JELQ
System: RD-A 2434
Atmosphere: Breathable Mix
Temperature: Temperate
Biosphere: Human-miscible
Population: Tens of billions
Tech Level: TL5
The House of Mary Banner
Penance * Sacrifice * Redemption
The Focus of Light Cathedral Complex
The Focus of Light Cathedral Light of Life Doorway
Description:
To be a native of the center of the sector, the blue-green jewel known as Jelq, is to know a life of pampered ease. Those born here rarely leave the surface. Everything they could ever want or need is provided in abundance and anything they could ever want to do is available on Jelq.
Jelq culture is unique among the systems of Red Sector A. In the last 500 years the population of Jelq have cultivated a taste for the peculiar. Their pop music is an irregular mix of epic opera, electronically amplified rhythms and beats with a touch of animal calls for ambiance. The widest viewed vid-streams across the globe are a weekly six hour melodrama centered on an aging clown and his clown family, called Viceroy and a documentary style serial depicting various licensing bureaus on Gudrunn, called Pink Slip.
The Preferred modes of transport on Jelq are slow, elegant sea going passenger ships, smoke belching locomotives, automaton drawn carriages and steam powered automobiles rolling about on huge, thin, rubber wheels. Immense biplanes carry passengers overland, city to city, while hot air balloons, blimps and Zeppelins float leisurely along, sometimes tying off at the apex of towering residential spires made of brilliant stained glass and brass.
Found scattered about ubiquitous town squares, entertainers outfitted in sophisticated attire operate convoluted, sometimes massive musical instruments as performing automatons wind themselves up and dance around. Fashionable ladies and gentlemen carry around their clockwork birds, and other small creatures that chirp away at one another, perched atop extravagant hats and dapper shoulders. Fancy, silver and gold mechanisms that very much look and function as elegant, ornate animals populate sumptuous parks stretching for miles through the heart of most every city.
Even behind the scenes, technology has taken on this idiosyncratic appearance. House servants, cleaning bots, kitchen and maintenance staff are most often lavishly carved and etched automatons deriving power from miniaturized fusion generators. Climate control technology, regional power plants and even their indispensable water and sewer facilities take the form of large, elaborate machines, often powered by wind, solar and even massive coal, wood or waste fueled boilers.
Orbital ship yards, centuries since decommissioned have been re-purposed as habitats for off world business representatives, military and bureaucratic personnel assigned to Jelq as well as lower level Church staff. Travel to the surface is heavily regulated and once there, most are never allowed to leave the visitors and business districts located away from city centers. Tourism is a despised business on Jelq and any traveler who manages the oportunity to lay eyes on the street level culture of this bizarre, incomparable world can tell a strange tale indeed.
Sector Government Flag
Jelq was the first Red Sector A planet to be discovered. In 2333 an exploratory fleet of 16 free trade merchant ships and 3 Mandate support ships dropped out of meta-space into the yellow dwarf RD-A 2434 system. They immediately discovered the solitary but lush and abundant world, orbiting in the virtual center of the habitable zone, with a .98 gravity. The first explorers dubbed this newly discovered garden world New Elkinde, after their own home world.
Within 6 months the first colonists from Elkinde set up on the new world, founding what would become, after a tragic false start, the capitol city of Phorus. For over 30 years the colony prospered and grew but in 2360, a small fleet of Drakites drilled into the system. With little warning they set about destroying the colony before they themselves were destroyed by the Mandate fleet patrolling the system.
Though the Drakite threat was eliminated, it would take over 3 decades before the site of Phorus would be resettled. When Phorus was finally reestablished a large contingent of clergy from the new House of Mary joined in the effort. From that moment, just 4 years prior to the dawn of the 25th century until the founding of the Red Sector A government almost 100 years later, the Church and the people of the Jelq colonies worked hand in hand to forge a destiny from the raw, often hostile natural environs. Today, Jelq stands head and shoulders above the rest of the sector in terms of power and wealth. Its people play a key role in the Church and the government, guiding development and controlling the entire sector.