Theia

"The seabed under the mangroves is richer in rare earths and the platinum metals than anything we have assayed in the Gulf. We recommend the concession be bid before the colony is planned."Reliance survey report on the larger moon of Saolea II, 2317

Theia is the larger moon of Okeanos, the gas giant that is the second planet of the Saolea system. It is a mangrove world of tidal coasts and shallow seas, and its seabed is richer in rare earths and platinum-group metals than anything else in the Ciriban Gulf. It was settled on 3 August 2323 by 100,000 colonists from Greece and Cyprus, who built their capital, Hoplonka, on a mangrove coast. Theia was a mine before it was a colony. Reliance's seabed dredges, the largest machines in the Gulf, worked its shallows from 2324, and by 2333 the moon produced a fifth of the federation's rare earths.

The Red Khanate burned Hoplonka and the mangrove coast on 12 September 2436, after Theia refused submission. Eighteen million died, and 12 million of 90 million were alive in 2450. The companies rebuilt it under charter from 2464, and it had 40 million people by 2500.

Description

Theia orbits Okeanos and keeps one face toward it. Its day is the length of its orbit, about 76 hours, and the gas giant fills a fifth of the sky from the facing hemisphere. Its tides are driven by Okeanos as well as the star, and they run twice a day across mudflats tens of kilometres wide.

The coasts are mangrove: dense salt forest standing in tidal water, over sediments that hold the rare earths. The seas are shallow, and the seabed metals lie close to the surface. Reliance's survey of 2317 found them before the Office of Settlement had a plan for the colony.

Life

The native life is tidal. The mangroves are not trees but colonial organisms rooted in the mud, which the colonists' biologists call stiltforest. Each stand is a single colony that can run for kilometres, putting down roots from arching stems and drawing metals from the sediment into its tissues. The richest seabed lies under the oldest stands, and Reliance's prospectors of 2317 found the deposits by assaying the stiltforest's leaves.

The fauna is small and amphibious: mudskippers, burrowing crustacean-like grazers, and flocks of gliding fishers that nest in the stiltforest canopy and feed on the flats at low water. Nothing on Theia is dangerous to a human except the tide, which comes across the Thermaic's flats faster than a person can run.

Geography

Theia is mostly sea, and the sea is shallow. Its land is a set of low continents fringed by tidal coasts:

• The mangrove coast, 4,000 kilometres of salt forest along the northern continent's shore, where Hoplonka stands and where the seabed metals lie richest.
• The Thermaic, the great tidal gulf west of Hoplonka, whose mudflats are tens of kilometres wide at low water and where Reliance's dredges worked from 2324.
• The Kyklades, the island chain off Hoplonka, settled by the colonists' fishing towns.
• The Uplands, the dry interior of the northern continent, the only ground on Theia above the reach of the tides, where the colony's farms and its cemeteries were placed.

Climate

Theia is warm and wet. Its long day of 76 hours brings a hot day-side and a cool night, and its weather follows the day rather than the year. Once in its orbit around Saolea, Okeanos passes between Theia and the star, and the moon has a long eclipse of six hours that the colonists call the shadow.

Hoplonka

The Office's planners chose Hoplonka's site for its harbour. In the first decade the colonists rebuilt it on stilts over the mangrove coast, on the model of Bounty's Toussaint. The Saolea Fleet was based at Hoplonka's orbital from 2331. The city burned with the coast in 2436, and Reliance-Babcock's successor rebuilt it on the same coast from 2464.

The old city stood on stilts over the mangroves, around a harbour cut through the salt forest. Its districts were the Limani, the harbour, with the concession's offices and the dredge docks; the Plaka, the colonists' first town on the harbour's eastern shore; and the Ano Poli, the upper town on the only dry ridge on the coast, where the colony's government and its churches stood. The rebuilt city of 2464 to 2500 follows the old plan, and the stilts of the old harbour, which survived the fire, stand in the new one.

Economy

Theia's economy was its seabed. Reliance's dredges, the largest machines in the Gulf, worked the shallows from 2324, and by 2333 the moon produced a fifth of the federation's rare earths. The concession's revenue was split between the company and the Treasury under the ninth section of the Exploration and Settlement Act. From 2320 the Treasury's share went to War Plan Purple's forts, and it was the largest single line in Purple's budget. The metals went to the Cirban Exchange until 2328 and then to the federation's yards. The Saolea sector's trade with the Binami sector, Theia's metals for Bounty's food and Toussaint's freight, was the federation's second-largest internal commerce by 2330.

Theia's colonists fished the Kyklades and farmed the Uplands, but the moon never fed itself. Its grain came from Chalna, Saolea's fourth planet, and its food from Bounty. After 2464 Reliance-Babcock's successor worked the seabed again under charter.

The dredges

Reliance's seabed dredges were the largest machines in the Gulf. Each was a tracked platform 600 metres long that crawled across the Thermaic's flats at low water and floated at high, cutting the sediment to a depth of 40 metres and separating the metals on board. Twelve worked the gulf by 2333. Their wakes are visible from orbit as pale lines across the mudflats, and the stiltforest has never regrown in them. The Office of Settlement objected to the dredging of the mangrove coast in 2326 and was overruled by the Chamber, because the concession's revenue paid for the forts.

Government

Theia entered the federation as a territory with an elected council and became an area of the Republic on the population test in 2348. Its governors led the Sectors' politics in the First Republic. Ana Ruiz-Moorthi, Theia's governor, was elected President of the Republic in November 2372 with 51 percent. After 2464 the moon was governed under the charter by a council elected by its settlers and the company jointly, an arrangement the Chamber ended in 2501, when Theia's population passed 40 million.

History

Survey and concession

The Grissom surveyed Saolea in 2308. Reliance's concession survey of the moon was under way in 2317, before the Office's settlement plan was drafted. The Exploration and Settlement Act's ninth section split the concession's revenue between the company and the Treasury. From 2320 the Chamber sent the Treasury's share to War Plan Purple's forts, and it was the largest single line in Purple's budget.

Settlement

The founding region was the European Federation's Aegean members, Greece and Cyprus. The UNS Theia landed 100,000 colonists on 3 August 2323, the Office's first settlement in the Saolea sector. They named the gas giant above them Okeanos. Theia in 2333 had 400,000 people. Its metals went to the Exchange until the ban of 2328, and to the federation's yards after it.

The Republic

Theia grew through the First Republic on its mines. It was one of the Sectors whose councils met at Toussaint in 2378 to press the Republic for autonomy and defence. Ana Ruiz-Moorthi, the explorer Pranav Moorthi's granddaughter and Theia's governor, was elected President of the Republic in November 2372 with 51 percent. Fleet Admiral Ivo Draganić of Theia, whose family had commanded ships in the Voor War, was the Navy's Chief of Staff from 2423. One of the first four Ciriban-class carriers, in commission by January 2428, was named Theia for the Sector that had paid for her.

The Saolea Fleet

The Saolea Fleet was based at Hoplonka's orbital from its formation in 2331 under Fleet Admiral Sean Santiago. Its crews' families settled in Hoplonka, and the moon sent more officers into the Navy than any other world of the Gulf. Fleet Admiral Ivo Draganić of Theia, the Navy's Chief of Staff from 2423, came from one of those families.

The evacuation

Between the Battle of Saolea in March 2434 and the Khan's return in September 2436, the Republic evacuated 70 million of Theia's 90 million people. They were lifted from Hoplonka's orbital to Nomotar and Talandra, and from there to the core worlds' camps. Those who stayed were the dredge crews, the Saolea garrison's families and the old colonists of the Ano Poli, who would not leave the founders' graves in the Uplands.

Evacuation and burning, 2434 to 2436

Theia had 90 million people when the Republic won the Battle of Saolea in March 2434. In the two years that followed the Republic evacuated 70 million of them. The Khan came against Saolea on 3 September 2436 with 230 monoliths, and the system's forts and platforms held four days. Theia's government refused submission on 10 September. Hoplonka and the mangrove coast were burned on 12 September 2436, with 18 million dead.

Liberation and rebuilding

The Retribution Fleet destroyed the Khanate's two-monolith garrison in Theia's orbit on 22 June 2450. It found 12 million people alive, 400,000 of them on the burned mangrove coast. Too few were left to rebuild the moon, and under the provision that such a world could be rebuilt by charter, the companies rebuilt it. Reliance-Babcock's successor took Theia's seabed concessions again in 2464 and rebuilt Hoplonka with 40 million settlers by 2500.

Culture

Theia is a Greek and Cypriot world, founded from the European Federation's Aegean members. Its language is Greek, with the Gulf's trade English in the harbour. The colonists brought their churches, their saints' days and their food, and the Ano Poli's churches were the first stone buildings on the moon. They named its features from the Aegean: the Kyklades for the island chain off Hoplonka and the Thermaic for the great tidal gulf. The gas giant above them they named Okeanos.

The burning is remembered on 12 September, when the names of the 18 million dead are read in the Ano Poli. The moon's families keep the old Hoplonka's plan in their houses as a print, and the stilts of the old harbour were left standing in the rebuilt city.

Demographics

BOOK SOURCES

1. Solar Eternal, Part VII, §7.2 "On the Solar Wind"
2. Solar Eternal, Part VIII, §8.1 "War Plan Purple" and §8.3 "The Binami and Saolea Sectors"
3. Solar Eternal, Part X, §10.6 "The Birth of the Sectorites and Solarites"
4. Solar Eternal, Part XII, §12.3 "The Sector War"
5. Solar Eternal, Part XIV, §14.1 "The Reclamation of the Binami and Saolea Sectors"
6. Solar Eternal, Part XV, §15.5 "The Burned Worlds"