- Joined
- Jul 4, 2012
- Messages
- 3,757
- Reaction score
- 1,835
- Staff
- #1
Keowe VII
[fancybox4=https://image.ibb.co/eNoVjz/tumblr_p8rqylnx1b1x5ft3ho1_400.gif]
SYSTEM
Keowe.
GRID COORDINATESQ-11.
REGIONMid Rim.
HYPERLANEN/A.
ROTATION24 standard hours.
TERRAINOceans, islands, mountains, beaches, jungles, mangrove.
CLIMATETropical.
GRAVITYStandard.
INHABITANTSCosmopolitan.
RESOURCESPhosphates, coral.
TECHNOLOGYGalactic standard.
-
- DESCRIPTION -
"Visit the beaches of Keowe VII! We have your place in the sun waiting."
_Keowe VII tourism brochure.
Keowe VII, 7th planet of the Keowe system, is a tropical paradise. Blessed with warm, gentle oceans, a mild climate, white coral beaches and millions of islands, it possesses all the hallmarks of a decadent pleasure world. Indeed, it was developed as one; a vast equatorial starport stands ready to welcome starships full of tourists, from which elevated roads and ferry routes fan out to carry them to the countless resort towns and private getaways that dot the verdant coasts.
And yet they do not come.
At one time, Keowe VII was indeed a bustling tourist world, with over a billion tourists visiting each year to experience its beaches and warm waters. However, with the outbreak of the Saber War, the planet's fortunes turned; though it was never actually invaded by the Exiles, the dark age which settled over the Galaxy meant that vacationers rarely traveled away from their own worlds. Keowe VII was abandoned by the tourists who were its lifeblood, and quickly sank into obscurity.
Today, Keowe VII is only sparsely populated, with the decaying ruins of abandoned resort towns dotting the coastlines of the countless islands and pseudocontinents which lie scattered across the vast oceans. Indeed, Keowe VII's dry land consists almost entirely of coral and volcanic islands. The planet's larger landmasses, the "pseudocontinents," are indeed huge clusters of closely spaced islands, linked by exposed sandbars and vast mangrove swamps. The interiors of the islands are typically mountainous, covered in dense jungles which are home to a vast perfusion of colorful avian, reptilian and insectoid species; of note, Keowe VII has no native mammalian life, nor does it have any known species of stinging or biting insectoids.
The aforementioned ruins of abandoned hotels and resorts lie scattered across much of the planet. Though unused, and unlikely ever to reopen, efforts by the Keowese government to clear and/or redevelop the sites have been frustrated by the fact that many of these locations are owned by foreign corporations, or by parties unknown, as the rounds of Galactic warfare have played havoc with corporate and civil records in some parts of the Galaxy. What's more, many of these locations are considered toxic assets, severely depreciated in value. The owners are reluctant to sell off the properties in the current market as they would only get back a fraction of their investment, holding on to them in the perhaps vain hope that the value will go up again. As a result, millions of hotels, resorts and other abandoned attractions sit in limbo, slowly returning to the jungle.
Keowe VII's oceans cover most of the planet's surface, and are typically quite shallow. Dazzling coral reefs are common across the planet, with an overwhelming diversity of marine life, most of it quite harmless to the average sentient species. In its heyday as a vacation spot, transparisteel-bottomed boats and sightseeing submarines cruised the reefs, although sadly, most of these now sit laid up in port or slowly joining the structure of the reefs on the bottom.
In the present post-tourism economy, Keowe VII primarily exports phosphates, which are mined from the huge petrified guano deposits found on some of the islands, deposited over millions of years by populations of the native avian species. Fossilized coral is also quarried on some of the larger islands, exported as exotic facing for buildings and other primarily decorative uses. Many buildings on the planet use coral blocks in their construction. Live coral and various other species of marine life are exported as aquarium flora and fauna, and as foodstuffs.
Agriculture was only a small part of the Keowese economy during the tourism boom, but has grown steadily since, primarily focusing on the cultivation of high-value fruits and vegetables for export; palm oil, vine-coffee, groundapple and dew flower are the most prominent. In recent years, however, a government subsidy program has encouraged farmers to grow staple crops such as rice and raise various forms of livestock, in an effort to make Keowe VII's food supply more self-sufficient.
In addition, some light industry occurs on the planet; Pan Galactic Power Products, a major interstellar manufacturing firm, operates a multi-factory near the capital city of Cape Suzette, and employs a fair number of its citizens. The company produces a range of polymer-bodied groundcars there for export to Outer Rim markets and for local use, however sales of the range have not performed according to expectations. The plant has often been threatened with closure, although a conglomerate of local business owners calling themselves the Keowe Transport Corporation are currently in negotiations with PGPP to buy out the plant, as well as purchase a license to continue manufacturing the current product line. Plans for the future include a new range of locally designed vehicles to augment the current line, as well as updated facilities for the production of repulsorcraft.
None of these industries have been able to come even close to matching the tourism business, which even in its severely depressed state still accounts for the vast majority of the planet's GDP. With fresh wars breaking out between the Republic, the Sith and the Hutts, tourism looks to dip afresh, further sinking the planet's economy.
- NOTABLE LOCATIONS --
- GRAND CAY -
Once the largest city on Keowe VII and formerly the planetary capital, Grand Cay was at one time a glitzy tropical metropolis, home to resorts, casinos, nightclubs, spas and all manner of other attractions. After the collapse of the tourist trade, however, Grand Cay was largely abandoned, and now sits decaying, its towering hotels slowly being reclaimed by the jungle. Keowe VII's administrative center was moved to the much smaller nearby town of Cape Suzette, which was mainly known before that point as a center for airspeeder rentals.
-
- KEOWE CENTRAL SPACEPORT -
Keowe Central Spaceport was once the gateway to Keowe VII. A massive complex of docking towers, landing pads and transport terminals, the spaceport was built to handle the estimated one billion or so tourists that visited every a year at the planet's height as a vacation destination. Today it seems massively overbuilt, using only a tiny fraction of its capacity to serve the scant handful of cruise liners and other vessels which visit annually.
-
- CAPE SUZETTE -
The current capital of Keowe VII, Cape Suzette sits on a peninsula near the ruins of Grand Cay. Originally a suburb of the larger city, Cape Suzette was originally notable for a few small resorts and a profusion of airspeeder rental agencies, which allowed tourists to explore the planet's natural wonders from the skies. Being the nearest convenient town after Grand Cay became untenable as an administrative center, Cape Suzette was chosen as the new capital more or less by default; the civil government moved its offices into the then recently closed Jolian Grand Hotel, where they have been ever since.
The Keowe VII Civil Administrative Headquarters building, formerly the Jolian Grand Hotel.
Despite being the planetary capital, Cape Suzette retains the feel of a small coastal town. A few of its hotels and resorts continue to function, but otherwise, it is mainly populated by locals. A decent portion of the population not directly involved with the tourism industry works at the Pan-Galactic Power Products multi-factory just outside of town.
-
- PGPP MULTI-FACTORY -
Pan-Galactic Power Products, a major interstellar manufacturing firm involved in the production of everything from starships to kitchen implements, operates a multi-factory just outside the planetary capital of Cape Suzette. Built at the invitation of the planetary government as part of an effort to promote alternatives to the slumping tourism industry, the plant primarily produces a range of light groundcars intended for frontier markets in the Outer Rim. These vehicles are also used locally, and have become something of a cultural icon on-world.
This product line has not performed as well as expected, however, and for many years PGPP has threatened to close its Keowe VII operations. As this would be a major blow to the planet's already tenuous economy, a conglomerate of local business interests - the Keowe Transport Corporation - have been in negotiations with PGPP to buy out the failing plant. They plan at first to continue producing the current range, eventually introducing new, locally designed models and updating the current facilities to allow for the production of repulsorcraft. Several of these new models are even currently available, hand-built on an individual basis in a leased wing of the factory and sold as a way for KTC to raise money and awareness. Unfortunately, negotiations for the sale of the factory and licenses for the current line have dragged on for years, with few believing that the plan will actually succeed.
Although PGPP owns the factory outright, it leases otherwise unused manufacturing space to other companies. In addition to KTC, other notable tenants include Keowe Complex Polymers, a firm which produces carbon-based plastics derived from processed agricultural products. Though locally owned, the majority of this firm's output is sold to PGPP for use in manufacturing groundcar body panels.
-
- OVERSEA HIGHWAYS -
Linking pseudocontinents and most of the major islands, the oversea highway system of Keowe VII is a vast network of elevated roads which were meant to allow easy access for ground vehicles to most major areas of the planet. Though many stretches of the oversea highway system have fallen into disuse and disrepair since the collapse of tourism, most still stand, a testament to the quality of their construction.
-
- VILLAGES -
Keowe VII was once replete with resort towns on many of its countless islands, however this has changed since the collapse of the tourism industry. Although a few resort towns still operate as they once did, drawing in a relative handful of what they did at their peak, the vast majority of Keowe VII's residents live in tiny coastal villages, often located near the decaying ruins of larger towns which did not survive the slump. With the planet's population down significantly from its previous levels, many of these villages constitute the only population centers for hundreds or even thousands of square kilometers, with long journeys by boat, airspeeder or the oversea highways to reach the nearest adjacent settlement. Many of these villages are situated near the few surviving resorts, or the phosphate mines, coral quarries and agricultural areas which constitute much of the planet's available employment.
-
- TERRAIN -
The interiors of most of Keowe VII's islands are primarily composed of mountainous jungle, difficult terrain for all but the most adventurous. These jungles have an astounding biodiversity, one which handily adapted to anything the tourism developers of the past could throw at it. The jungles positively swarm with avian, reptilian and insectoid life, although mammalian life is notably absent. The planet also seems to have produced no native forms of biting or stinging insectoid.
Aside from jungles, Keowe VII is home to numerous mangrove swamps, which indeed make up much of the terrain in the inland areas of the vast pseudocontinents. navigable by small boat or hovercraft, these swamps possess their own unique biodiversity, and provide a breeding ground and habitat for fish, amphibians and other creatures.
Finally, Keowe VII's primary terrain consists of vast, shallow, salty oceans, dotted with islands and alive with a blinding diversity of marine species. Sprawling coral reefs grow with coral and other marine flora, and provide habitats for numerous fish, crustaceoids, aquatic avians and other species. In the golden age of Keowese tourism, they were a major draw, but only a relative handful of sightseeing vessels now visit these impressive natural wonders.
-
-
- HISTORY -
Keowe VII was originally discovered by Republic scouts circa 7600 BBY, around 700 years before the present. It was colonized by the Gradia-Nerwen Corporation, a pharmaceutical company which initially sought to study the planet's native lifeforms for undiscovered chemical compounds and other potentially useful biological characteristics, under a Republic charter. Though they had some success exporting the native marine life as pets, this venture eventually failed, and the rights to the planet were sold to a corporation formed by the scouts who discovered the planet in the first place.
The new Keowe Development Corporation set about setting the planet up to exploit the thing that had so deeply struck the first sentient beings to see it, its natural beauty. Whereas Gradia-Nerwen had only been able to see value in what they could extract from the planet, the new owners saw a tropical paradise, one which they knew wealthy vacationers from the Core Worlds, Expansion Region and Inner Rim would flock to experience. The planet's first resort, the Grand Cay, would open on the site of the city that would later inherit its name, attracting first a few hundred tourists annually, then a few thousand, then millions.
The Keowe Development Corporation invested heavily in an advertising campaign aimed at travel agencies in the Core Worlds, and forged alliances with various cruise lines, establishing the planet as a destination. Plowing the significant earnings from their first resort back into the planet, they built a vast spaceport to handle what was expected to be massive amounts of future traffic, as well as a network of elevated roads to allow easy travel to all points. More resorts were built and opened, with the founding corporation opening up the planet to cooperative ventures with other hotel and resort operators. Capacity filled almost as quickly as it could be opened, and the planet's revenue from tourism climbed rapidly, as did its reputation as a pristine tropical getaway.
Even in these early days, steps were taken by the KDC to preserve the planet's natural wonders and biodiversity, as they knew that both were the ultimate reason tourists flocked to the resorts. An environmental protection division was established, a rare move for a large corporation such as KDC, and all agreements with outside agencies carried harsh penalties for breaking the regulations the department established. Tourists had to follow the regulations as well; the punishment for touching the sensitive coral reefs, for example, was immediate and permanent banishment from the planet, with no refunds on any deposits and a hefty fine for any damage caused. As a result, even as Keowe VII became more and more popular as a tourist destination, its natural splendor was not degraded.
Within a few centuries, Keowe VII's annual tourism crested 1 billion visitors a year, with hotels and resorts doing booming business. At this point, the planet's permanent population had reached about 100 million, mostly beings involved in the tourist trade who had settled close to their places of work. This prompted the metamorphosis of the Keowe Development Corporation into the Keowese Civil Government, which had always been the plan of the original founders, with legal mechanisms having been put in place long ago to ensure an automatic and relatively painless transition from corporate administration of the planet to a representative democracy.
Over the next few centuries, Keowe VII's growth more or less plateaued, but remained fairly stable. The world continued to prosper, a little corner of paradise for the Galaxy's vacationers, until suddenly the Galaxy had more pressing concerns than where to go for the summer holiday.
In 6996 BBY, the forces of the Jedi Exiles invaded the Mid Rim, where Keowe VII was located. Although the planet was bypassed during the invasion, not being a strategic target, it was suddenly cut off from the Inner Rim, Expansion Region and Core Worlds, where many of its visitors came from. Tourism understandably collapsed overnight, and with many of the surrounding worlds conquered by the Exiles, they were suddenly extremely isolated.
There was an immediate exodus of tourists and migrant workers from Keowe VII in the wake of the Exile in invasion, either fleeing to less threatened territory or returning home to find friends and loved-ones in the regions the Exiles had conquered. There was a subsequent die-off of resorts and hotels, at first delayed by speculation that the Jedi would end the war quickly, but setting in as it became clear that the conflict might drag on for years. Countless resort towns and other settlements were abandoned, their owners and staff mostly fleeing the planet. Keowe VII's permanent population - 250 million at its peak - shrank to just 3 million. Grand Cay, the planet's capital and largest city, became so badly depopulated that the civil government was forced to evacuate to the nearby suburb of Cape Suzette.
As the decades rolled by, Keowe VII's economy entered a deep slump. Tourism still struggled along, mostly supported by the populations of nearby worlds which had also slipped through the Exiles' invasion by virtue of their obscurity. A trickle of perhaps a few thousand visited annually, but despite desperate schemes by the government and surviving local corporations, efforts to diversify and revive the failing economy had only middling success. The only thing keeping anyone invested, it seemed, was that after decades of stagnation, most of the planet's population was too poor to move off-world.
In the present day, Keowe VII has only faded remnants of its former glory. With a poor population and few prospects for the future as the Galaxy around it descends into a fresh round of warfare, this former paradise now seems to be anything but.
-
- GOVERNMENT -
Keowe VII's government is a representative democracy, with the planet divided into districts represented in a national parliament by an elected Minister, each with voting power equivalent to the population of their district. Ministers serve a 2-year term, and may be reelected twice. Executive power is held by a Prime Minister, who is appointed by parliament. The election of a new Prime Minister occurs automatically when 30% of the incumbent Ministers are replaced during an election cycle.
Keowe VII's government operates a number of agencies, including the Department of Tourism, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Infrastructure & Transport, the Department of Health & Sanitation, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Social Security.
Keowe VII has no standing military, although it does maintain a citizen militia which may be called up in the event of a declared planetary emergency. This militia is subordinate to the Keowese Civil Constabulary, the state's law enforcement agency. The KCC primarily fields officers armed with hand weapons and light patrol vehicles, but does keep a small number of armed airspeeders, light armored ground vehicles and heavy weapons in reserve for use against hostile invaders or uncommonly well equipped criminals. Of note, the Civil Constabulary maintains a small but elite and well equipped high-speed pursuit unit for intercepting reckless drivers, primarily the delinquent swoop gangs which have plagued the countryside over the last few decades.
All offices of the civil government, including parliament and the civil constabulary, are located in the former Jolian Grand Hotel in Cape Suzette.
-
- CULTURE -
Keowe VII's local culture has been heavily influenced by the collapse of the tourism industry, with a heavy current of nostalgia for wealthier, more glamorous times. The current economic climate has also encouraged a culture of thrift, ingenuity and creative expression. Colorful and energetic art and music has emerged from this environment, as well as technological solutions to problems which do more with less. Some see these as an untapped economic resource, waiting to be exported to the rest of the Galaxy and put Keowe VII back on the map.
Even so, the now generations-long economic slump has led to a strong undercurrent of discontentment among the populace. This has made itself known in the emergence of delinquent swoop gangs, usually unemployed and disaffected youths and young adults who have chosen to live outside the bounds of society. Cruising the vast stretches of highway that still crisscross the planet, most of these gangs are little more than a nuisance to the average citizen, although a number have been involved in criminal activities such as petty theft, spice smuggling and protection rackets; many have also been involved assaults and even murders of off-worlders, wealthy locals and members of rival gangs. The Civil Constabulary has expressed concern that the presence of such gangs on the planet may act as a lure for larger criminal enterprises, such as the Hutt Cartel, to set up operations on Keowe VII.
-
- SATELLITES -
Keowe VII possesses a single natural satellite, an airless, rocky moon in a circular, tidally locked orbit. Designated K7-1001, it is home to an automated communications relay station, as well as a small optical and radio observatory, which is operated by volunteers from the University of Keowe's astronomy department. Budget cuts to this installation, and to the university as a whole, mean that volunteer crews may spend up to 6 months at a time there, with resupply flights from the surface only every 3 months.
- INTENT -
I intend for Keowe VII to be a unique environment for role-play, a forgotten tourist world which was once popular, but which has been indirectly effected by the war, as I am sure many such planets would have been. The planet is rich in areas like abandoned hotels, casinos, resorts and amusement parks. Primarily, it is inspired by a combination of tropical tourist destinations like the Bahamas, but with the added aspect of a failing economy. I also intend to create a character who is from this planet, and whose early adventures would involve it.
I intend for this planet to have that 1980s "palm tree and laser beam" aesthetic.
[/fancybox4]
Last edited:
