Veritas & Forma are two temperate terra marine and Lacustrine worlds in the Ventemir Galaxy. Veritas is the homeworld of the Legions, a somewhat common species in SMC. While not quite binary planets, the two bodies are tidally locked to each other, meaning that Veritas will always have the same side pointed towards Forma and vice versa. Officially, Veritas is the planet and Forma is the moon, however, they are both colloquially referred to as planets.
Together, they have some of highest populations of any planet within the Entente of Ventemir. However, depending on how one counts individuals, the population ranges anywhere from 50 billion to the widely accepted number of 36 trillion, due to the hive-like nature of the Legion species.
The planets were named after the Top and Bottom (originally called Truth and Beauty) quarks. With Veritas being the Latin for truth. and Forma being the Latin for beauty. The planets are commonly referred to as Truth and Beauty as well, rather than their official Latin names.
Remains of the once-great Triumvirate civilization litter the surface of both planets. Mega-structures such as orbital rings, remains of large ships, and ruined buildings can be found all over the surface. Most of these buildings are heritage sites, so the populace lives mostly in newer cities built away from these ruins.
Geography
Veritas
Veritas is a marine world with three major oceans. Unlike many marine worlds, these oceans are not connected directly, making some of them elevated relative to each other. These three oceans are named after the three heads of the Triumvirate Civilization, Legio, Imperium, and Rex. The largest of which by far is Legio, which covers over 33% of the planet's surface. The global continent is simply called "land," as there is no reason to call it anything else. In the past, regions likely had names, but these fell out of use with time, and most were forgotten.
Most of the inhabitants find themselves living in a mega-city called "The Capitol." This city occupies five percent of the planet's surface. Much to the chagrin of archeologists all over the Entente it has been continually occupied ever since the creation of this city, causing many artifacts to be destroyed. The majority of structures are made of recycled artifacts, made inside decaying structures, and some buildings are even reclaimed ruins of once-great starships.
The planet is covered in a wide array of lifeforms, with various biomes and ecosystems covering the planet. However, it is estimated that the current amount of life is only ten percent of the planet's original biomass. This has been caused by a number of things, chief among them being the mass extinction event caused by the collapse of the Triumvirate.
Forma
Forma is a fairly typical lacustrine planet. Liquid water occupies 17% of its total surface, meaning that the densest areas of life are near the water. The shallower parts of the lakes are filled with algae and many aquatic life forms. Unlike Veritas, most of the bio-diversity is intact, although it has still only recently fully recovered.
Large rivers flow all across this planet and over 40% of it is covered in clouds at any given time, bringing rains to the large plains of grass that cover the rest of the moon.
Government
On Veritas, the local government collapsed with the fall of the Triumvirate, causing anarchy to reign on the planet. The technology, which could only be maintained by a Type III civilization, quickly fell into disrepair and mere stone age technology took its place.
This caused a tribal government to eventually take form, first among tens of individuals, but soon, some tribes came to contain close to 100. While this seems small, due to the nature of the Legions as a species and the low population at the time, these tribes represented whole-number percentages of the population. A global government formed 1000 years later in 67,000 CE. Instead of immediately returning to prominence, the individuals on Veritas had to ration resources, as the planet had few metals to speak of. Over 95% of both planets' useful metals were used up. The only easily attainable metal that remained was from ruins. The rest was in the cores of the planets maintaining the magnetic fields.
To this day, this tribal government remains. One Legion entity is elected as Sheriff (their word for this can also be translated as "chief,"). Then 1728 (1000 in base 12) legionnaire entities serve as deputies. These deputies each have one-hundred forty-four subordinates, called "officers." These government officials, numbering 248832 in total (one hundred thousand in base 12), run the entirety of the government on both planets.
The large presence and high intelligence of the Legions allow for such little numbers operating the government of an entire planet. The Sheriff alone is usually able to effectively process and inform its deputies of what to do. Quite often, a Commissioner is appointed. This individual is responsible for managing the military assets of the planet, although large scale operations are usually handled by the government of the Entente.