Adelphia



Adelphia (pron.: /əˈdɛlfiə/) is the capital, most populous single planet, and third most populous system of the Sir'Du Network, with 3,423,991,752 permanent intelligent inhabitants. It is located in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way at Bursque Coordinate 10b,0d. It is a large, Hos7 planet with a predominately microthermal climate, landlocked oceans, and vast polar regions.

Thanks in large part to the ample supplies of impermeable spu'chu on planet and throughout its system, Adelphia rose to prominence in antiquity and became the seat of the Adelphian Republic in the First Era, evolving into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center of the ancient galaxy. Following the collapse of the Republic in the Second Era, Adelphia was largely destroyed by successive invasions by the rival Zarakkanian and Ghadi Empries, resulting in a decline that would last until late in the Second Interregnum.

In contemporary times, Adelphia has largely regained a position of prominence in galactic affairs thanks to a robust mining industry, commodities trading, and finance.

Colonization and the Adelphian Republic
Due to the destruction of records in the Collapse of the Solar Union and the later Biblioclasm at New Alexandria, details as to the discovery of Adelphia are unknown. The best estimates by archeologists and archivists place the arrival tof The first Solar colonists around 317 F.E. Upon arrival, colonists found a planet devoid of intelligent life, but rich in flora and fauna well adapted to the cool environment. Spu'chu was first discovered on Adelphia in 321 F.E., leading to The Great Coming, a rapid influx of settlers to the planet lasting from 322 to 399 F.E. Sufficiently distant from the Solar System to make heavy machinery imports impractically expensive, heavy industry boomed on the planet.

By 405 F.E., Adelphia had established its own Bode Node and permanently connected itself to the other major systems of the Solar Union. But rather than petition to join the Union as its eigth core system, Adelphia reasserted its sovereignty and leveraged its power to begin colonizing worlds in its own right. By the mid-millenium, Adelphia colonized 18 other systems and established two other core worlds under its banner:  Sir'Du and Flama. In 525 F.E., the core worlds and subsidiary systems reformed into the Adelphian Republic, with Adelphia established as the capital. Adelphia's rejection of the Solar Union would soon be followed by other particularly prosperous colonies, including Zarak, Ghad, Miranda, and Bubba's Junction. While the SU attempted to coax Adelphia back toward membership through a combination of incentive offers and high tariffs, those efforts came too late and had little impact on the planet's prosperity.

Adelphia's population during the period from 525 to 800 F.E. is estimated to have grown from around a billion to a height of over six billion, sustained by heavy imports of consumable necessities from agrarian portions of the Republic. With the Great Revolution and the Collapse of the Solar Union, Adelphia emerged in the Second Era  as the leading economic hub of the galaxy. Until around 120 S.E., Adelphia dominated galactic trade, reflected by the near-universal adoption of the Bursque Galactic Coordinate System, with Adelphia placed at the Galactic Prime Meridian.

The Centuries of Strife - 138 to 800 S.E.
Adelphian power declined rapidly with the outbreak of the First Galactic War between itself, the Zarakkanian Empire, and the Ghadi Empire. The early loss of outlying agrarian systems of the Adelphian Republic led to a severe drop in consumable supplies throughout the Republic and an equally severe spike in prices on Adelphia itself. Squeezed by military defeat and famine, social upheaval rocked Adelphia. While the planet did not succumb to total revolution, the Republic was gripped by the unrest and systems soon defected to the invading Zakkarian and Ghadi Empires until only Adelphia, Sir'Du, and Flama remained.

With Adelphian military power largely vanquished, the foreign empires competed for Adelphia for its boundless spu'chu reserves and Bode Node. The Ghadi Empire first conquered Adelphia in 147 S.E. and occupied it as a staging area for operations in its war against the Zarakkanians. The planet would change hands between the two empires no less than four dozen times over the course of the next four centuries until the Zarakkanian Empire conquered it for good in 566 S.E. By the end of the First Galactic War in 604 S.E., Adelphia's population had declined to 300 million, primarily around major mining operations across the planet.

Permanent Zarakkanian rule led to stability on Adelphia, but a resurgance was not forthcoming. Further details of economic and cultural output on Adelphia during this period are largely up to speculation, as few records survived the repeated bouts of warfare. Distinguished scholars, however, believe that the planet was for the most part reduced to military operations, spu'chu mining efforts, and survivalist communes. The only noted cultural work surviving from the period is Pulton's "Folly".

Resurgence and Prosperity to the Present Day
While Zarakkanian influence began to wane in the early eigth century S.E., Adelphia remained an occupied territory of the Empire for an additional century, due to a combination of its continued depopulation and substantial Zarakkanian military presence. In 810 S.E., Adelphia regained semi-autonomy after a successful petition for reclassification as a self-coverning territory within the Empire, which also granted Adelphian citizens greater rights within the empire and the opportunity to enlist in its armed forces. In the following decade, non-native Zarakkanian forces withdrew by 90%, leaving only a handful of major bases on the planet, located near the largest spu'chu deposits. Simultaneously, Adelphian enlistments filled the depleted ranks. By the time of the Battle of Fifteen Fleets and the subsequent Fall of Cask, native Adelphians comprised four-fifths of the remaining Zarakkanian forces on planet. When the forces were recalled to defend Zarak, only one unit complied, and Adelphia gained defacto independence. The territorial government immediately renounced Zarakkanian rule, ceased the shipment of taxes and tariffs to Zarak, and nationalized remaining Zarakkanian assets.

With the onset of the Second Interregnum, Adelphia again leveraged its spu'chu supplies, as well as other natural resources depleted elsewhere by the Second Galactic War, to rebuild itself and secure vital alliances with nearby core worlds and sub-systems. Under the leadership of Censur Roth, Adelphia instituted the Spu'Chu Fund, wherein the profits from spu'chu extraction and refinement were distributed in part to Adelphian citizens as a supplement to regular income. Distributed among a still small population, per capita income rose rapidly, and Adelphia gained notoriety as a planet where "even the bums are fully prosthetic." This led to the Second Great Coming, and Adelphian population soared.

After the Peace of Cask and dawn of the Third Era, Adelphia joined Sir'Du in the establishment of the Sir'Du Network, a federal network comprised of systems from the Sir'Du Rebellion, the old Adelphian Republic, and systems from the extinct Ghadi Empire. Fueled by political stability and dense wealth, Adelphia asserted itself as the go-to financial hub of the new network. The resurgence reflected in the arts:  the Gaud Movement took root on the basis of wealthy patronage during the resurgence.

Geography and Climate
Adelphia is a primarily terrestrial planet around 3.2 billion years old. It is a cool planet, marked by landlocked semi-saline oceans, inhabited regions of microthermal climate, vast sub-polar forests, and polar caps that cover 35% of the planet. A weak planetary tilt keeps the seasons moderate as it orbits a Class K star. Thus, average temperatures around the equator vary only between 10 to 20 C, conditions that extend just beyond the planet's first tertiary. Habitable conditions extend to just short of the second tertiary, where average temperatures are around -10 C.

Periodic ice ages discovered in the geologic record provide for a heavily eroded surface, marked by few sharp features such as mountains or cliffs. The thick spu'chu crust and mantle allow for little surface geological activity; the planet's rolling hills and shallow oceans are hypothesized to be the result of collision with large celestial bodies during its formation period.

Satellites
Adelphia possesses no naturally orbiting objects. Leading astrogeologists hypothesize that Adelphia once contained no less than three moons during its early years, but that they crashed into the planet, providing the highlands and lowlands that distinguish its hills and small oceans.

A Bode Node orbits the planet, along with an extensive network of locally oriented satellites.

Government and Politics
The government of Adelphia is a strong constitutional monarchy, with a democratically elected King, who serves for life, and a Preservence Council of representatives appointed by the planet's 18 districts.

The planet is currently led by King Cable Sturn, now in his 13th year of rule.

Economy
Adelphia is a service-based economy and the leading financial center of the Sir'Du Network. It remains one of the largest spu'chu sources in the galaxy, allowing for massive mining and refining industries. The planet is also well known for its vast timber, silver, and silicon exports. On the whole, Adelphia is a net-exporter, and it's per capita income remains among the highest in the Sir'Du Network

Culture
The origin of the Gaud, Post-Gaud, Austere, Post-Austere, Pre-Frost, and Frost schools of art, Adelphian arts and architecture are generally known for their simple and very direct presentation. Critics lambast Adelphian art and culture as "utterly lacking in tact or emotion, drenched in lucky wealth or ice, plain and cold as the planet itself."

Index of Linked Articles

 * Astrogeology
 * Austere (art)
 * Battle of Fifteen Fleets
 * Biblioclasm at New Alexandria
 * Bioenhancement
 * Broslov's Habitability Classification System
 * Bode Node
 * Bubba's Junction
 * Bursque Galactic Coordinate System
 * Cable Sturn
 * Censur Roth
 * Collapse of the Solar Union
 * Communist Colonialism
 * Fall of Cask
 * First Era
 * First Galactic War
 * Flama
 * "Folly"
 * Forms of Government
 * Frost (art)
 * Galactic Prime Meridian
 * Gaud Movement
 * Ghad
 * Ghadi Empire
 * Great Coming
 * Habitability
 * Harvard Spectral Classification
 * Miranda
 * Peace of Cask
 * Post-Austere
 * Post-Gaud
 * Pre-Frost
 * Public Dividend Funding Systems
 * Second Era
 * Second Galactic War
 * Second Great Coming
 * Second Interregnum
 * Sir'Du
 * Sir'Du Network
 * Sir'Du Rebellion
 * Spu'chu
 * Solar Revolution
 * Third Era
 * Zarak
 * Zarakkanian Empire