"The Frozen Cage, as many have nicknamed this nightmare world, it's one of the worst prisons of the Empire. Here, the outcast, the filth of our society, is sent to eternal suffering and redemption. Rapist, murderers, thieves and others work the rich mines of this ice world, hoping to survive another day and not be victims of the harsh environment or the aggressive fauna. A destiny more than deserved." - Senator, Maes Prim
Pegnomai is a Planet located in the Laza System of Iskadi. It is as well located in Herschel Space. It belongs to the Empire of Mankind and its one of the two Prison Worlds of this nation. This one being the frozen world.
Pegnomai is a terrible world, feared by many. It is somehow isolated from most of the Galaxy. At the same time, the Laza System is not very much populated, so anyone that escapes has no real place to go.
Some of the worst criminals in the Empire and sometimes in other Lewis Nations, send their prisoners to this huge prison world, usually for a live sentence. Many are murderers, traffickers, rapists, illegal slave masters, hang masters, drug dealers, thieves etc...
Geography[]
The Planet is a whole icy world, very cold and windy. Large snow storms are frequent, and humans can't live for long under them. The environment is very harsh and dangerous. There are no continents, but there are one small ocean divided into two areas by a land straight. The Ocean is known as Miklos, with one area known as the Northern Miklos Ocean and the other as the Southern Miklos Ocean.
There are however some large and small lakes around the planets that allow some sources of fresh water. Pegnomai has also several volcanoes who are used as heating centers for civilian colonies and outpost. Some of this volcanoes have some little flora living under the heat of the active volcano which means large herbivores coming to eat and thus large predators, making it dangerous.
History[]
The Planet was surveyed by several probes and large mineral deposits were found. This made it a very interesting place for the Imperial authorities. A human tripulated mission was sent to explore, but the hardship of the environment and an aggressive fauna caused several casualties among them. Soon another tripulated mission (more prepared and bigger in size) came back to establish an outpost. The outpost was successfully built but the fauna and the climate were terrible and the outpost had to be militarized and improved to assure survival.
At first, the outpost had scientific purposes to study the planet in more depth. Other Outpost were built although with many failed attempts and many casualties.
The planet started to gain its fame as a nightmare world to be sent to. But the Empire wanted to have profit from the minerals of the planet as soon as possible so they created a slave-building facility with clones who would serve as miners. Very few settlers (if any) wanted to move to such a hostile place, so most of the population before starting to produce clone slaves was made of Military personnel and scientist destined by the government.
Miklos, the largest ocean of Pegnomai. We can clearly see the Northern Miklos Ocean and the Southern Miklos Ocean.
Soon, the project seemed to fail, as many slaves died due to the climate conditions and the attacks of the local fauna, to the point it was no longer profitable to produce slaves at the rate they died. It was expensive to raise them to be left to die so quickly. The expression "More miserable than a clone slave in Pegnomai " became a common expression among Empire Citizens, most notably in the Oraios Galaxy. The remaining slaves were kept for building purposes, creating many facilities within the planet and enlarge the existing outposts. Some also were used for the comfort of the outpost settlers and few civilians, while the judiciary court chose the planet as it second prison facility to ease the pressure from Infernus, the other Prison world. They would be using high end criminals to complete the task and if they died, no one would care about.
The first criminals arrived as soon as the penitentiary was built. They were sent to work out the minerals from the planet's large mines. Others, usually those with good behaviour worked on the mineral processing facilities or inside construction projects. The first cargo of prisoners had a very high rate of casualties, but soon, the progress of the infrastructure as well as the militarization of the planet made it more secure. However, those who manage to scape, dont last very long in the wild. Scaping nowadays is almost an impossible task.
Demographics[]
Very few civilians lived here, most notably the families of military personnel and high ranked officials. The most habitable area is the Golden Dome, which is also the most militarized area of the planet, having a Fortified Military Based around it. It is also the only place where cargo ships with goods, luxuries and other high quality items, land. The Golden Dome is warm with high quality houses and several lush alien gardens, as well as a school, entertainment and shopping areas and other facilities for destined soldier families.
The Golden Dome, (Ogoren) is like a city holding up to 12 million settlers. This includes penitentiary officers, military personnel and their families as well as other settlers who came as procurators, administratives, judges, police and traders of mineral. A high proportion of the population is made as well of slaves, who work on shops, cleaning, and other jobs to maintain the colony.
Other cities exist, like the Silver Dome (Pilta) and the Iron Dome (Ehiro). The first one is mostly for Penitentiary families, with 8 million settlers, and Ehiro for military personnel and families, with 5 million settlers. The Iron Dome holds as well one of the most militarized base in the planet, with most military cargos arriving to this facility. Tunnel trains connect all three cities, placed in different corners of the planet. Of this 25 million in all, a bit more than half are civilians (families) or slaves, while the rest is working personnel. Several working outpost or small cities exist all over the planet to hold the penitentiary officers and soldiers as well as the prisoners, but no civilians are allowed nor live in those places.
About 500 million prisoners live in the planet with about 200 000 arriving each year, while about half of those new arrivals dying in the following year. The average life expectancy of prisoners working in the mines is no more than 5 years. For those working in other mineral related jobs (usually indoors) is around 15 years.
Fauna and Flora[]
Pegnomai on a typical stormy day
The Fauna of the Planet is very agressive and is based on survival. All the animals found here have white fur or camouflage to keep them warm. During the winters, some go into hibernation. Most fauna is concentrated around the equator and the small oceans, and lakes. The animals feed mostly on water based sources, such as fish, and this animals in turn are the main food of larger predators, so any place around with water is terribly dangerous, due to the high concentration of fauna around. Inland, the Selemelians can be found. Large herbivores, who feast on fungus and moss who grow on rocky areas or under the snow, blossoming and reproducing very quickly in Summer, during the very few days with sunshine. Its spores float with the windy snow storms and fly far, settling on the rich mineral soil of the planet and growing hidden under the snow.
This fungus and moss is very nutritious, allowing large mammals to survive and in turn allow large predators who are deALDy, like the Yokaira to do the same. They are large, fast and fierce creatures who can easily kill a dozens humans in the blink of a eye.
Other source for live to flourish are the warm volcanoes who warm up the volcanoes surface and nearby areas, allowing fungus and moss to flourish in large quantities. This attracts as well many herbivores and in turn many predators. So volcanoes are considered a very dangerous place to be for humans who are easy preys for the aggressive predators. Most common is the Akroa, an Octopus like being, covered in fur, who lives underearth nearby volcanoes surprising their preys.
There is another predator who feasts on corpses of death herbivores and carnivores, and humans as well. They are a large flying creature known as Kerala, covered in large furs and able to resist winds of more than 350km/h. They fly over the land in groups, searching for fresh corpses or the weak.