Umoja

Umoja a oceanic, oxygen rich planet and the capital of the Umojan Protectorate. Its primary grasslands and oceans, though many pockets of thick jungles exist, and is abundant with non-sentient life.

History
See Umojan Protectorate.

Geography
Umoja is a diverse but largely temperate world, mostly covered in three major oceans, with 23 lakes and seas. The planet is divided into four continents, mostly covered in grassland or thick jungle, but with the more barren areas marred by large mountains and massive canyons, The largest of these, the Sarango Canyon, is a manmade scar from the supercarrier Sarengo smashing into the surface when terrans first arrived on the world.

Umojan oceans are comparatively shallow for a planet with as much geologic activity as it maintains, and the lack of any polar ice caps hint that there was a period of global warming that melted these areas relatively recently in the planet's history. Some scientists speculate this is the possible result of a polar reversal the planet may still be undergoing. However, these more shallow oceans have allowed for a diverse array of aquatic life to exist a greater distance from shore. The largest of these, separating the two masses of continents, is the Gantris Ocean, named by the first Umojan settlers who thought their world was Gantris IV, the initial target of their supercarrier, due to their ATLAS databases being largely wiped.

Outside of the four continents, there exists a large number of island chains. While many are volcanic, a number of them appear to be former mountains and hills of the region, adding to the melt-water theory of Umoja's oceans. Many of these island chains lack sandy beaches, while the older continental masses have more traditional sand dunes.

Umoja is famous for its red copper-tinted skies, and an air that "smells of spices." This is due to traces of acetylene gases and ammonia in the atmosphere, well within the acceptable levels for most humans to not be harmful. However, among many who were not born and raised on the planet, allergic reaction to these trace toxic gases are common, known as "spice cold." This famously caused early Confederate diplomat Jason Huks to remark that Umoja was "a planet as welcoming to outsiders as its people."

Umoja's fertile grasslands allow for many diverse agriculture, which was key in the planet's early founding. Due to relics salvaged from the ruin of the Sarengo, soil manipulation technology was found earlier on Umoja than on Moria or Tarsonis, giving them a larger initial population birth after the Birth Surge.

Reagansfall
Named after the supercarrier that carried the surviving Umojans to the surface after the Long Sleep, the Reagan, Reagansfall is the center of Umoja and the second largest continent. Once a series of fertile grasslands, the land was quickly urbanized as the Umojans built out from their ship. This area remains the center of Umojan government, commerce and business, and is where the Ruling Council meets to discuss matters, as well as receives diplomats. It is also the center of the famed Umojan Tramway System that spans the planet.

During its founding, the continent began as a series of cities as settlers spread out, with the core of Dunia Mpya (or "New World") spreading from the area where the Reagan had landed. Eventually however Dunia Mpya would spread to encapsulate most of the continent, with surrounding cities being absorbed into it as a sweeping metropolis. While nowhere near the size of Augustgrad or Tarsonis City before its destruction, the careful planning of Dunia Mpya in both navigation and ascetics has mad it a marvel across the sector.

While the Umojan Tramway System spans the planet, it is centered in Reagansfall, and the majority of the city is connected through a series of train networks, which are split into different subnetworks for districts and provinces. This makes the middle class owning a vehicle more uncommon in Reagansfall than in other major cities, as sky and ground traffic is less prevalent. It is rumored that the technology that keeps the trains running is part of technology salvaged from the Reagan that not even the Umojans fully understand as of yet, but have learned how to maintain.

People closer to the Landfall Provence are generally wealthier, connected to the government of Umoja and its inner workings. While Umoja lacks the slums of its sister megacities, poverty still exists near the mineral and vespene processing districts near the coasts of Reagansfall, with unemployment and a large unskilled labor force still a large problem since Kel-Morian control of the market and a subsequent embargo of goods lead to a massive market crash.

Art and culture in Reagansfall is largely based around a classic, Earthly look, with heavy use of marble and wood, but with technology incorporated into all things in various subtle ways. Use of nature is also common, and large parks maintained by drones in the middle of dense urban areas are commonplace, giving the vast cities of Reagansfall a unique look compared to the other megacities of the sector. Largely Reagansfall culture, classic sophistication and a natural look mixed with hidden complexity and functionality, has become the culture other terrans of the sector see as "Umojan."

Not all of Reagansfall is densely populated cities, and in the northern portion of the continent many underdeveloped rural lands exist, marred by the canyons and with the colder climate preventing too much in the way of foodstuffs from being grown. However, it is in these northern districts that many of the famous Umojan breweries operate, where a classic early Earth style beer is brewed renowned throughout the sector.

Sarengia
Sarengia is a continent in the southern hemisphere of Umoja, and the second largest landmass, located south of Norfax. It takes its name from the Sarengo, the supercarrier carrying 8,000 of the original terran exiles from Earth that crashed in its western portion, leaving a supermassive canyon. All aboard the ship were killed, but the wreckage and and canyon became a valuable cultural site for Umoja, and one that has lead to firefights with the Umojan military due to the value of supercarrier-era relics located on the ship.

Most of Sarengia is a dense jungle due to its more equatorial location. The density of its fauna has made Sarengia the center of livestock farming, particularly that of the squalthex and mammoth beetle, two massive edible bioforms and rich sources of meat that have proven easy to raise, but do not live long outside of the particular biosphere of Umoja.

The richness of the biosphere has lead to many biomedical universities setting themselves on on Sarengia, which are some of the most famous in the sector as is the case with most Umojan universities. Engineering, physics, and mathematics schools have also found a home in Sarengia due to the number of university cities that have sprouted up on the fringes of the jungle, which are maintained carefully to prevent terran interference from causing too much of an environmental shift.

Those who live more inland and in the forests are usually farmers and ranchers, who are often looked down upon as "simpler" than their more metropolitan counterparts. The people of these farmers and ranchers are usually what make up a portion of the Umojan Armed Forces, and the people have a stereotype for being more traditionalist Umojan and more nationalistic, borderline militaristic. Famously, the only extended conflict that occurred on Umoja was a civil war between city states on Sarengia in its early history. However, these "extreme" Umojan views would be considered tame on the average Confederate or Kel-Morian world, and overall the people of Sarengia are very peaceloving and rational, with the isolationist edge that is apparent in different ways through Umojan culture.

The Sarengo Canyon is the most iconic site on Umoja, and one of the most renowned cultural sites in the sector in general. For those few who manage to gain permission to visit Umoja the canyon is an almost universally visited site, as it is the last of the four supercarriers that was not stripped down for parts to build the three nations. Umoja has sectioned off the canyon itself outside of set tourist areas, citing radiation still present in the canyon and in the ship itself and preservation efforts. However, some suspect that the Umojans are still gathering information from the decaying databases of the Sarengo, but as some past efforts have forever destroyed parts of the fallen ship, they are careful to proceed. Relics from this ship occasionally circle the black market, though many are fake, but go for millions of credits. This has made the canyon's defensive base, Fort Hailongtun, one of the most fortified locations on Umoja.

New Oceania
New Oceania is the smallest continent on the planet, located in the southern hemisphere south of Reagansfall. The continent is made up of one "continental" landmass, Kreggian, and a series of hundreds of smaller islands off of its eastern coast. In addition to its many above water cities, many dome cities that exist on the ocean floor, such as the most populous dome-habitat of Stanfield, are considered to be under the New Oceania jurisdiction.

The people of New Oceania still maintain the strong atheist and rational ideas that personify Umoja, but are the closest people that could be considered superstitious. Sailors by trade, many rituals that come with life both as a sea and space trader permeate through their society. Rather that inhibit these quriks, the Umojan government helps channel this into the many artists that come out of New Oceania, as their mix of the geometric and rounded shapes with the more primal elements of Umoja has lead artistic forms like the driftwood arts, which take large pieces of Umojan driftwood and carve circular patterns through its bark. These pieces of wood have often been replicated as far as Korhal, and an authentic Umojan driftwood work can go for hundreds of thousands of credits.

The mainland of New Oceania is largely grassland or beach, with a few areas inland of thicker jungle. Safaris to witness the wildlife on Kreggian is common, though poaching on Umojan territory is a crime Umojans meet with harsh retribution, famously causing an incident when the Umojans imprisoned a Kel-Morian ambassador for seven years after an illegal hunting trip to Kreggian. Kreggian is home to some of the few super-fauna of Umoja, with the Greglian Leviathan reaching lengths of up to one 34 meters in length.

The underwater cities that dot the areas between the islands are considered to be a technological marvel both in their design and in their low environmental impact. These cities are a series of domes, usually situated within coral reefs, that in spite of coral overgrowth manage to project a holographic image of the water through the coral, giving those within a full view of the myriad of ocean life around them. However, due to lack of work within these domes, they are usually lightly populated and serve both as a tourist and vacation spot, and as a transit point between the two continents, as the Umojan Tramway System has many stops in these domes as a midway point between the two continents. Real estate in those domes are also infamously expensive, leading to a lower population aside from retirees or those seeking to host events.

Norfax
There is a saying that "Norfax was conquered by metal hands." Norfax is the closest that Umoja gets to inhospitable land, a series of barren rocky flats and canyons north of Sarengia. The highest peaks of Umoja lie on the continents subduction zone on its eastern coast, including Mt. Forgo, the tallest point on the planet named for the astronomer that confirmed once and for all that Umoja was not Gantris VI, the supercarrier's initial target, but on another side of the galaxy. Norfax has the lowest population of all forms of life across Umoja, but remains an important part of its economy due to massive terriforming and agricultural efforts done to it.

Norfax has a long history with robotics, as the colony founder Brendan Norfax famously took a scouting party and a hundred explorator drones early in the planet's colonization, sailed across the Gantris Ocean, and landed on a strange barren new land. Using untested agricultural technology recently invented, Norfax and his followers tamed the land, turning the rocky slopes into fertile soil and farmland. Quickly the population grew after many on Reagansfall hears of a utopia across the sea filled with produce. Norfax became the food producing haven for Umoja after the planet's unification under a Ruling Council, though later efforts on Sarengia began to contribute a rival amount of foodstuffs to the planet and later the Protectorate.

The other most famous aspect of Norfax is its use of drones and robotics, and how deeply that is entrenched in the culture of the region. It is said there are more robots than people in Norfax, though no count has been made. Locals of Norfax will commonly give themselves mechanical augmentations as a status symbol or a symbol of artistic expression, something looked upon as odd even among many Umojans. The art of this region is also very mechanical, scientific, and basic, lending itself to life in Norfax being based around coexistence with machine.

It's in this region that the most renowned engineering university in the sector, Umojan Central University, lies. It's said there's not a bullet fired from a Umojan rifle that someone at UCU didn't agonize over. Students of UCU are the best and brightest academic engineers of the sector, and during the conflicts of the early 2500s they were key targets for hire and kidnapping by the terran powers of the sector, aiding in the construction of some of the Dominion's most advanced war machines. Because of its exclusivity, Norfax's local police forces and Umoja itself are very protective of UCU, and even those permitted to visit the planet are explicitly not allowed on the university's premises. However, many among the sector's more practical hands-on engineers, such as that of Raynor's Raiders, saw students of UCU as masters of academic theory but weak in real engineering skills, leading to later shift in the Dominion away from the reverence of this institution after the Raiders' victory over the Dominion.

The region's agriculture and terraforming technology have become the standard for Umoja, still producing a massive amount of the Protectorate's foodstuffs due to their renewable technology, and as the continent is largely barren, experimentation does not carry the risk of heavy environmental damage. Most citrus fruits in the sector, particularly those from Earth, are grown in Norfax. Along the southern and western coast swaths of normal grassland still exist, and remain largely untouched by the Umojan construction effort. In spite of this, the actual output can feed a portion of Umoja, but is not sufficient for the Protectorate at large, which lead to large issues during the Dominion food embargo of the Protectorate.

Thunis
Thunis is the moon of Umoja, an oddly shaped celestial body made of a from carbon-rich materials, with a significant amount of nickle, iron, and the high density metals needed to facilitate the growth of the mineral outcroppings synonymous with the Koprulu Sector. Thunis was not formed from Umoja, rather it is a large asteroid that was at some point caught in the planet's gravitational pull. Thunis is in a rather high orbit, but one that is gradually decaying, and it is speculated that in 50 billion years Thunis will finally collide with Umoja.

Thunis's most noted resource is its abundance of minerals compared to the relatively low mineral outcroppings on Umoja. This was a benefit to early Umoja space travel attempts, as though finding the resources for worthy spacecraft was a struggle, the minerals needed to make neosteel from the moon and eventually from the outer belt of the Umojan system kickstarted Umoja into a full space age relatively quickly after their initial atmospheric escape.

From the ground, Thunis looks a deep red color due to the atmospheric tint of Umoja's sky, which has given it a layman's name of "the Crimson," though from space is moon is a dark grey color. In spite of its higher orbit, the shallower oceans of Umoja mean that Thunis has relativity strong tidal forces upon the planet.

Settlement of Thunis is uncommon aside from mineral and metal mining operations. Both Thunis and the asteroid mining of the Umojan system has been a a subject of much research and experimentation, as early on Confederate T-280s were the most efficient way to mine these resources. However, Umoja later developed the HERC Asteroid Mining Suit, a more flexible and durable safety gear. While complexity unintentional from its original design, the HERC armor was very quickly repurposed for defense and combat use by struggling Umojan miners or mercenaries who could get their hands on them.

The Orbital Cities
Not long after space travel and the discovery of Moria and Tarsonis, Umoja traded information with the Confederacy for Tarsonis's burgeoning orbital platforms, an envy of the sector at the time. Umoja got to work on the creation of their own platforms to serve as space docks and scientific research bases. This was the start of the series of space platforms that would become the Orbital Cities.

Initially these platforms were not intended for life-long habitation, as the full effects of living in space for extended periods were untested and a worry of Umojan authorities. These platforms first served as docking bays, and later trading hubs for ships of the other nations and colonies of the sector. However, when the Confederacy began to expand aggressivly and Umoja cut off their borders, what little trade Umoja would do would be limited to the platforms, not allowing any foreign nationals to go down to the planet unless they were first approved. The platforms then became the one way merchants of Umoja could peddle their wares and trade on the international market, so residential zones were constructed, and a shuttle network between these platforms were made. Soon an entire generation and culture was born and raised on these platforms, with only some common bone deficiencies. A brief political battle later on the representation of these platforms lead to their full appearance as a member of the Ruling Council in 2477.

People of the Orbital Cities also have an affinity toward pirates and smugglers, as these bases became a haven for them during the aftermath of the Brood War, when Dominion sanctions meant that the Protectorate was suffering food shortages. In response, smugglers were hired from across the sector secretly to haul livestock and food from the Dominion into their worlds. Many in the cities have taken a positive view of these smugglers, which they see as freedom fighters and liberators, but their glorification of a criminal field has lead to the stereotype of Platformers as less trustworthy group among more hardline planetbound Umojans.

Of the more interesting platforms, in their push for self-sufficiency, are platforms devoted almost entirely to space-based agriculture in low gravity. These were developed after Dominion tarriffs put the stranglehold on Umojan foodstuffs following the Brood War, which put many Protectorate worlds and even many of the Orbital Cities at risk of mass food shortages. These platforms blends of soil, plant and metal have met with some success in feeding the people of the space platforms without the need for Umoja itself. Such a drive for self-sufficiency away from their mother planet is a common and growing idea among those in the Orbital Cities.