## The Etherial System   ## Overview This is a sprawl world that is connected to [[Gilizet]] and [[Operiunn]] filled. The [[Marata]] from their larvae to adult forms are a prominent population with their synthetic ecologies having colonized multiple layers of what humans called the Ether. The Operiunn fiefdoms compete for what structures haven't fallen to the depths of the gas giant's skies and have evidently done this for millennia. The lurid violet skies are filled with iodine from the automated factories. The energy fuel economy here has been somewhat reclaimed by the locals, who use helium rich fusion jets to spread to nearby moons but have been overall reliant on the wormholes for any interstellar activities. The name Etherial Realm was something that came from human contact with the bizarre place. See, that isn't all. There is some really, really disturbing history to the Jovian cloud city network here. It is believed to be the core seed district of the Lost Sprawl Cluster, which connects to the other prospect sprawl cluster Karbana [[Kinnis]]. The collapse hit this core world hard, it's a miracle that there's anything left by most metrics since there was once an ecumenopolis in the inner system too, but it is actually wiped out to degrees so total as to defy logic. Just nanoswarm goo on that world. The vastness of the systems at play are hard to fully grasp, and the inhabitants show no care or interest to do that. Populations too small, dynamics too cyclic and eroding. They are a society of decadence and erosion that went unchecked for millennia. The current rulers of the dominant Etherial Realmers- The Unandapa Dynasty have been running a system of inherited positions for the past five thousand years rising, falling and rising again. They appeared over half way through the time between the sprawl's procedural collapse and the present day. The first seven thousand years show some period of interstellar commerce that also broke down at some point until the more conservative Unandapa took control and regimented the system to their best ability. It is still difficult to really get their culture as they intentionally destroyed all the warp gates they found viewing complex systems as inherently catastrophic. Their worldview was informed by the depths and the need to aggressively maintain what cloud city complexes and derelict orbiter structures were still around even with the Kessler debris and regular rains of debris. Many of the cities of this collapsed Jovian metropoli were devoured by the depths long, long ago and some more also fell to the depths from neglect and disuse. The Unandopans, a marata-Operiunn connected aristocratic class where inheritance is dictated by both mitosis induced descendants and the age of the marata connected to them have a culture of obligation towards keeping away entropy by repairing the decrepit cloud city structures and even keeping their gas mining functional over the millennia. New infrastructure was too expensive and forays to the moons was rare. The rest of the system was already sparse, beings stripped of resources made things even harder for the remnants. The other regions of the system had a couple surviving groups who are evidently exiled from the Etherial realm in stone sprawls underground, their populations are in the thousands at most and pretty dismal as refugees from a nanoswarm catastrophe from annihilator WMDs that the Jovian world was protected from due to the internal heat of the giant making the swarms impossible there. More ancient, aging beings who get periodically harassed by the Etherial Realm inhabitants. Other regions of the system are hard to say as it is in a star system that only ever had 4 planets, one being the gas giant Undapona itself and the other two being dead sterile worlds strip mined and later occupied by surviving groups. Mining from the once large network of worlds whose debris belts permeate the inner system and get salvaged by both the Undapona inhabitants and the various [[Vubit]]-like entities that fight over the scraps of the debris belt. Nanoswarm clouds are a major danger in the region, but electromagnetic weapons the mining Vubit adapter have contained them for the most part. Meanwhile the fossils and rot of now extinct habitats fester with low level void organisms and shapeshifting drifters. The last world, simply known as the Lost World is a nanotechnology disaster of incomprehensible proportions. It's weird. It's not grey goo much, instead it's like a massive swarm of microscopic ships went in and ripped apart everything in a direct military attack. It's unclear why the Etherials weren't also annihilated here. Only that the world than was melted from the mantle to surface. One of the few instances of no survivors. It was likely a world that had quadrillions. The Etherials suspiciously lack refugees. It's all very suspect. Connected Sprawl Worlds [[Sutu's Phantom]] [[Gilizet]] Connected Region [[Plexus Space]] #megastructure #Galactic-Region/Sprawl #contested