Summary
The only rocky planet of the Deph dual-star system, Dephyr is a young planet in every way - still very geologically active, still being terraformed, relatively recently colonized.
Found to be suitable during the first exploration of the Junkstorm, Dephyr was anyway settled decades after Erulas and Dangorod, mostly because it was away from any trade routes and once a good number of settlers had decided on the other two planets, more were naturally drawn there instead of an entirely unexplored frontier.
More recently, Dephyr gained its place among the planets during the Qyrl war when the still young space force gained the respect of their counterparts with their innovative tactics and relative success against the alien enemies.
History
First settled only a hundred years prior to our story, Dephyr began as a barely regulated, „wild-west“ style society. The vast landscapes and often harsh terrain made it difficult to establish any kind of central government, or rather to have one have an actual effect on people.
No less than seven different governments, some planet-wide, some dividing the planet up into countries, tried to establish themselves over the next fifty years, with each one failing to convince the scattered settlements to fall in line. Tax collectors were driven off farms at gunpoint, local police would side with the people over the distant central government’s orders, and people resolved disputes among themselves or through local community leaders rather than the legal system.
After these failures, nobody tried again for a decade. Then the three largest space ports on the planet launched a cooperation and created the Space Guild - a consortium that was running first the space ports and later satellites and off-planet trade routes.
The Space Guild needed reliable standards in their supply chain, workforce and services, so they began drafting up contracts and regulations to the effect of „if you want to do business with us, you need to follow these rules“.
It did not take long for the first non-space-related items to appear, as interest groups discovered this as a lever. Workers’ rights were soon a part of the contracts, alongside quality standards and rules on proper accounting.
The Space Guild also formed its own police force to keep order on the space ports and to ensure security for outgoing passenger flights. After a tragic shooting in the parking lot of one space port, they expanded the de-factor jurisdiction of the police force to the area immediately surrounding the space ports.
By then, the „Wild West“ dream of independence had turned sour in some regions of the planet with higher population density causing more competition over land and resources and thus conflicts. This was especially visible on the western island chain, and was one driving factor behind the first communities setting up at the edge of the space port, inside the police patrolled area.
From there, it took but a decade for the Space Guild to transform into an actual government, and the land under its control to grow. Megaprojects such as large-scale infrastructure or terraforming created the necessity for a more global organization to come into existence.
Today, there are still some independent communities on Dephyr, but an estimated 80% of the population live under the jurisdiction of the central government that emerged out of the Space Guild.
During the Qyrl war, Dephyr was especially affected, as being the planet closest to Qyrl space. In the early days, the Dephyr space force lost almost half its combat ships, and while it tried to rebuild, it never regained that strength during the war.
Politics and Society
Immediately after reforming itself as an actual government, the Space Guild initiated a one-year program to establish political parties and an election system. The heads of the Space Guild believed, that only a fully democratic government would have the legitimacy and pull to establish itself across the planet.
The election system was a full success and is used with almost no changes to this day. The attempt to create political parties was much less successful. While the citizens had long before set up interest groups of various kinds, they disagreed with the concept of a political party representing their interests in all of the questions a society faces.
In the end, an old concept called „liquid democracy“ was implemented. Instead of voting for representatives once every few years and then leaving those people to make all decisions, in Dephyr every decision is put not just in front of parliament, but also the entire population. Voters can then instruct their representatives to vote in a certain way on these matters. They can also „lend“ their vote to an interest group of their choice if they do not want to familiarize themselves with the details.
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As a result, political parties exist mostly as an organizational utility, while interest groups from industry associations and unions to animal protection agencies, scientific institutes and even fashion groups work on convincing representatives to vote their way, with the votes of the citizens behind them. Since citizens can change the assignment of their vote at any time, and also limit it to certain topical areas, the entire system is very dynamic and fluent. A voter may let his union represent him on any new laws regarding the workplace, but a nature protection organization on questions of land use and animal rights.
Surprisingly, the system works very well. While at first chaotic, competent representatives soon learned how to navigate these waters and make their electorate happy. One consequence of the system is that parliament will often find compromise solutions that satisfy vast majorities of the people, rather than pushing through one option against opposition.
Slowed Terraforming
Shortly after terraforming of Dephyr began, the first parliament decided to slow it down by a factor of ten. The atmosphere was already almost breathable for humans and would become fully breathable within a few years even at the slower pace. The intention behind this was to give the natural ecosystems of the planet time to adapt.
Terraforming has caused mass extinctions on many planets. Most of the time, the pressure to add another planet, to start a colony, and to eliminate the dangers to colonists if a seal breaks or someone has an accident outside with a breach in their protection suits, makes that an unfortunate side-effect. Some colonies, however, decide to go another route and Dephyr was one of them.
As a result, the native plants and animals on Dephyr are slowly changing as the terraforming crawls along. Several science teams continuously monitor the ecosystem, and twice before on their advise the terraforming was slowed down even more for several years.
As it is, fully terraforming the planet will take another four hundred years.
Wildfires
With terraforming still ongoing, the atmosphere of Dephyr is not yet quite where it should be. One of the differences is that the oxygen content is quite high, leading to a large number of almost constant wildfires.
The native ecosystem is adapted to this, of course. Many of the larger plants such as trees have natural protections of various kinds. Some trees have wood that does not burn easily. Others have a sacrificial bark that burns off quickly, protecting the trunk underneath. Yet others, and many smaller plants, have seeds that will survive a fire and even thrive in the ashes afterwards.
In fact, many plants live on a secondary cycle of seasons. Just like the spring-summer-autumn-winter cycle, they have a cycle of „after a fire“, „no fire“, „during fire“ cycle of changes.
Another side-effect of the high oxygen content is that most metals corrode much quicker on Dephyr.
Dephyr Mountains
Nowhere is Dephyr’s youthfulness on display more than in its mountains. The jagged ranges, not yet rounded off by erosion, are home to countless glaciers and ice fields that feed rushing rivers that have just started to carve canyons into them. Active volcanoes can be found in most of them, competing with snow-covered peaks for breathtaking views.
Amid these mountains, highlands of rich greens and browns, of deep forests and fertile plains, are home to an immense diversity of wildlife. Many of these highlands remain unexplored, others have become premium agricultural centers, though the people of Dephyr understand the value of these lands and divert never more than a quarter of the area to themselves, leaving the remaining parts untouched.
The height of these lands, and as a result a reduced oxygen content, also reduces the number of wildfires, allowing more sensitive plants to grow there.
Megafauna
While the mountains and valleys of Dephyr are a sight to behold, the plains are home to another impressive feature of the planet. Called Titans, several species of giant, herbivorous land animals roam these vast lands. The largest Titan measured weighed an astonishing 82 tons.
Typical adult Titans weigh between 50 and 65 tons, and are 20 to 30m long, making them larger and heavier than even the largest dinosaurs on old Earth.
Many Titan species have thick, plated hides that protect them from any would-be predators, and by sheer size can brush off most attempts on their lives. Two species are armed with long, sweeping tusks that they have been seen to use as defensive weapons.
Some Titan species communicate with each other over long distances using infrasound calls. These are often felt by humans as tremors.
Geothermal Vents
In addition to volcanic activity, Dephyr is also littered with geothermal vents, both on land and on the ocean floor. Many of these provide local ecosystems with mineral-rich hot water, creating an oasis of life even in the desert or icy polar regions.