postmortem)
- Affiliation: Unaffiliated
- Wealth: Low to Nonexistent, all planetary resources were used up in the process of the Becoming.
- Stability: Low // High -- Initially, it was barely held together; violence and riots in light of defying the inevitable were common. However, after violent crackdowns and existential melancholy set in, things became peaceful and quiet.
- Freedom & Oppression: In light of the imminent death, the Committee on Legacy Establishment assumed totalitarian control of the planet. It was a benevolent dictatorship, one with the best intentions -- ensuring that the people and planet would live on, or simply die at peace and with its affairs in order, but it was harsh, ensuring that the end belonged to the planet and not the people. Now, with the absence of government, the planet itself is an anarchy.
MILITARY & TECHNOLOGY
- Military: The planet's anti-war movements saw remarkable strides the moment it became clear that the total extinction process was becoming irreversible. Although radiation traces suggest that once, truly terrible weapons were used by the superpowers of Pherux, they were all broken down for other uses, and their schematics destroyed so that their legacy would be more peaceful than their history.
- Technology: Due to the planet's isolate nature, being in a remote location of the Galaxy in a time where intersystem communication and cooperation were sharply low, the planet existed as an insular society. Whereas many other societies in this stage of existence focused on planetary expansionism, Pherux concentrated on itself. Technology is more advanced than the general Galaxy, especially for the time period -- focused on energy gathering and transmission in more efficient manners, as well as sharp leaps in A.I., information storage, and sustainability. Naturally, hyperdrive and starships are much slower and primitive, and few schematics regarding those will be of use.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
"If I believed that compassion could move whatever organs pumped the blood of the butchers that dwelt on Iokath, I would think that Pherux was left untouched by their twisted 'Gods' due to their desire to not disturb such a site, out of reverence for the dead. No, they just couldn't get any data from it."
The world called Pherux was discovered in the time of the original First Order in the immediate aftermath of the war between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, during a period of surveying. Seeking inspiration for their 'Starkiller Base,' they sojourned to the Iokath system in hopes of harnessing the superweapons of legend against the Republic. Unfortunately for them, since the time of the Eternal Alliance, things had changed, and the weapons that once could have annihilated entire systems were missing.
In that time, they stumbled upon a planet in the same system, of a startlingly different character. No purifier droids roamed it, no monitors scoured intruders with heat rays. It was empty, and every valley filled in, every mountain flattened, every ocean dried. It was Pherux, and the planet bid them to look, and listen.
Explored under quarantine, data-files were unearthed, the testimonies of its cephalopodic inhabitants.
"It was far from the shock it should have been, when we learned that the planet was dying. It should have been, but... well, birth rates were declining, entire species were falling to new diseases, ancient forests were just... withering. Studies would show that the it was one of the atmospheric antibiotics we used, that it had caused some lasting genetic damage that we couldn't see until it was far too late. But that wasn't a shock. It was something we could all feel, deep within ourselves, and it was a lifted burden, nearly, to admit it. The planet was at the end of its lifespan, we had just given it a push."
[...]
"They called it 'The Becoming.' Some called it suicide, but it was something more. The melding of every kind of life into machine. The covering of every surface. We would broadcast our sacred songs and prayers until the end of time. We would recite into eternity our histories. And beyond that, deep in the pools of thought, we would understand. We would go to a place where there are no secrets. A place where there is no 'myself,' or 'alone.' Not immortality, but rather an end that has meaning. You may wonder, but no one forced this on us. We chose this. We chose to use our last breath to shout into the darkness, because a quiet end is just death before you die."
[...]
"I can feel it in the back of my skull. The shining lights. Disease can't hurt me when I don't have a body. Pain doesn't exist anymore. The atmosphere, we stripped away, and all the plants, but we have pictures. It will be like nothing ever happened. I hurt my neighbor's feelings once. I can remember it like I was them. It's slow, but it feels like something's trickling out of me, like I'm letting go. I should scream, but I only want to sigh with relief."
[...]
"Maybe it doesn't hurt because I know that no one will miss us. Or maybe that's the reason it hurts so bad. We're leaving it all to them now. Maybe they'll figure it out."
[...]
"I hope so."
[...]
[...]
[...]
