[Anargo subsector] Etheria - EarthScorpionised!

[EarthScorpion]

...well, not fully.  Or at all, really, because it's not really weird enough to be properly EarthScorpionised.  And it's too short. 

I'm basing it off the original text, but the dystopia is played up a bit, and the "we're-awesome-and-we-have-great-technology-but-we-hate-the-AdMech" is played down.  Ironically, I've come full circle, as it's close to my original idea for Faustri, which was "tech-heresy means that government is replaced by Mechanicus-guided puppet".

ETHERIA
B89988A-A N Ri 702 Im 7BB
Planet name: Etheria
World class: Civilised World
Population: 7,000,000,000
Tech level: A (modified)
Tithe Grade: Decuma Prima
Aestimare: C250

Orbital Distance: 0.7 AU
Equatorial Diameter: 8,100 miles (12,960 km)
Gravity: 1.08 terra
Orbital Period: 220.635 standard days
Rotation Period: 18.343 standard hours
Atmosphere: Standard oxygen-nitrogen mix, with moderate pollution taint
Surface Atmospheric Pressure: 1.8 atm
Base Mean Surface Temperature: 23.607 degrees C
Hydrosphere: 86% Tainted liquid water
Indigenous Life forms: Exist

Planet description

The aqueous world of Etheria is relatively close to being a Terran-Optimal world.  The atmosphere, although almost twice as thick as that of ancient Terran, is still easily breathable, and remains remarkably unpolluted for a world which has seen around 15,000 continuous years of human habitation.  The limited land masses are covered in dense jungle, genetically engineered to keep away from the gleaming cities, which emerge from the depths of the vegetation.  The jungles fulfil a vital role, as they have been modified to lock the byproducts of the industry of Etheria up in their remains, which are collected and dumped at sea by servitor-crewed harvesters.  The shallow costal seas are themselves green, as the vast algae farms, and, further out, fish farms, which produce the food for the population, smother the seabed.

The thick atmosphere permits creatures to exist which would not on other worlds.  Many large predators can fly, soaring through the dense air; an evolutionary adaptation to the need to be able to get to different island chains to feed and meet.  The dominant natural family of life bears some resemblance to a Terran lizard, but the addition of a hard carapace, viable in this environment, makes it unmistakably alien.   

The cities of Etheria are superficially clean, with white, chrome and black glass as a dominant theme; the straight lines of STC template buildings smoothed and made more organic in appearance. Great smooth ribbons of plasticrete wind out and around the cities like coils of string, punctured by the arrow straight mag-engine lines which criss-cross the planet like a great web.  While the structure of the civilisation is nowhere near a hive, the population density has been kept high, with integrated archaeologies, short enough that the transparent domes which arc between the tallest buildings allow light to beam down to the lower levels.  The reflective windows of the higher levels have been well designed, with light being reflected down, even when the sun has passed its zenith.

Up in the sky hangs the Watchtowers, the pride of Etheria.  The Watchtowers, which are orbital habitats, are supposedly the residence of some of the best and brightest in the planetary meritocracy.  They are, in fact, the hub of the surveliance network which watches the entire planet.  Some hang stationary in geosynchronous orbits, the receptor stations.  Other operate lower, in polar orbits, swinging around so that any point on the planet can be seen at any time.  The volunteers which chose a post on them are only accepted if they are meticulous, observant, and intelligent; perfect, in fact, to be linked into a mind-machine interface, their brains enhanced so that they can cope with the massive data feeds, and their DNA used as samples for the vat-grown organic cognitor parts which the Mechanicus produces.   

Below the feet of the populace, however, the machinery and gears, which keep Etheria the planet it is, reside.  These aesthetics below are what might be deemed typical of the Adeptus Mechanicus; utilitarian in a way that the surface is not, with the workings exposed so that they may be repaired easily, should anything break down.  The vast majority of the citizenry will never venture down here, and would be disgusted if they did.  Creatures, gengineered by the Magos Biologis below for whatever purpose they wish, roam the depths, with creatures which would be apex predators on any other world surprisingly low on the food chain.  The hollow places under the ancient cities are where the things that the population do not want to see, or know about, go.  The fusion reactors reside beneath the feet of the citizens, as do the factories which make the masses of vat-grown flesh needed for the planet.



Government

The government of Etheria appears to be a meritocracy, where a worldwide institution educates those who are interested in working in the government and picks the best candidates through rigorous exams, psychological testing and personal interviews. Every official and electoral candidate of the government is chosen by this institution, called the Etherian Agent Selection Bureau, or simply the Bureau. For less significant positions, such as city mayors and regional ministers, the process is executed entirely by this institution. For more critical positions, however, such as significant leaders of each continent or the position of Imperial commander itself, officials of certain influence are free to pose as a candidate in a democratic election. Before candidates may be voted upon, however, the Bureau’s Peer Council must test every candidate according to their own strict regulations. Their demands are usually so strict, that only the brightest, most experienced and competent leaders are available for such democratic elections, to ensure that incompetent world leaders do not rise to power simply due to popularity.

The government of Etheria is a lie.  After the planet, collectively, was deemed guilty of hereteknical deeds, and blasphemy against the Omnissiah, the Adeptus Mechanicus demanded oversight of the planet, to prevent a recurrence of the deeds and thoughts that were deeply engrained in the culture and psych of the populace.  It was fought long and hard by both the Administratum and the then-young Ministorum; the former as had the planet been taken as a Forge World, it would have been no longer paying tithes, and the latter for theological reasons.  A compromise was worked out; the Machine Cult would be permitted to control the planet from behind the scenes, but the world would still be an Imperial world, and the Imperial Cult would remain the dominant faith.  The top of their meritocratic system was compromised, after the entire Peer Council was threatened with both excommunication and execution, with the Peer Council’s control over the candidates for posts maintained.  This led to the formation of the Office of Oversight.  The number of individuals in the Etherian government who know what Oversight actually is can be measured in the double digits, the vast majority of which are on the Peer Council.  In fact, working out what the Office is, is a necessary part of being accepted as a part of the Peer Council.  When they work it out, they are offered a place on it, serving the people of Etheria, despite how they would hate you if they know, or they are seized by Oversight.   People at all levels of society will receive messages signed “Oversight”; they are raised from childhood to obey them.  Often, the security services will be told to arrest a man or woman, despite lack of evidence, and hand her over without questions asked to “Operatives of Oversight”.  Oversight seems, to the population, to know everything.

The Office of Oversight is the collective board of representatives of the Administratum and the Adeptus Mechanicus, and is a tool for both factions in their individual manipulations of the planet.  People who fail to meet quotas repeatedly will be disappeared by Oversight, as will people who dabble in high-end technology.  In the latter case, those people are given an offer to repent their sins, and train as a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, despite the ingrained prejudices of Etherian culture.  A surprising number do, when it is pointed out that they will be able to see the real truth of the universe, and are inducted into the mystery cult of the Cult of the Omnissiah.  The rest are subject to servitorisation.  The Administratum, on the other hand, runs factories on isolated islands, which double as prisons.  Their prisoners labour until they die, making goods for the tithe.

The Imperial commander of Etheria is known as the Prime Facilitor, and normally enjoys great confidence from the people, due to the complex selection process enforced by the Bureau.  Unknown to the populace, the Prime Facilitator is always the same personality, but not the same person.  Once the Prime Facilitator candidates have been approved by the Peer Council, and one has been selected, the new Prime Facilitator has their brain modified, and their personality (although not their memories) overwritten by an approved memory-engram, chosen from an individual who is both obedient and stable.  The process shortens the life of the Prime Facilitator noticeably; most are selected in their forties or early fifties, but it is rare for a Prime Facilitator to see their sixtieth birthday.  They must be monitored continuously, as the personality overwrite is not always stable, and at least one Facilitator a century, on average, has “died in their sleep from a massive stroke”, as their brain rejects the new personality.  Alone out of the posts in the government, the Prime Facilitator post is for life, shortened though that may be.


Religion

The Imperial cult holds sway over the population and by decree of the ruling elite the only form of religion that is still legal. In general the populous is more apathetic than devout, though as in any large group of individuals some are more pious than others. Worship is not limited or proscribed, but the pace of life on Etheria tends to mean people have little time for devotions unless they make an effort to make time, and so once a week is the norm for those who choose to go to temple.  Indeed Etheria seems to drifting away from religion altogether, the current climate of low crime, high personal wealth and confidence in science to solve all problems, has in some instance led to derision of foolish superstitions and rituals.  This has led to increased promotion of faith by the government, and the seizure of several of the most prominent protestors by Oversight; the terms of the dominion over the govermnet requires that the Imperial Cult be the dominant faith, and the weakening that has ensured is not desired.

Society and law

The Law is all seeing and all knowing according to most, and all aspects of life are monitored by a dizzying array of surveillance and intelligence devices, fully accessible in real time by the security forces of Etheria. The criminal fraternity cannot beat the overwhelming control of the planet by the security forces, so they must resport to bribery, or venture into the Underneath, where security is notably lessened, although the chance of being consumed by the denizens of the depths is very high.

Cameras are omnipresent on Etheria.  Each building has at least one servitor, their brain pruned of all neural connections except for memory and vision, in a secure room, watching through every camera simultaneously.  The natural facial recognition abilities of the human mind, coupled with the near-total database of the state, means that an individual’s movement is tracked continuously.  To get through any external door, it is necessary to give a blood sample; this would be an impossible and inefficient proposition, were it not for the efficient design of Etherian cities, where your place of work is likely the same building as your residence.  A selection of modified avian species, bearing some resemblance to raptors, each one adjusted to detect a different type of explosive, fly within the cities. They are designed to attack anyone who smells of the explosive they are attuned to, and can kill a human being with ease.  It is for that reason that Etherian security forces only use lasweapons; the breed which is modified to find weapon propellant is the largest and the most armoured.  The cities must, by law, have devices which monitor background radiation installed every ten metres along a pathway, and within every home; any moving increase is tracked, and noted.  The blood-scans, meanwhile, also check for any diseases (which is one of the reasons that they are actually popular), and will inform a person on the spot if they should see a doctor, although the presence of a militarised bioweapon will have a containment team dispatched immediately. 

Weapons are prohibited to all but authorised personnel, and to this end weapon detectors can be found at regular intervals through out a city, in such a pattern so as to be unavoidable.  All weapons manufactured on, or imported to Etheria are tagged with multiple microchips, and a device which allows the weapon to be deactivated remotely, by destroying the trigger.

Genetic records begin at birth for every individual;  to decrease needless criminalisation all citizens of Etheria are required to submit to a genetic exam every 2 years. Biometric tags are implanted at birth to monitor physical and mental health, and are used to track every single individual resident.  Psykers are also the last great ace up the sleeve of planetary security and are a method of crime detection and prevention that most criminals find impossible to subvert, although their main purpose is to find more of their kind. Out beyond the population centres there is very little in the way of obvious surveillance, but the jungle-nature of it, and the (deliberately exaggerated) threat of predators, means that the populace are discouraged from leaving the safety of the “Designated Environmental Experience Centres”, areas which have been tamed and made hospitable.  This has the beneficial effect that dissidents, who might assume that all the jungle is like a DEEC through lack of experience, have a good chance of being consumed.  Moreover, any individual who leaves a “normal” zone, begins broadcasting to the satellite network, rather than the nearest transceiver, just making them stand out.  The satellite network, including the Watchtower orbital habitats, is comprehensive.  At any time, any point on the surface of the planet can be focussed upon.

Technology

There is a large discrepancy between the technology available to the government and the resident members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the individual citizens.  The rejection, and often outright hostility of the population to the Mechanicus and their obvious bionics, to the extent that visiting Tech-Priests who have ignored the warnings have been lynched in the streets, has led to a refusal to give any technology which requires an active Tech-Priest (by the doctrines of the Mechanicus, and their mystery-cult nature) to operative.  To the population, the security and control apparatus is magic, beyond what they would encounter.  The common technology available is average for a civilised world; each residence has a vid-screen, which also has a camera which can be used to communicate with others.  The dense nature of the cities precludes personal ownership of vehicles.  Pre-natal scanning is mandatory, at two, four and eight months, both to take the first DNA check of the child (including informing the father should it not be his), and to check for mutation.  Should it be there, the foetus, regardless of development, is aborted.  Should the same couple produce three infants that are aborted in that fashion, the couple are sterilised.

The Adepts of Mars who are assigned to this world are, and have been historically, members of the Organicist faction.  Dating back to the first Adepts tasked with this, Etheria has been a dumping ground for the more radical Organicists of Proteus, and the ones trained here have followed in that tradition.  The extension of the use of servitors-type beings, from the watchers on the Watchtowers, and the further development of other such, smarter-than-usual servitors, who actually blur the line between a servitor and a human, is a local development.  The massive number of available test subjects, and the fact that they have access to a planet’s worth of DNA records, means that the stock-lines are precise to a rarely seen degree.  The technology available to them, and used to maintain the city and the high-technology surveillance devices, remains less than that of either Proteus or the younger Anargo Secundus, although, in the limited fields of servitor stock-lines, and of genetic modification, they equal in places.


Trade and tithes

Etheria tithes mostly in men and manufactured goods.  The population is large enough, especially when the prodigious size of the security forces, which include the PDF, that a decent level of Guard recruitment can be maintained.  The main area of expertise, though, is in manufactured components for other planets.  The local labour works well at smaller scales, and so the factories of Etheria are a major source of sub-components.  However, the age of the settlement means that the easily accessible ore and minerals have been depleted, and thus it is a massive importer of raw materials for those goods.  These goods are both exported for profits and tithed; the tithes tending to be components of military goods.

Part of the reason the Administratum acceded to the demands of the Adeptus Mechanicus for the planet was that they had extracted a concession in that the production of the members of the Adepts of Mars stationed on the planet would count partially as the production of the planet, not of the Mechanicus, and thus can be tithed.  The tithes which the rest of the population suffers are thus notably, to an outside observer, lighter than they should be, as the high-technology is disproportionably valuable.  Etheria specialises in the specialities of the Organicists.  The Etherian servitor stock-line is objectively viewed as excellent quality, as they have increased muscle density and some breeds retain some small degree of initiative.  The Etherian population is also a useful source of the components of juvenat drugs, which are sold to the entire sector.

[CELS]

I like it. And I have to say, I'm very thankful indeed that you're working on Dazo's worlds after he's left. The release of our website is only ten days away, but maybe we're able to pull it off. I will at least make sure that I keep up my end and finish the articles that are listed in my name.

Now, I don't really recall the original version of this SR very well, so I can't really comment on the changes you've made compared to the original version. But from your own summary of the changes, it sounds very good. I always enjoy a bit of dystopia, as you know.

Planet description;
Quite nice. Evocative. Well written. I do have to say, however, that I've never seen such a masterful use of commas as in the following sentence. "The shallow costal seas are themselves green, as the vast algae farms, and, further out, fish farms, which produce the food for the population, smother the seabed."
Also, I suppose that in "Many large predators can fly, soaring through the dense air; an evolutionary adaptation to the need to be able to get to different island chains to feed and meet", 'meet' should be 'mate'.

Government;
Generally very interesting and original, as far as 40k governments go. I like the conspiracy, it's quite unusual compared to the other worlds in the Anargo sector. Unfortunately, while I rather like the content, the writing style in the Government section is a bit lacking at times. A bit too conversational, if you know what I mean. "When they work it out, they are offered a place on it, serving the people of Etheria, despite how they would hate you if they know, or they are seized by Oversight." But while I think the writing is a bit clunky, the content is good.

Oh, and I think "servitorisation" should be "servitordom", using the GW/ Black Library lingo

Religion;
It'd be great if you could spice this section up with one or two details about the local government. At the moment it's a bit Vanilla Light - just standard Imperial Creed, but softer due to the increasing secularisation. Etheria is an old world, colonised in M30, so even if religion is increasingly unpopular, I imagine there would still be a few distinct religious traits to seperate this world from others. Sacrificing animals or meals, worshipping ancestors, connecting certain colours with divinity, ritual chastisement, pilgrimage, etc.

Society and law;
Pretty good, except that the satelite network doesn't sit quite right with me. It's just not very 40k-y. I'd much rather see an extensive use of Watchtowers and servo-skulls / psyber-avians. Maybe others will disagree with me here. Having said that, while I enjoy the information about the law system on Etheria, I'm missing a bit of information about the society. Distribution of wealth, culture, social structure, that kind of stuff.

Technology;
I like it. Not much else to say

Trade and tithes;
Again, I like it.

[Kage2020]

To be honest, I kinda like it.  While some "40k-fication" might be useful, sometimes that can be overdone and pushing an SR into something that is built upon imagery rather than something of greater substance.

Kage

[Dazo]

Its not that different Cels, some points are different but I think its for the best, my version was to utopian for Anargo anyway, apart from a few spelling errors its good stuff E.S

[EarthScorpion]

Right, a repost of all the changes I've made, including where I've got up to in the history.  I have a family holdiay on Wednesday, so if it's all approved or suggested quickly, then I'll probaly be able to get it into the proper form.

Dazo, do you have the worldart and the crest?

ETHERIA
B89988A-A N Ri 702 Im 7BB
Planet name: Etheria
World class: Civilised World
Population: 7,000,000,000
Tech level: A (modified)
Tithe Grade: Decuma Prima
Aestimare: C250

Orbital Distance: 0.7 AU
Equatorial Diameter: 8,100 miles (12,960 km)
Gravity: 1.08 terra
Orbital Period: 220.635 standard days
Rotation Period: 18.343 standard hours
Atmosphere: Standard oxygen-nitrogen mix, with moderate pollution taint
Surface Atmospheric Pressure: 1.8 atm
Base Mean Surface Temperature: 23.607 degrees C
Hydrosphere: 86% Tainted liquid water
Indigenous Life forms: Exist

Planet description

The aqueous world of Etheria is relatively close to being a Terran-Optimal world.  The atmosphere, although almost twice as thick as that of ancient Terran, is still easily breathable, and remains remarkably unpolluted for a world which has seen around 15,000 continuous years of human habitation.  The limited land masses are covered in dense jungle, genetically engineered to keep away from the gleaming cities, which emerge from the depths of the vegetation.  The jungles fulfil a vital role, as they have been modified to lock the byproducts of the industry of Etheria up in their remains, which are collected and dumped at sea by servitor-crewed harvesters.  The shallow costal seas that surround the land are green, as the vast algae farms, and, further out, fish farms, smother the seabed.  These provide the food which feeds the population of Etheria; the large area devoted allows a good diet for the population, with the monotony alleviated through flavouring.

The thick atmosphere permits creatures to exist which would not on other worlds.  Many large predators can fly, soaring through the dense air; an evolutionary adaptation to the need to be able to get to different island chains to feed and find mates.  The dominant natural family of life bears some resemblance to a Terran lizard, but the addition of a hard carapace, viable in this environment, makes it unmistakably alien.   

The cities of Etheria are superficially clean, with white, chrome and black glass as a dominant theme; the straight lines of STC template buildings smoothed and made more organic in appearance. Great smooth ribbons of plasticrete wind out and around the cities like coils of string, punctured by the arrow straight mag-engine lines which criss-cross the planet like a great web.  While the structure of the civilisation is nowhere near a hive, the population density has been kept high, with integrated archaeologies, short enough that the transparent domes which arc between the tallest buildings allow light to beam down to the lower levels.  The reflective windows of the higher levels have been well designed, with light being reflected down, even when the sun has passed its zenith.

Up in the sky hangs the Watchtowers, the pride of Etheria.  The Watchtowers, which are orbital habitats, are supposedly the residence of some of the best and brightest in the planetary meritocracy.  They are, in fact, the hub of the surveliance network which watches the entire planet.  Some hang stationary in geosynchronous orbits, the receptor stations.  Other operate lower, in polar orbits, swinging around so that any point on the planet can be seen at any time.  The volunteers which chose a post on them are only accepted if they are meticulous, observant, and intelligent; perfect, in fact, to be linked into a mind-machine interface, their brains enhanced so that they can cope with the massive data feeds, and their DNA used as samples for the vat-grown organic cognitor parts which the Mechanicus produces.   

Below the feet of the populace, however, the machinery and gears, which keep Etheria the planet it is, reside.  These aesthetics below are what might be deemed typical of the Adeptus Mechanicus; utilitarian in a way that the surface is not, with the workings exposed so that they may be repaired easily, should anything break down.  The vast majority of the citizenry will never venture down here, and would be disgusted if they did.  Creatures, gengineered by the Magos Biologis below for whatever purpose they wish, roam the depths, with creatures which would be apex predators on any other world surprisingly low on the food chain.  The hollow places under the ancient cities are where the things that the population do not want to see, or know about, go.  The fusion reactors reside beneath the feet of the citizens, as do the factories which make the masses of vat-grown flesh needed for the planet.



Government
The government of Etheria appears to be a meritocracy, where a worldwide institution educates those who are interested in working in the government and picks the best candidates through rigorous exams, psychological testing and personal interviews. Every official and electoral candidate of the government is chosen by this institution, called the Etherian Agent Selection Bureau, or simply the Bureau. For less significant positions, such as city mayors and regional ministers, the process is executed entirely by this institution. For more critical positions, however, such as significant leaders of each continent or the position of Imperial commander itself, officials of certain influence are free to pose as a candidate in a democratic election. Before candidates may be voted upon, however, the Bureau’s Peer Council must test every candidate according to their own strict regulations. Their demands are usually so strict, that only the brightest, most experienced and competent leaders are available for such democratic elections, to ensure that incompetent world leaders do not rise to power simply due to popularity.

The government of Etheria is a lie.  After the planet, collectively, was deemed guilty of hereteknical deeds, and blasphemy against the Omnissiah, the Adeptus Mechanicus demanded oversight of the planet, to prevent a recurrence of the deeds and thoughts that were deeply engrained in the culture and psych of the populace.  It was fought long and hard by both the Administratum and the then-young Ministorum; the former as had the planet been taken as a Forge World, it would have been no longer paying tithes, and the latter for theological reasons.  A compromise was worked out; the Machine Cult would be permitted to control the planet from behind the scenes, but the world would still be an Imperial world, and the Imperial Cult would remain the dominant faith.  The top of their meritocratic system was compromised, after the entire Peer Council was threatened with both excommunication and execution.  The Peer Council’s control over the candidates for posts was maintained, but there existed a veto over the decisions of the Council.  The shift in government also led to the formation of the Office of Oversight.  The number of individuals in the Etherian government who know what Oversight actually is can be measured in the double digits, the vast majority of which are on the Peer Council.  In fact, deduction of the nature of Oversight is a necessary part of being accepted onto the Peer Council.  When the candidate, or indeed any individual, works out what the Office truly is, they are seized, and presented with a choice; join the Peer Council, and tell no-one else of their discovery, or be consigned to servitordom.  Every member of the Peer Council has been publicly declared a traitor and a subversionist, with their faces presented on Hate Days, as examples of the vilest rebels.  The Council have undergone both retro-viral DNA modification and plastic surgery, and have had new identities as model citizens created for them.  This practice adds another layer of security; should the Councillor turn against the Council, then their previous identity would be revealed, and the fact that they succeeded in infiltrating the Council would merely show that treachery is everywhere.  The Peer Council are martyrs in their own minds; they go against everything they are raised to believe in to serve the populace.  That their position confers power and technology far beyond what they had before is viewed as just compensation for such deeds.

The Office of Oversight is the collective board of representatives of the Administratum and the Adeptus Mechanicus, and is a tool for both factions in their individual manipulations of the planet.  People at all levels of society will receive messages signed “Oversight”; they are raised from childhood to obey them.  Often, the security services will be told to arrest a man or woman, despite lack of evidence, and hand her over without questions asked to “Operatives of Oversight”.  Oversight seems, to the population, to know everything.  Those who fail to meet quotas repeatedly will be disappeared by Oversight, as will people who dabble in high-end technology.  In the latter case, those people are given an offer to repent their sins, and train as a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, despite the ingrained prejudices of Etherian culture.  A surprising number do, when it is pointed out that they will be able to see the real truth of the universe, and are inducted into the mystery cult of the Cult of the Omnissiah.  The rest are subject to servitorisation.  The Administratum, on the other hand, runs factories on isolated islands, which double as prisons.  Their prisoners labour until they die, making goods for the tithe.

The Imperial commander of Etheria is known as the Prime Facilitor, and normally enjoys great confidence from the people, due to the complex selection process enforced by the Bureau.  Unknown to the populace, the Prime Facilitator is always the same personality, but not the same person.  Once the Prime Facilitator candidates have been approved by the Peer Council, and one has been selected, the new Prime Facilitator has their brain modified, and their personality (although not their memories) overwritten by an approved memory-engram, chosen from an individual who is both obedient and stable.  The process shortens the life of the Prime Facilitator noticeably; most are selected in their forties or early fifties, but it is rare for a Prime Facilitator to see their sixtieth birthday.  They must be monitored continuously, as the personality overwrite is not always stable, and at least one Facilitator a century, on average, has “died in their sleep from a massive stroke”, as their brain rejects the new personality.  Alone out of the posts in the government, the Prime Facilitator post is for life, shortened though that may be.


Religion
The Imperial cult holds sway over the population and by decree of the ruling elite the only form of religion that is still legal. In general the populous is more apathetic than devout, though as in any large group of individuals some are more pious than others. Worship is not limited or proscribed, but the pace of life on Etheria tends to mean people have little time for devotions unless they make an effort to make time, and so once a week is the norm for those who choose to go to temple.  Indeed Etheria seems to drifting away from religion altogether, the current climate of low crime, high personal wealth and confidence in science to solve all problems, has in some instance led to derision of foolish superstitions and rituals.  This has led to increased promotion of faith by the government, and the seizure of several of the most prominent protestors by Oversight; the terms of the dominion over the govermnet requires that the Imperial Cult be the dominant faith, and the weakening that has ensured is not desired.

The classic faith has a noted number of oddities, due to the fact that the world predates the Imperium.  Sensory deprivation is exceedingly prevalent in all religious ceremonies.  All churches are completely dark during ceremonies, and are built without windows.  When the lights are turned off, and the hermetic seals on the doors activated, a susurration of recorded voices begins to play in the background, beneath the words of the priest (who may be of either gender).  These prayers are officially those of the most devout parishioners in the history of the church, which can date back thousands of years.  Naturally, subliminal messages of obedience and loyalty are ingrained in these messages.  The eldest voice in such a church dates back to an individual named Palia Fitz-Xu.  According to church records, she was a soldier of the Imperial Army who was discharged after injuries in battle, and brought the words of the divinity of the Emperor to Etheria, in the days when he still walked as a man.  These archaic words, in High Gothic, are played in the Cathedral of Unity, a towering monolith of polished black basalt, with layered depictions of scenes from history overlain in obsidian and silver.  The hollow obelisk reaches almost a kilometre in high, towering over all the other buildings in the capital.  On the inside, the citizens pray in the galleries on the inside, while the presiding priest, usually the Hierophant of Etheria, preaches from the top.  Her voice echoes down all the way to the bottom, as carefully designed baffles and funnels, in a marvel of acoustic engineering allow the entire building to hear her voice, their senses amplified by the dark.

The use of sensory deprivation is based upon a simple statement of faith, from the words of the (blinded in battle) Palia Fitz-Xu.  “One who has given their eyes for humanity sees the light of the Emperor; one who has given ears for him hears his words”, is the most commonly accepted translation.  This has lead to a notable tradition of self-mutilation in Etherian religion.  The government frowns upon the removal of eyes or both ears, but it is a common practice among the more faithful in society to have an ear removed, or chemical treatments applied to remove the senses of touch, taste or smell.  The phantom feelings produced by the absence of the normal sense are believed to be a gift from the Emperor.  The tingles across the surface of their skin, which a person who has removed their sense of touch suffers, are known as the Caress of the Emperor, for example.  There is also the belief that a person who has lost multiple senses is a holy figure.  Individuals, who would be beggars on other planets, crippled by industrial accidents, become religious figures for a hab-block along the lines of a bodhisattva.  People will go to them for guidance and advice; this practice has long tradition, and is tacitly encouraged by the government, although adds extra surveillance to these individuals, to ensure that they do not promote heresy.

The other religious tradition are the Odious Days, also known as Days of Hate.  There are 288.679 revolutions in the 220.635 standard day year, which is rounded to a 288 revolution year, with a leap-year every other year.  However, only 285 of those days are counted for the purposes of labour.  The remaining days, which can be three, four or even five, depending upon the adjustment, are known as the Odious Days, and are located at the end of the year.  They are a sanctioned opportunity for the population to run wild; the biolocks that seal the hab-blocks are deactivated, and there are typically parties on the streets.  The days are named; there is always the Day of Traitors, the Day of Laziness, and the Day of Cowardice, with the others named by the Prime Facilitator.  The local political functionaries are keen to comment on the names of any other days, believing them to indicate government policy for the next two local years; a belief which is wrong.  The population is encouraged to built pyres of examples of the sin of the day; although there must always be something living on the fire.  This creature becomes a scapegoat for everyone who contributed, and thus their sins are burned along with the animal.  For example, the list of Traitors issued by the government comes with their images, and thus many pyres on the Day of Traitors will have an animal with a mask bearing the resemblance of that individual burned alive.  These days are a cathartic opportunity for people to vent any frustrations which build up over the year, but also serve as subtle social conditioning.  Life is made subtly less pleasant (such as the removal of all external lights in the cities), and drunken and disorderly behaviour is not overtly punished (although it is still monitored and recorded), with the chaos of those days intended to leave citizens appreciating the rigid control over their society when it is past.   

[EarthScorpion]

Society and law
The Law is all seeing and all knowing according to most, all aspects of life are monitored by a dizzying array of surveillance and intelligence devices, fully accessible in real time by the security forces of Etheria. The criminal fraternity cannot beat the overwhelming control of the planet by the security forces, so they must resport to bribery, or venture into the Underneath, where security is notably lessened, although the chance of being consumed by the denizens of the depths is very high.

Cameras are omnipresent on Etheria.  Each building has at least one servitor, their brain pruned of all neural connections except for memory and vision, in a secure room, watching through every camera simultaneously.  The natural facial recognition abilities of the human mind, coupled with the near-total database of the state, means that an individual’s movement is tracked continuously.  To get through any external door, it is necessary to give a blood sample; this would be an impossible and inefficient proposition, were it not for the efficient design of Etherian cities, where your place of work is likely the same building as your residence.  A selection of modified avian species, bearing some resemblance to raptors, each one adjusted to detect a different type of explosive, fly within the cities. They are designed to attack anyone who smells of the explosive they are attuned to, and can kill a human being with ease.  It is for that reason that Etherian security forces only use lasweapons; the breed which is modified to find weapon propellant is the largest and the most armoured.  The cities must, by law, have devices which monitor background radiation installed every ten metres along a pathway, and within every home; any moving increase is tracked, and noted.  The blood-scans, meanwhile, also check for any diseases (which is one of the reasons that they are actually popular), and will inform a person on the spot if they should see a doctor, although the presence of a militarised bioweapon will have a containment team dispatched immediately. 

Weapons are prohibited to all but authorised personnel, and to this end weapon detectors can be found at regular intervals through out a city, in such a pattern so as to be unavoidable.  All weapons manufactured on, or imported to Etheria are tagged with multiple microchips, and a device which allows the weapon to be deactivated remotely, by destroying the trigger.

Genetic records begin at birth for every individual; to decrease needless criminalisation all citizens of Etheria are required to submit to a genetic exam every 2 years. Biometric tags are implanted at birth to monitor physical and mental health, and are used to track every single individual resident.  Psykers are also the last great ace up the sleeve of planetary security and are a method of crime detection and prevention that most criminals find impossible to subvert, although their main purpose is to find more of their kind. Out beyond the population centres there is very little in the way of obvious surveillance, but the jungle-nature of it, and the (deliberately exaggerated) threat of predators, means that the populace are discouraged from leaving the safety of the “Designated Environmental Experience Centres”, areas which have been tamed and made hospitable.  This has the beneficial effect that dissidents, who might assume that all the jungle is like a DEEC through lack of experience, have a good chance of being consumed.  Moreover, any individual who leaves a “normal” zone, begins broadcasting to the satellite network, rather than the nearest transceiver, just making them stand out.  The satellite network, including the Watchtower orbital habitats, is comprehensive.  At any time, any point on the surface of the planet can be focussed upon.

Etherian culture is relatively flat, socially.  All individuals are employed by either the government, or one of the multitude of government service firms which can be founded by an individual who has reached the necessary rank to become a mayor of a city.  The service firms take the more niche roles, and can vary their employees’ salaries between certain pre-set bounds.  There claims to be a free press, and the papers and news channels, carefully tailored to appeal to different demographics, put up a convincing illusion; there are specific topics which the journalists can hold different opinions, and certain news organs designated as “radical” are even permitted to disagree with the government on minor issues.  For example, the Free People’s Channel, a vid-channel designed for the A-1 (the low-ranking manual workers) demographic, in 468.M41, held a campaign, including rallies and marches, to relax the censorship of images shown on late night channels, and was granted its request.  The decision to do that had been made two years before the channel was told to start the campaign, and a controversy organised to justify it.   

Etherians are given a working rank, which dictates allowance to housing and food, of the format [letter][letter][number from nought to nine].  The two letters indicate their profession; the number dictates the rank in that.  For example, a citizen of rank AC1 would be a base level untrained individual responsible for street sanitation.  All people of the same number are entitled to the same housing and personal allowances, although higher numbers only result in the ability to purchase only slightly better goods.  The rank of zero indicates that the individual is a traitor or criminal who should be apprehended immediately.  The population resides in hab-blocks; large areas of interconnected buildings, which contain their workplace and their housing.  To leave a hab-block, it is necessary to give a blood sample, thus keeping the population locked down.  Individuals whose task requires them to move between hab-blocks will have an area numbed and a fast healing epidermal graft, which allows the blood to be taken more easily, without pain.  Marriages are civil as opposed to religious in nature, and typically between co-workers, although a notable minority of marriages are organised between people who have never met, using their vid-screen and dating services which can be accessed using it.  Most people spend their lives being moved from hab-block to hab-block, where their particular skills are needed.  Most do not rise above the rank of Supervisor, rank 3, and are permitted to retire upon their final salary, at the age of seventy-eight standard years.  The system is, in theory, meritocratic, although in practice it is necessary to excel young to be given administrative responsibilities.  In formal situations an individual’s name is followed by their rank, so Iozef Breachtean, of rank ES8, would be addressed as Iozef Breachtean Minister, or Minister of the Salebiz Region.

For those who rebel, socially, against the system, the only way of avoiding arrest is to flee to the Underneath of the cities.  Unbeknownst to them, the Underneath is still monitored, and parts are in fact designed as a challenge.  Some are recorded for the purpose of entertainment; the actions, and eventually deaths, of the people that stumble into those sections are broadcast to individuals of a high rank as entertainment on specialist channels.  Other areas are intended to bring the renegade citizens into the grasp of the Adeptus Mechanicus.  They must learn to overcome their cultural disdain for machinery, learn how to tap the machinery that delivers nutrients to the hab-blocks to get food.  The gangs of these people that live down in the depths are introduced by “wandering priests” to the concept of the Cog Numen, a man half-flesh, half-machine, in a red robe and top hat; the god of the machinery that keeps Etheria working.  They are taught to hate the hypocrisy of the people above, who ignore the machinery that keeps them alive.  They are offered bionics to replace anything that they lose in the dangerous depths.  Once they have taken the first bionic, they can’t return to the surface, as it marks them as irrevocably different, as these are too mechanical to have been obtained legally in Etheria.  Slowly, they are taught more and inducted into the Cult Mechanicus, joining the subterranean communities that keep the world functional.  Perhaps one in twenty people that flees to the depths survives long enough to be fully inducted, and then only one in ten becomes a full Tech-Priest, the rest becoming lay members, such as reclamators.

Ranking system:

0 – Traitor or criminal.  Arrest immediately, and citizens are rewarded if they help capture or kill one of these people.
1 – Labourer.  In theory everyone begins as one, although those who excel in school will see very fast promotions.
2 – Leader, responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a section of a workplace, such as a production line
3 – Supervisor, either responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a workplace, or for a section of a workplace, such as a production line
4 – Controller, either responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a hab-block, or for a workplace.
5 – Director, either responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a district, or for a hab-block.
6 – Recognor, either responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a city, or for a district. 
7 – Facilitator, either responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a region, or for the city itself.  At this level it is possible to found a service firm, and obtain contracts
8 – Minister, responsible for a region
9 – The Prime Facilitator.  There is only one of these at a time

Technology

There is a large discrepancy between the technology available to the government and the resident members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the individual citizens.  The rejection, and often outright hostility of the population to the Mechanicus and their obvious bionics, to the extent that visiting Tech-Priests who have ignored the warnings have been lynched in the streets, has led to a refusal to give any technology which requires an active Tech-Priest (by the doctrines of the Mechanicus, and their mystery-cult nature) to operative.  To the population, the security and control apparatus is magic, beyond what they would encounter.  The common technology available is average for a civilised world; each residence has a vid-screen, which also has a camera which can be used to communicate with others.  The dense nature of the cities precludes personal ownership of vehicles.  Pre-natal scanning is mandatory, at two, four and eight months, both to take the first DNA check of the child (including informing the father should it not be his), and to check for mutation.  Should it be there, the foetus, regardless of development, is aborted.  Should the same couple produce three infants that are aborted in that fashion, the couple are sterilised.

The Adepts of Mars who are assigned to this world are, and have been historically, members of the Organicist faction.  Dating back to the first Adepts tasked with this, Etheria has been a dumping ground for the more radical Organicists of Proteus, and the ones trained here have followed in that tradition.  The extension of the use of servitors-type beings, from the watchers on the Watchtowers, and the further development of other such, smarter-than-usual servitors, who actually blur the line between a servitor and a human, is a local development.  The massive number of available test subjects, and the fact that they have access to a planet’s worth of DNA records, means that the stock-lines are precise to a rarely seen degree.  The technology available to them, and used to maintain the city and the high-technology surveillance devices, remains less than that of either Proteus or the younger Anargo Secundus, although, in the limited fields of servitor stock-lines, and of genetic modification, they equal in places.


Trade and tithes

Etheria tithes mostly in men and manufactured goods.  The population is large enough, especially when the prodigious size of the security forces, which include the PDF, that a decent level of Guard recruitment can be maintained.  The main area of expertise, though, is in manufactured components for other planets.  The local labour works well at smaller scales, and so the factories of Etheria are a major source of sub-components.  However, the age of the settlement means that the easily accessible ore and minerals have been depleted, and thus it is a massive importer of raw materials for those goods.  These goods are both exported for profits and tithed; the tithes tending to be components of military goods.

Part of the reason the Administratum acceded to the demands of the Adeptus Mechanicus for the planet was that they had extracted a concession in that the production of the members of the Adepts of Mars stationed on the planet would count partially as the production of the planet, not of the Mechanicus, and thus can be tithed.  The tithes which the rest of the population suffers are thus notably, to an outside observer, lighter than they should be, as the high-technology is disproportionably valuable.  Etheria specialises in the specialities of the Organicists.  The Etherian servitor stock-line is objectively viewed as excellent quality, as they have increased muscle density and some breeds retain some small degree of initiative.  The Etherian population is also a useful source of the components of juvenat drugs, which are sold to the entire sector.

Physiology

The populace of Etheria is close to the human baseline.  Their pulmonary systems are somewhat increased in size and muscle density, to handle the dense atmosphere, leading to a larger upper-ribcage.  They are also stronger than would be expected from the planet’s gravity, thanks to the higher pressure, although this is focussed in the legs.  The dense atmosphere, and a thick layer of ozone, have resulted in them being pale, as the ultraviolet radiation from their sun is blocked.  The mainstream population is virulently opposed to bionic augumentations which do not fit their aesthetic standards, and so the number of people who lack limbs or eyes is much higher than on civilised worlds where such things are common.  The higher ranks of society are permitted expensive imported limbs and senses from Anargo Secundus, which resemble closely the human form, either with a coating of synthetic skin, or in a statuesque way.

The members of the Adeptus Mechanicus that reside below the surface are usually members of the Organicists, and so they confound the usual stereotype of their order.  While they will still use bionic limbs and the ubiquitous mechandrites, it is common to see one with vat-grown muscle implants, plasmid-inserted quickened healing, and additional, slaved brains.  One sub-faction, the Aesthetes, a logical merging of the local view and the policy of the Adeptus Mechancius, aim to produce the perfect human, and so can be seen in bodies which conform to classical ideas of beauty.  They, despite the suspicion that they have gone too far in their use of flesh, are nevertheless vital as liaisons and spies; both with the Etherian government and beyond the planet.  The same genetic templates that the Aesthetes use have also been seen in the holo-vid industries all across the sector, as famous actresses and actors, which suggests that the Mechanicus is profiting from the ability to provide attractive, docile celebrities.   

Psychology
Smug, self satisfied and arrogant are what most outsiders would consider Etherians to be, and it would not be an inaccurate observation. They are quite firmly convinced that their controlled society is the best way of life possible, and tend towards the evangelical about it.  The very degree of control, however, leaves them somewhat slow on their feet and poor at adjusting to change.  The selective pressures of thousands of years of control and forced conformity, while the people who doubt authority are removed from the gene-pool by recruitment or arrest, have left the Etherians with a notable lack of initiative and problems with defying authority.  This has got to a stage that the phenomenon has begun to disturb the Adepts of Mars; the Mind is a Gift of the Omnissiah, though it may be improved, and its lessoning does not honour him.  They have a name for this; the Curse of Eloi, after the first human population which was found exhibiting it.  The Administratum, on the other hand, appreciates the predictability and increase in average productivity that the population gives, as well as making it conform more closely to forwards predictions. 

Etherians have what is viewed by the rest of the sector as an irrational hatred of obvious man-machine hybrids.  Dating back to the internal wars that dated back to the Dark Age of Technology and the Age of Strife, and the augmented overlords that took over the fledgling colony, the machine has been held, firstly be experience and secondly by teachings, as a source of tyranny and evil.  As advanced civilisation cannot exist without complex machinery, the disdain was fed towards the appearance of the STC-derived designs, as the STC became irrevocably linked with the tyrants.  The first members of the Adeptus Mechanicus to land on the planet were attacked by local militia, and this remains a risk that any individual who has obvious augmented parts faces, to the extent that diplomatic hab-blocks exist in every city, where the security of foreigners is justified.     

[EarthScorpion]

Language and dialect

Traditionally, the Etherian population has learned High Gothic as a first language.  However, the inevitable linguistic deterioration that occurs in such a tightly controlled culture, not to mention the lack of high technology which was an intergral part of the cultures in which High Gothic evolved, has left Etherian High Gothic both depleted and colloquialised.  The language, still called Gothic locally, can only really communicate with speakers of more pure High Gothic with great difficulty, and the insistence on the use of Etherian High Gothic leaves the mahority of Etherians unable to understand Low Gothic.  The main changes to the language have been cultural in nature, producing feedback loops and metaphor which refer to internal conditions in a way dissimilar to the standard version, and heavy mergers of concepts deemed desireable.  For example, the concepts of “good” and “obedience” have become merged; for an Etherian, one can only be good if they obey an instruction to the letter and spirit.  It is for that reason that the higher ranks of society are taught other languages, often accompanied with subtle brain surgery to remove these links, as many Etherians make terrible leaders, as they have no-one to obey.   

Planetary defence force

The Etherian PDF, known as the Securiat, or the Office of Security,  is the same body as the local security forces; such a combination is a sign of the grip that the state has upon the populace.  The military are stationed throughout the cities, in their own hab-blocks, and are barred from associating with the inhabitants of the location they are position outside of duty.  Securiat troopers are equipped with lasweapons, and dress in white; an effective camouflage in parts of the city.  The thicker atmosphere also serves to make rotary aircraft cheaper and easier to operatate, so they have several large subsonic divisions of ornihopters and helical craft.  However, the official boycott from the Adeptus Mechanicus means that they are locally developed, and notably substandard to STC designs, with regards to their armour, armaments and lack of any form of anti-gravitational technology.  They are trained to have no empathy for anyone they encounter in the course of their duties; they are to enforce the law, and follow the instructions from the Watchtowers (which are run by a separate group).  The Watchers are themselves watched by the Office of Oversight; the near-Servitor state of the inhabitants leaving them incapable of using any of their data-flows for personal gain. 

The Securiat has large amounts of attached animals, in the form of the Department of Non-Human Combat Units.  The Department is, in fact, a testing ground for Adeptus Mechanicus biological projects in an urban environment, and serves the role of testing the viability of such lifeforms when controlled.  Massive, geneboosted canids, the fearsome armour-plated demi-ursids, and vast flying organisms linked to the minds of Department officers are all fairly regular sights.  The monstrosities created are often fairly tempermental, and their control unstable, leading to not-infrequent rampages as one of the beasts break lose.  The localised civilian casualties are kept silent, and the resulting data is noted for the next generation.

The Adeptus Mechanicus keeps limited numbers of troops on the planet, in orbit and in the Underneath.  These are largely in the form of Skitarii, which, in keeping with the area of expertise of the local Adepts of Mars, are heavily gene-boosted.  However, due to lack of resources, they receive less bionic enhancements than their Protean and Anargo Secundan cousins, and are typically worse armed, having to use modified lasrifles rather than true hellguns, which have a worse rate of fire and are more unreliable.

History

Etheria is an ancient world, settled at approximately the same time (although archeological evidence puts the actual date around seven hundred years later) as the sector capital, Anargo Primus, in M25.  A refuge for political deviants and radical scientists, the planet soon garnered notoriety for the worst excesses of the end of the Dark Age of Technology.  The native ecology of both the land and sea was systematically eradicated, switching it for a new, engineered one which used the same twenty amino acids as Terran life.  Algal blooms were encouraged across the seas, to increase atmospheric oxygen to levels that humans could breath unassisted, while new cities, filled with man, machine and the symbiosis of the two covered all the land, and, when they were full, spread to the seabed.  The rate of population increase was unnatural; the people had removed the need for a mother and grew their infants in amniotic tanks.

Such actions would not last, as the Age of Strife fell upon humanity and brother turned against brother, man against machine.  Etheria had grown dependent upon material imports, and as the warp-storms severed the great chains of commerce which bound systems together, the industries stalled.  Island chain turned against island chain, as did the submarine cities.  Their knowledge of the very secrets of life became biological weapons, which were counted by the use of machine-men, which were countered by nuclear fire.  Islands were destroyed, their rubble spread across the seabed, and the aquatic cities became a breeding ground for the most extreme biological weapons; the charnel houses eventually succumbing to entropy and flooding.  The weapons of mankind wrecked their designed biosphere and their civilisation. 

Eventually, while the increasing numbers of psykers tore holes in realspace, the Silicanium Order, a radical philosophy, seized control when the Sparcans and the Universalists merged.  From the ruins, they built up a new, precise order, where every person had their place, and a basic human was worth less to the state than a silica animus.  The Order banned all genetic tampering, claiming that changing the flesh did not remove its fundamental flaws, and instead held the STC that they had saved, and its Iron Man servants, was the path to the future.  The Order rebuilt new, planned cities, and began the repair of the environment.  They held power for 300 years, enough time to repair some of the damage, though the empty cities, some of which were still packed with the skeletal remains of people who had dropped dead in the street from militarised bioweapons, remained.

The Silicanium leaders were many of the same people who had helped rebuild society; their original bodies long gone, replaced with vat-grown flesh and machine.  They grew distant, more caring of the silica animus among them than the human population, which was undergoing a population boom.  When the food began to run short, as the population outstripped the improvements, they restricted the number of children a couple could have, and began to segregate the population, keeping them under control, in what would be the forerunners to the modern hab-blocks.  The rebellion which followed was almost inevitable.  Led by Marcus Iderion, “The Soulless Machine Will Not Cry for your Neverborn Children”, was the clarion call of the rebels.  The rebels, many of whom were in Internal Security, managed to salvage nuclear weapons from the dead husks of some of the sea-bed cities, and, in a simultaneous strike against every single factory that produced Iron Men and the palaces of the leaders.  The Iderion Army, also known as the Onceborn Children, seized command over a twice-crippled world.  They had destroyed the STC, and so relied upon what technology they could garner from the long-flooded cities.  Ironically, they could not run the civilisation they had conquered without falling back upon the methods that they had condemned; many of the posts and roles were maintained, after the anarchy and the Year of Pain, with merely the occupants changing.  They banned all examples of silica animus, and encouraged people to live a simple, frugal life, bereft of most of the advanced technology they had saved, while they kept the bioweapons that they had found from the previous war.

[Dazo]

Dazo, do you have the worldart and the crest?

I have the world art, but i dont think cels got round to doing a crest for etheria (or if he did I dont have it.


If that image isnt to your liking I do have others so let me know

[CELS]

Quite nice, EarthScorpion. I suppose an explanation of the "silica animus" is forthcoming? Or is this an established part of the 40k lore that I have missed? Anyway, the new changes are pretty nice. The part about lack of initiative and leadership is quite interesting, really.

Now, this is the crest I did for Etheria, back in the day. As you can see, it's clearly not my best work. I would not be adverse to changing it, to be honest.

[Dazo]

I really like that green sphere for some reason...did you use lunarcell to do that cels you crafty devil? And the chevrons arent that bad either.

[EarthScorpion]

Here be the rest of the history.  I'm going to send it as a finished product without responses, but while I'm away you can make appropriate changes.

When the Great Crusade swept through the Anargo sub-sector, Etheria was absorbed largely without violence.  Similar to Anargo Primus, the resistance came more in the form of passive objection; a fall in productivity for almost a century, interspaced with low-level terrorism against any Adeptus Mechanicus team which dared land on the planet.  The benefits of joining the Imperium were lessened, as in revenge the drip-down effect of high technology which the conquerors bought was sealed.  The Horus Heresy saw the third destructive war upon the surface of Etheria.  Over two thirds of the population sided with the forces of Chaos; to suppress them, the government unleashed the biological weapons dating back to the first war.  This time they were not sealed in the underwater biomes of the cities, and nine-tenths of the population died as potent virii disintegrated the walls of their blood vessels and caused their blood to clot within them.  When the Imperium came to reclaim the worlds, after the death of the treacherous Warmaster, the Iderions could present a unified, albeit depleted world.

It took until M33 before the world could really be called re-populated.  The various diseases had not self-terminated correctly, and so the expanding population was housed in isolated communes, each one separated from each other to prevent the spread of disease.  A rigorous policy of blood screening and checking was set in place to prevent carriers from infecting other areas, which stabilised the situation, meaning that any outbreak would be contained.  It was at this time that the Adepts of Mars, through petitioning the Administratum, was granted permission to set up a biological research centre on a remote part of Etheria, to study the engineered life-forms which made up the repeatedly rebuilt ecology of the planet.  The local scientists had guessed that such an event would happen, and had continued their research into biological weapons.  Such a long standing project, a secret of the government which it forgot, had produced multiple gems, including one which was tailored to kill anyone who had any implants or transplant.  The weapon; a fungal organism which served to massively boost the immune system of those who inhaled its spores, caused the bodies of the Tech-Priests, who had a profusion of cybernetic implants, to turn against themselves, the autoimmune response quickly fatal.  The entire base was wiped out, the planet cleansed, as they viewed it, of the desecration of the human form.

The response was rapid.  The organism was obviously engineered, and so a Council was called.  The Cult of the Omnissiah were furious; this was both tech-heresy, the creation of biological weapons, and a direct blow against them.  The Council eventually accepted the charges, finding the Etherian government guilty of hereteknocracy, and giving the Mechanicus jurisdiction on the punishment as long as the world remained an Imperial World, and, importantly, continued paying Tithes.  As punishment, the entire upper echelon of the government was killed by Skitarii strike teams in what became known as the Week (although it was only five local days) of Hate.  The Council of Peers, until then, a minor body which only served to formally rubber-stamp any appointments by the rest of the government, was compromised, and became the power behind the throne, choosing the replacement officials for their pliability.  They were joined by the foundation of the Office of Oversight, which watched over everything.

Oversight shaped the society to a final goal of efficiency and utter control.  The meritocracy which the Iderions had encouraged was expanded, as were the restraints to movement and reduction of each part of society to a tool.  The society had taken its modern form by M34, and has only solidified since then; orders becoming traditions, and, eventually, an inability to conceive of any other way.  In the Age of Apostasy, the Adpetus Mechanicus pulled out at the request of the Administratum, as it was not felt that the planet was worth causing a controversy.  The planet was firmly in the Dorvastor-Anargo alliance, although played only a minor role, as the remaining bureaucrats in Oversight fought to keep control with the removal of much of the high technology.  The rebellions which arose in several cities, in what, historically, might be viewed as the last gasp of Etherian freedom, were brutally suppressed; by military might, and, in three cases, where it was beyond their ability to easily control, through the targeted use of biological weapons.  With the hab-blocks isolated from each other, one hab-block could be utterly purged of human life without the risk of contaminating others.

Etheria was rapidly liberated when the Thorian forces came to the system, as the Adeptus Mechanicus turned the back-doors they had left in the systems of surveillance and control against the master of the planet.  With no-one able to leave their hab-block as security locked down, and the planet’s defences turned against the defenders, the planet could not fight.  Life remained the same for the population, excluding a complete change of the ruling figures in the government, which included the Council of Peers, and the long term effects were minimal.  Indeed, the recapture of Etheria might be viewed as one of the cleanest and quickest conquests of a planet, although the noted actions and control exhibited by the Adepts of Mars over planetary defences were noted in the long term, and the Magos accompanying the fleet was severely reprimanded for “unsuitable revelations of the Inner Mysteries”. 

[Dragon Lord]

I quite this world, though it is the sort of world that makes ones skin crawl, for some reason the more obvious oppression that is present on many other Imperial worlds just doesn't seem quite as bad as the utter, peaceful, control exerted by the Etherian rulers.
I particularly like the quirk with the world both being partly run by the Mechanicus and yet at the same time hating the typical, heavily augmented, Tech Adepts.  It provides a situation in which the Organicist faction of the Adeptus Mechanicus don't seem out of place and can infact be the dominant Mechanicus faction.
Regarding the DNA tests to allow inhabitants to move between areas they wouldn't necessarily cripple the society if workers didn't reside in their place of work.  Imperial technology is quite advanced so I don't think there would be a problem with them operating a system of thumb scanners as in the film Gattaca, small pinpricks like that heal pretty quickly and are fairly painless, just ask any diabetic.  I could see the scanner coating the area with a healing agent after sampling if necessary as well.

I suppose an explanation of the "silica animus" is forthcoming? Or is this an established part of the 40k lore that I have missed?

From the wording and context I presume that 'Silica Animus' refers to either AI or the Iron Men, as it would seem to translate as something like living-silicon.

[EarthScorpion]

Here's all the completed stuff for the world, starting with the world itself, then the system.  I'm not sure if we have a world art, but the crest is above this post.

ETHERIA
B89988A-A N Ri 702 Im 7BB
Planet name: Etheria
World class: Civilised World
Population: 7,000,000,000
Tech level: A (modified)
Tithe Grade: Decuma Prima
Aestimare: C250

Orbital Distance: 0.7 AU
Equatorial Diameter: 8,100 miles (12,960 km)
Gravity: 1.08 terra
Orbital Period: 220.635 standard days
Rotation Period: 18.343 standard hours
Atmosphere: Standard oxygen-nitrogen mix, with moderate pollution taint
Surface Atmospheric Pressure: 1.8 atm
Base Mean Surface Temperature: 23.607 degrees C
Hydrosphere: 86% Tainted liquid water
Indigenous Life forms: Exist

Planet description

The aqueous world of Etheria is relatively close to being a Terran-Optimal world.  The atmosphere, although almost twice as thick as that of ancient Terran, is still easily breathable, and remains remarkably unpolluted for a world which has seen around 15,000 continuous years of human habitation.  The limited land masses are covered in dense jungle, genetically engineered to keep away from the gleaming cities, which emerge from the depths of the vegetation.  The jungles fulfil a vital role, as they have been modified to lock the byproducts of the industry of Etheria up in their remains, which are collected and dumped at sea by servitor-crewed harvesters.  The shallow coastal seas that surround the land are green, as the vast algae farms, and, further out, fish farms, smother the seabed.  These provide the food which feeds the population of Etheria; the large area devoted allows a good diet for the population, with the monotony alleviated through flavouring.

The thick atmosphere permits creatures to exist which would not on other worlds.  Many large predators can fly, soaring through the dense air; an evolutionary adaptation to the need to be able to get to different island chains to feed and find mates.  The dominant natural family of life bears some resemblance to a Terran lizard, but the addition of a hard carapace, viable in this environment, makes it unmistakably alien.   

The cities of Etheria are superficially clean, with white, chrome and black glass as a dominant theme; the straight lines of STC template buildings smoothed and made more organic in appearance. Great smooth ribbons of plasticrete wind out and around the cities like coils of string, punctured by the arrow straight mag-engine lines which criss-cross the planet like a great web.  While the structure of the civilisation is nowhere near a hive, the population density has been kept high, with integrated archaeologies, short enough that the transparent domes which arc between the tallest buildings allow light to beam down to the lower levels.  The reflective windows of the higher levels have been well designed, with light being reflected down, even when the sun has passed its zenith.

Up in the sky hangs the Watchtowers, the pride of Etheria.  The Watchtowers, which are orbital habitats, are supposedly the residence of some of the best and brightest in the planetary meritocracy.  They are, in fact, the hub of the surveillance network which watches the entire planet.  Some hang stationary in geosynchronous orbits, the receptor stations.  Other operate lower, in polar orbits, swinging around so that any point on the planet can be seen at any time.  The volunteers which chose a post on them are only accepted if they are meticulous, observant, and intelligent; perfect, in fact, to be linked into a mind-machine interface, their brains enhanced so that they can cope with the massive data feeds, and their DNA used as samples for the vat-grown organic cognitor parts which the Mechanicus produces.   

Below the feet of the populace, however, the machinery and gears, which keep Etheria the planet it is, reside.  These aesthetics below are what might be deemed typical of the Adeptus Mechanicus; utilitarian in a way that the surface is not, with the workings exposed so that they may be repaired easily, should anything break down.  The vast majority of the citizenry will never venture down here, and would be disgusted if they did.  Creatures, gengineered by the Magos Biologis below for whatever purpose they wish, roam the depths, with creatures which would be apex predators on any other world surprisingly low on the food chain.  The hollow places under the ancient cities are where the things that the population do not want to see, or know about, go.  The fusion reactors reside beneath the feet of the citizens, as do the factories which make the masses of vat-grown flesh needed for the planet.



Government
The government of Etheria appears to be a meritocracy, where a worldwide institution educates those who are interested in working in the government and picks the best candidates through rigorous exams, psychological testing and personal interviews. Every official and electoral candidate of the government is chosen by this institution, called the Etherian Agent Selection Bureau, or simply the Bureau. For less significant positions, such as city mayors and regional ministers, the process is executed entirely by this institution. For more critical positions, however, such as significant leaders of each continent or the position of Imperial commander itself, officials of certain influence are free to pose as a candidate in a democratic election. Before candidates may be voted upon, however, the Bureau’s Peer Council must test every candidate according to their own strict regulations. Their demands are usually so strict, that only the brightest, most experienced and competent leaders are available for such democratic elections, to ensure that incompetent world leaders do not rise to power simply due to popularity.

The government of Etheria is a lie.  After the planet, collectively, was deemed guilty of hereteknical deeds, and blasphemy against the Omnissiah, the Adeptus Mechanicus demanded oversight of the planet, to prevent a recurrence of the deeds and thoughts that were deeply engrained in the culture and psych of the populace.  It was fought long and hard by both the Administratum and the then-young Ministorum; the former as had the planet been taken as a Forge World, it would have been no longer paying tithes, and the latter for theological reasons.  A compromise was worked out; the Machine Cult would be permitted to control the planet from behind the scenes, but the world would still be an Imperial world, and the Imperial Cult would remain the dominant faith.  The top of their meritocratic system was compromised, after the entire Peer Council was threatened with both excommunication and execution.  The Peer Council’s control over the candidates for posts was maintained, but there existed a veto over the decisions of the Council.  The shift in government also led to the formation of the Office of Oversight.  The number of individuals in the Etherian government who know what Oversight actually is can be measured in the double digits, the vast majority of which are on the Peer Council.  In fact, deduction of the nature of Oversight is a necessary part of being accepted onto the Peer Council.  When the candidate, or indeed any individual, works out what the Office truly is, they are seized, and presented with a choice; join the Peer Council, and tell no-one else of their discovery, or be consigned to servitordom.  Every member of the Peer Council has been publicly declared a traitor and a subversionist, with their faces presented on Hate Days, as examples of the vilest rebels.  The Council have undergone both retro-viral DNA modification and plastic surgery, and have had new identities as model citizens created for them.  This practice adds another layer of security; should the Councillor turn against the Council, then their previous identity would be revealed, and the fact that they succeeded in infiltrating the Council would merely show that treachery is everywhere.  The Peer Council are martyrs in their own minds; they go against everything they are raised to believe in to serve the populace.  That their position confers power and technology far beyond what they had before is viewed as just compensation for such deeds.

The Office of Oversight is the collective board of representatives of the Administratum and the Adeptus Mechanicus, and is a tool for both factions in their individual manipulations of the planet.  People at all levels of society will receive messages signed “Oversight”; they are raised from childhood to obey them.  Often, the security services will be told to arrest a man or woman, despite lack of evidence, and hand her over without questions asked to “Operatives of Oversight”.  Oversight seems, to the population, to know everything.  Those who fail to meet quotas repeatedly will be disappeared by Oversight, as will people who dabble in high-end technology.  In the latter case, those people are given an offer to repent their sins, and train as a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, despite the ingrained prejudices of Etherian culture.  A surprising number do, when it is pointed out that they will be able to see the real truth of the universe, and are inducted into the mystery cult of the Cult of the Omnissiah.  The rest are subject to servitorisation.  The Administratum, on the other hand, runs factories on isolated islands, which double as prisons.  Their prisoners labour until they die, making goods for the tithe.

The Imperial commander of Etheria is known as the Prime Facilitator, and normally enjoys great confidence from the people, due to the complex selection process enforced by the Bureau.  Unknown to the populace, the Prime Facilitator is always the same personality, but not the same person.  Once the Prime Facilitator candidates have been approved by the Peer Council, and one has been selected, the new Prime Facilitator has their brain modified, and their personality (although not their memories) overwritten by an approved memory-engram, chosen from an individual who is both obedient and stable.  The process shortens the life of the Prime Facilitator noticeably; most are selected in their forties or early fifties, but it is rare for a Prime Facilitator to see their sixtieth birthday.  They must be monitored continuously, as the personality overwrite is not always stable, and at least one Facilitator a century, on average, has “died in their sleep from a massive stroke”, as their brain rejects the new personality.  Alone out of the posts in the government, the Prime Facilitator post is for life, shortened though that may be.


Religion
The Imperial cult holds sway over the population and by decree of the ruling elite the only form of religion that is still legal. In general the populous is more apathetic than devout, though as in any large group of individuals some are more pious than others. Worship is not limited or proscribed, but the pace of life on Etheria tends to mean people have little time for devotions unless they make an effort to make time, and so once a week is the norm for those who choose to go to temple.  Indeed Etheria seems to drifting away from religion altogether, the current climate of low crime, high personal wealth and confidence in science to solve all problems, has in some instance led to derision of foolish superstitions and rituals.  This has led to increased promotion of faith by the government, and the seizure of several of the most prominent protesters by Oversight; the terms of the dominion over the government requires that the Imperial Cult be the dominant faith, and the weakening that has ensured is not desired.

The classic faith has a noted number of oddities, due to the fact that the world predates the Imperium.  Sensory deprivation is exceedingly prevalent in all religious ceremonies.  All churches are completely dark during ceremonies, and are built without windows.  When the lights are turned off, and the hermetic seals on the doors activated, a susurration of recorded voices begins to play in the background, beneath the words of the priest (who may be of either gender).  These prayers are officially those of the most devout parishioners in the history of the church, which can date back thousands of years.  Naturally, subliminal messages of obedience and loyalty are ingrained in these messages.  The eldest voice in such a church dates back to an individual named Palia Fitz-Xu.  According to church records, she was a soldier of the Imperial Army who was discharged after injuries in battle, and brought the words of the divinity of the Emperor to Etheria, in the days when he still walked as a man.  These archaic words, in High Gothic, are played in the Cathedral of Unity, a towering monolith of polished black basalt, with layered depictions of scenes from history overlain in obsidian and silver.  The hollow obelisk reaches almost a kilometre in high, towering over all the other buildings in the capital.  On the inside, the citizens pray in the galleries on the inside, while the presiding priest, usually the Hierophant of Etheria, preaches from the top.  Her voice echoes down all the way to the bottom, as carefully designed baffles and funnels, in a marvel of acoustic engineering allow the entire building to hear her voice, their senses amplified by the dark.

The use of sensory deprivation is based upon a simple statement of faith, from the words of the (blinded in battle) Palia Fitz-Xu.  “One who has given their eyes for humanity sees the light of the Emperor; one who has given ears for him hears his words”, is the most commonly accepted translation.  This has lead to a notable tradition of self-mutilation in Etherian religion.  The government frowns upon the removal of eyes or both ears, but it is a common practice among the more faithful in society to have an ear removed, or chemical treatments applied to remove the senses of touch, taste or smell.  The phantom feelings produced by the absence of the normal sense are believed to be a gift from the Emperor.  The tingles across the surface of their skin, which a person who has removed their sense of touch suffers, are known as the Caress of the Emperor, for example.  There is also the belief that a person who has lost multiple senses is a holy figure.  Individuals, who would be beggars on other planets, crippled by industrial accidents, become religious figures for a hab-block along the lines of a bodhisattva.  People will go to them for guidance and advice; this practice has long tradition, and is tacitly encouraged by the government, although adds extra surveillance to these individuals, to ensure that they do not promote heresy.

The other religious tradition are the Odious Days, also known as Days of Hate.  There are 288.679 revolutions in the 220.635 standard day year, which is rounded to a 288 revolution year, with a leap-year every other year.  However, only 285 of those days are counted for the purposes of labour.  The remaining days, which can be three, four or even five, depending upon the adjustment, are known as the Odious Days, and are located at the end of the year.  They are a sanctioned opportunity for the population to run wild; the biolocks that seal the hab-blocks are deactivated, and there are typically parties on the streets.  The days are named; there is always the Day of Traitors, the Day of Laziness, and the Day of Cowardice, with the others named by the Prime Facilitator.  The local political functionaries are keen to comment on the names of any other days, believing them to indicate government policy for the next two local years; a belief which is wrong.  The population is encouraged to built pyres of examples of the sin of the day; although there must always be something living on the fire.  This creature becomes a scapegoat for everyone who contributed, and thus their sins are burned along with the animal.  For example, the list of Traitors issued by the government comes with their images, and thus many pyres on the Day of Traitors will have an animal with a mask bearing the resemblance of that individual burned alive.  These days are a cathartic opportunity for people to vent any frustrations which build up over the year, but also serve as subtle social conditioning.  Life is made subtly less pleasant (such as the removal of all external lights in the cities), and drunken and disorderly behaviour is not overtly punished (although it is still monitored and recorded), with the chaos of those days intended to leave citizens appreciating the rigid control over their society when it is past. 

[EarthScorpion]

Society and law
The Law is all seeing and all knowing according to most, all aspects of life are monitored by a dizzying array of surveillance and intelligence devices, fully accessible in real time by the security forces of Etheria. The criminal fraternity cannot beat the overwhelming control of the planet by the security forces, so they must resort to bribery, or venture into the Underneath, where security is notably lessened, although the chance of being consumed by the denizens of the depths is very high.

Cameras are omnipresent on Etheria.  Each building has at least one servitor, their brain pruned of all neural connections except for memory and vision, in a secure room, watching through every camera simultaneously.  The natural facial recognition abilities of the human mind, coupled with the near-total database of the state, means that an individual’s movement is tracked continuously.  To get through any external door, it is necessary to give a blood sample; this would be an impossible and inefficient proposition, were it not for the efficient design of Etherian cities, where your place of work is likely the same building as your residence.  A selection of modified avian species, bearing some resemblance to raptors, each one adjusted to detect a different type of explosive, fly within the cities. They are designed to attack anyone who smells of the explosive they are attuned to, and can kill a human being with ease.  It is for that reason that Etherian security forces only use lasweapons; the breed which is modified to find weapon propellant is the largest and the most armoured.  The cities must, by law, have devices which monitor background radiation installed every ten metres along a pathway, and within every home; any moving increase is tracked, and noted.  The blood-scans, meanwhile, also check for any diseases (which is one of the reasons that they are actually popular), and will inform a person on the spot if they should see a doctor, although the presence of a militarised bioweapon will have a containment team dispatched immediately. 

Weapons are prohibited to all but authorised personnel, and to this end weapon detectors can be found at regular intervals through out a city, in such a pattern so as to be unavoidable.  All weapons manufactured on, or imported to Etheria are tagged with multiple microchips, and a device which allows the weapon to be deactivated remotely, by destroying the trigger.

Genetic records begin at birth for every individual; to decrease needless criminalisation all citizens of Etheria are required to submit to a genetic exam every 2 years. Biometric tags are implanted at birth to monitor physical and mental health, and are used to track every single individual resident.  Psykers are also the last great ace up the sleeve of planetary security and are a method of crime detection and prevention that most criminals find impossible to subvert, although their main purpose is to find more of their kind. Out beyond the population centres there is very little in the way of obvious surveillance, but the jungle-nature of it, and the (deliberately exaggerated) threat of predators, means that the populace are discouraged from leaving the safety of the “Designated Environmental Experience Centres”, areas which have been tamed and made hospitable.  This has the beneficial effect that dissidents, who might assume that all the jungle is like a DEEC through lack of experience, have a good chance of being consumed.  Moreover, any individual who leaves a “normal” zone, begins broadcasting to the satellite network, rather than the nearest transceiver, just making them stand out.  The satellite network, including the Watchtower orbital habitats, is comprehensive.  At any time, any point on the surface of the planet can be focussed upon.

Etherian culture is relatively flat, socially.  All individuals are employed by either the government, or one of the multitude of government service firms which can be founded by an individual who has reached the necessary rank to become a mayor of a city.  The service firms take the more niche roles, and can vary their employees’ salaries between certain pre-set bounds.  There claims to be a free press, and the papers and news channels, carefully tailored to appeal to different demographics, put up a convincing illusion; there are specific topics which the journalists can hold different opinions, and certain news organs designated as “radical” are even permitted to disagree with the government on minor issues.  For example, the Free People’s Channel, a vid-channel designed for the A-1 (the low-ranking manual workers) demographic, in 468.M41, held a campaign, including rallies and marches, to relax the censorship of images shown on late night channels, and was granted its request.  The decision to do that had been made two years before the channel was told to start the campaign, and a controversy organised to justify it.   

Etherians are given a working rank, which dictates allowance to housing and food, of the format [letter][letter][number from nought to nine].  The two letters indicate their profession; the number dictates the rank in that.  For example, a citizen of rank AC1 would be a base level untrained individual responsible for street sanitation.  All people of the same number are entitled to the same housing and personal allowances, although higher numbers only result in the ability to purchase only slightly better goods.  The rank of zero indicates that the individual is a traitor or criminal who should be apprehended immediately.  The population resides in hab-blocks; large areas of interconnected buildings, which contain their workplace and their housing.  To leave a hab-block, it is necessary to give a blood sample, thus keeping the population locked down.  Individuals whose task requires them to move between hab-blocks will have an area numbed and a fast healing epidermal graft, which allows the blood to be taken more easily, without pain.  Marriages are civil as opposed to religious in nature, and typically between co-workers, although a notable minority of marriages are organised between people who have never met, using their vid-screen and dating services which can be accessed using it.  Most people spend their lives being moved from hab-block to hab-block, where their particular skills are needed.  Most do not rise above the rank of Supervisor, rank 3, and are permitted to retire upon their final salary, at the age of seventy-eight standard years.  The system is, in theory, meritocratic, although in practice it is necessary to excel young to be given administrative responsibilities.  In formal situations an individual’s name is followed by their rank, so Iozef Breachtean, of rank ES8, would be addressed as Iozef Breachtean Minister, or Minister of the Salebiz Region.

For those who rebel, socially, against the system, the only way of avoiding arrest is to flee to the Underneath of the cities.  Unbeknownst to them, the Underneath is still monitored, and parts are in fact designed as a challenge.  Some are recorded for the purpose of entertainment; the actions, and eventually deaths, of the people that stumble into those sections are broadcast to individuals of a high rank as entertainment on specialist channels.  Other areas are intended to bring the renegade citizens into the grasp of the Adeptus Mechanicus.  They must learn to overcome their cultural disdain for machinery, learn how to tap the machinery that delivers nutrients to the hab-blocks to get food.  The gangs of these people that live down in the depths are introduced by “wandering priests” to the concept of the Cog Numen, a man half-flesh, half-machine, in a red robe and top hat; the god of the machinery that keeps Etheria working.  They are taught to hate the hypocrisy of the people above, who ignore the machinery that keeps them alive.  They are offered bionics to replace anything that they lose in the dangerous depths.  Once they have taken the first bionic, they can’t return to the surface, as it marks them as irrevocably different, as these are too mechanical to have been obtained legally in Etheria.  Slowly, they are taught more and inducted into the Cult Mechanicus, joining the subterranean communities that keep the world functional.  Perhaps one in twenty people that flees to the depths survives long enough to be fully inducted, and then only one in ten becomes a full Tech-Priest, the rest becoming lay members, such as reclamators.

Ranking system:

0 – Traitor or criminal.  Arrest immediately, and citizens are rewarded if they help capture or kill one of these people.
1 – Labourer.  In theory everyone begins as one, although those who excel in school will see very fast promotions.
2 – Leader, responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a section of a workplace, such as a production line
3 – Supervisor, either responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a workplace, or for a section of a workplace, such as a production line
4 – Controller, either responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a hab-block, or for a workplace.
5 – Director, either responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a district, or for a hab-block.
6 – Recognor, either responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a city, or for a district. 
7 – Facilitator, either responsible for all workers of their alphabetical code in a region, or for the city itself.  At this level it is possible to found a service firm, and obtain contracts
8 – Minister, responsible for a region
9 – The Prime Facilitator.  There is only one of these at a time

Technology

There is a large discrepancy between the technology available to the government and the resident members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the individual citizens.  The rejection, and often outright hostility of the population to the Mechanicus and their obvious bionics, to the extent that visiting Tech-Priests who have ignored the warnings have been lynched in the streets, has led to a refusal to give any technology which requires an active Tech-Priest (by the doctrines of the Mechanicus, and their mystery-cult nature) to operative.  To the population, the security and control apparatus is magic, beyond what they would encounter.  The common technology available is average for a civilised world; each residence has a vid-screen, which also has a camera which can be used to communicate with others.  The dense nature of the cities precludes personal ownership of vehicles.  Pre-natal scanning is mandatory, at two, four and eight months, both to take the first DNA check of the child (including informing the father should it not be his), and to check for mutation.  Should it be there, the foetus, regardless of development, is aborted.  Should the same couple produce three infants that are aborted in that fashion, the couple are sterilised.

The Adepts of Mars who are assigned to this world are, and have been historically, members of the Organicist faction.  Dating back to the first Adepts tasked with this, Etheria has been a dumping ground for the more radical Organicists of Proteus, and the ones trained here have followed in that tradition.  The extension of the use of servitors-type beings, from the watchers on the Watchtowers, and the further development of other such, smarter-than-usual servitors, who actually blur the line between a servitor and a human, is a local development.  The massive number of available test subjects, and the fact that they have access to a planet’s worth of DNA records, means that the stock-lines are precise to a rarely seen degree.  The technology available to them, and used to maintain the city and the high-technology surveillance devices, remains less than that of either Proteus or the younger Anargo Secundus, although, in the limited fields of servitor stock-lines, and of genetic modification, they equal in places.


Trade and tithes

Etheria tithes mostly in men and manufactured goods.  The population is large enough, especially when the prodigious size of the security forces, which include the PDF, that a decent level of Guard recruitment can be maintained.  The main area of expertise, though, is in manufactured components for other planets.  The local labour works well at smaller scales, and so the factories of Etheria are a major source of sub-components.  However, the age of the settlement means that the easily accessible ore and minerals have been depleted, and thus it is a massive importer of raw materials for those goods.  These goods are both exported for profits and tithed; the tithes tending to be components of military goods.

Part of the reason the Administratum acceded to the demands of the Adeptus Mechanicus for the planet was that they had extracted a concession in that the production of the members of the Adepts of Mars stationed on the planet would count partially as the production of the planet, not of the Mechanicus, and thus can be tithed.  The tithes which the rest of the population suffers are thus notably, to an outside observer, lighter than they should be, as the high-technology is disproportionally valuable.  Etheria specialises in the specialities of the Organicists.  The Etherian servitor stock-line is objectively viewed as excellent quality, as they have increased muscle density and some breeds retain some small degree of initiative.  The Etherian population is also a useful source of the components of juvenat drugs, which are sold to the entire sector.

Physiology

The populace of Etheria is close to the human baseline.  Their pulmonary systems are somewhat increased in size and muscle density, to handle the dense atmosphere, leading to a larger upper-ribcage.  They are also stronger than would be expected from the planet’s gravity, thanks to the higher pressure, although this is focussed in the legs.  The dense atmosphere, and a thick layer of ozone, have resulted in them being pale, as the ultraviolet radiation from their sun is blocked.  The mainstream population is virulently opposed to bionic augmentations which do not fit their aesthetic standards, and so the number of people who lack limbs or eyes is much higher than on civilised worlds where such things are common.  The higher ranks of society are permitted expensive imported limbs and senses from Anargo Secundus, which resemble closely the human form, either with a coating of synthetic skin, or in a statuesque way.

The members of the Adeptus Mechanicus that reside below the surface are usually members of the Organicists, and so they confound the usual stereotype of their order.  While they will still use bionic limbs and the ubiquitous mechandrites, it is common to see one with vat-grown muscle implants, plasmid-inserted quickened healing, and additional, slaved brains.  One sub-faction, the Aesthetes, a logical merging of the local view and the policy of the Adeptus Mechancius, aim to produce the perfect human, and so can be seen in bodies which conform to classical ideas of beauty.  They, despite the suspicion that they have gone too far in their use of flesh, are nevertheless vital as liaisons and spies; both with the Etherian government and beyond the planet.  The same genetic templates that the Aesthetes use have also been seen in the holo-vid industries all across the sector, as famous actresses and actors, which suggests that the Mechanicus is profiting from the ability to provide attractive, docile celebrities.   

Psychology
Smug, self satisfied and arrogant are what most outsiders would consider Etherians to be, and it would not be an inaccurate observation. They are quite firmly convinced that their controlled society is the best way of life possible, and tend towards the evangelical about it.  The very degree of control, however, leaves them somewhat slow on their feet and poor at adjusting to change.  The selective pressures of thousands of years of control and forced conformity, while the people who doubt authority are removed from the gene-pool by recruitment or arrest, have left the Etherians with a notable lack of initiative and problems with defying authority.  This has got to a stage that the phenomenon has begun to disturb the Adepts of Mars; the Mind is a Gift of the Omnissiah, though it may be improved, and its lessoning does not honour him.  They have a name for this; the Curse of Eloi, after the first human population which was found exhibiting it.  The Administratum, on the other hand, appreciates the predictability and increase in average productivity that the population gives, as well as making it conform more closely to forwards predictions. 

Etherians have what is viewed by the rest of the sector as an irrational hatred of obvious man-machine hybrids.  Dating back to the internal wars that dated back to the Dark Age of Technology and the Age of Strife, and the augmented overlords that took over the fledgling colony, the machine has been held, firstly be experience and secondly by teachings, as a source of tyranny and evil.  As advanced civilisation cannot exist without complex machinery, the disdain was fed towards the appearance of the STC-derived designs, as the STC became irrevocably linked with the tyrants.  The first members of the Adeptus Mechanicus to land on the planet were attacked by local militia, and this remains a risk that any individual who has obvious augmented parts faces, to the extent that diplomatic hab-blocks exist in every city, where the security of foreigners is justified. 

Language and dialect

Traditionally, the Etherian population has learned High Gothic as a first language.  However, the inevitable linguistic deterioration that occurs in such a tightly controlled culture, not to mention the lack of high technology which was an integral part of the cultures in which High Gothic evolved, has left Etherian High Gothic both depleted and colloquialised.  The language, still called Gothic locally, can only really communicate with speakers of more pure High Gothic with great difficulty, and the insistence on the use of Etherian High Gothic leaves the majority of Etherians unable to understand Low Gothic.  The main changes to the language have been cultural in nature, producing feedback loops and metaphor which refer to internal conditions in a way dissimilar to the standard version, and heavy mergers of concepts deemed desirable.  For example, the concepts of “good” and “obedience” have become merged; for an Etherian, one can only be good if they obey an instruction to the letter and spirit.  It is for that reason that the higher ranks of society are taught other languages, often accompanied with subtle brain surgery to remove these links, as many Etherians make terrible leaders, as they have no-one to obey.       

[EarthScorpion]

Planetary defence force

The Etherian PDF, known as the Securiat, or the Office of Security,  is the same body as the local security forces; such a combination is a sign of the grip that the state has upon the populace.  The military are stationed throughout the cities, in their own hab-blocks, and are barred from associating with the inhabitants of the location they are position outside of duty.  Securiat troopers are equipped with lasweapons, and dress in white; an effective camouflage in parts of the city.  The thicker atmosphere also serves to make rotary aircraft cheaper and easier to operate, so they have several large subsonic divisions of ornihopters and helical craft.  However, the official boycott from the Adeptus Mechanicus means that they are locally developed, and notably substandard to STC designs, with regards to their armour, armaments and lack of any form of anti-gravitational technology.  They are trained to have no empathy for anyone they encounter in the course of their duties; they are to enforce the law, and follow the instructions from the Watchtowers (which are run by a separate group).  The Watchers are themselves watched by the Office of Oversight; the near-Servitor state of the inhabitants leaving them incapable of using any of their data-flows for personal gain. 

The Securiat has large amounts of attached animals, in the form of the Department of Non-Human Combat Units.  The Department is, in fact, a testing ground for Adeptus Mechanicus biological projects in an urban environment, and serves the role of testing the viability of such lifeforms when controlled.  Massive, geneboosted canids, the fearsome armour-plated demi-ursids, and vast flying organisms linked to the minds of Department officers are all fairly regular sights.  The monstrosities created are often fairly temperamental, and their control unstable, leading to not-infrequent rampages as one of the beasts break lose.  The localised civilian casualties are kept silent, and the resulting data is noted for the next generation.

The Adeptus Mechanicus keeps limited numbers of troops on the planet, in orbit and in the Underneath.  These are largely in the form of Skitarii, which, in keeping with the area of expertise of the local Adepts of Mars, are heavily gene-boosted.  However, due to lack of resources, they receive less bionic enhancements than their Protean and Anargo Secundan cousins, and are typically worse armed, having to use modified lasrifles rather than true hellguns, which have a worse rate of fire and are more unreliable.

History

Etheria is an ancient world, settled at approximately the same time (although archaeological evidence puts the actual date around seven hundred years later) as the sector capital, Anargo Primus, in M25.  A refuge for political deviants and radical scientists, the planet soon garnered notoriety for the worst excesses of the end of the Dark Age of Technology.  The native ecology of both the land and sea was systematically eradicated, switching it for a new, engineered one which used the same twenty amino acids as Terran life.  Algal blooms were encouraged across the seas, to increase atmospheric oxygen to levels that humans could breath unassisted, while new cities, filled with man, machine and the symbiosis of the two covered all the land, and, when they were full, spread to the seabed.  The rate of population increase was unnatural; the people had removed the need for a mother and grew their infants in amniotic tanks.

Such actions would not last, as the Age of Strife fell upon humanity and brother turned against brother, man against machine.  Etheria had grown dependent upon material imports, and as the warp-storms severed the great chains of commerce which bound systems together, the industries stalled.  Island chain turned against island chain, as did the submarine cities.  Their knowledge of the very secrets of life became biological weapons, which were counted by the use of machine-men, which were countered by nuclear fire.  Islands were destroyed, their rubble spread across the seabed, and the aquatic cities became a breeding ground for the most extreme biological weapons; the charnel houses eventually succumbing to entropy and flooding.  The weapons of mankind wrecked their designed biosphere and their civilisation. 

Eventually, while the increasing numbers of psykers tore holes in realspace, the Silicanium Order, a radical philosophy, seized control when the Sparcans and the Universalists merged.  From the ruins, they built up a new, precise order, where every person had their place, and a basic human was worth less to the state than a silica animus, an artificial intellect of silicon and logic.  The Order banned all genetic tampering, claiming that changing the flesh did not remove its fundamental flaws, and instead held the STC that they had saved, and its Iron Man servants, was the path to the future.  The Order rebuilt new, planned cities, and began the repair of the environment.  They held power for 300 years, enough time to repair some of the damage, though the empty cities, some of which were still packed with the skeletal remains of people who had dropped dead in the street from militarised bioweapons, remained.

The Silicanium leaders were many of the same people who had helped rebuild society; their original bodies long gone, replaced with vat-grown flesh and machine.  They grew distant, more caring of the silica animus among them than the human population, which was undergoing a population boom.  When the food began to run short, as the population outstripped the improvements, they restricted the number of children a couple could have, and began to segregate the population, keeping them under control, in what would be the forerunners to the modern hab-blocks.  The rebellion which followed was almost inevitable.  Led by Marcus Iderion, “The Soulless Machine Will Not Cry for your Neverborn Children”, was the clarion call of the rebels.  The rebels, many of whom were in Internal Security, managed to salvage nuclear weapons from the dead husks of some of the sea-bed cities, and, in a simultaneous strike against every single factory that produced Iron Men and the palaces of the leaders.  The Iderion Army, also known as the Onceborn Children, seized command over a twice-crippled world.  They had destroyed the STC, and so relied upon what technology they could garner from the long-flooded cities.  Ironically, they could not run the civilisation they had conquered without falling back upon the methods that they had condemned; many of the posts and roles were maintained, after the anarchy and the Year of Pain, with merely the occupants changing.  They banned all examples of silica animus, and encouraged people to live a simple, frugal life, bereft of most of the advanced technology they had saved, while they kept the bioweapons that they had found from the previous war.

When the Great Crusade swept through the Anargo sub-sector, Etheria was absorbed largely without violence.  Similar to Anargo Primus, the resistance came more in the form of passive objection; a fall in productivity for almost a century, interspaced with low-level terrorism against any Adeptus Mechanicus team which dared land on the planet.  The benefits of joining the Imperium were lessened, as in revenge the drip-down effect of high technology which the conquerors bought was sealed.  The Horus Heresy saw the third destructive war upon the surface of Etheria.  Over two thirds of the population sided with the forces of Chaos; to suppress them, the government unleashed the biological weapons dating back to the first war.  This time they were not sealed in the underwater biomes of the cities, and nine-tenths of the population died as potent virii disintegrated the walls of their blood vessels and caused their blood to clot within them.  When the Imperium came to reclaim the worlds, after the death of the treacherous Warmaster, the Iderions could present a unified, albeit depleted world.

It took until M33 before the world could really be called re-populated.  The various diseases had not self-terminated correctly, and so the expanding population was housed in isolated communes, each one separated from each other to prevent the spread of disease.  A rigorous policy of blood screening and checking was set in place to prevent carriers from infecting other areas, which stabilised the situation, meaning that any outbreak would be contained.  It was at this time that the Adepts of Mars, through petitioning the Administratum, was granted permission to set up a biological research centre on a remote part of Etheria, to study the engineered life-forms which made up the repeatedly rebuilt ecology of the planet.  The local scientists had guessed that such an event would happen, and had continued their research into biological weapons.  Such a long standing project, a secret of the government which it forgot, had produced multiple gems, including one which was tailored to kill anyone who had any implants or transplant.  The weapon; a fungal organism which served to massively boost the immune system of those who inhaled its spores, caused the bodies of the Tech-Priests, who had a profusion of cybernetic implants, to turn against themselves, the autoimmune response quickly fatal.  The entire base was wiped out, the planet cleansed, as they viewed it, of the desecration of the human form.

The response was rapid.  The organism was obviously engineered, and so a Council was called.  The Cult of the Omnissiah were furious; this was both tech-heresy, the creation of biological weapons, and a direct blow against them.  The Council eventually accepted the charges, finding the Etherian government guilty of hereteknocracy, and giving the Mechanicus jurisdiction on the punishment as long as the world remained an Imperial World, and, importantly, continued paying Tithes.  As punishment, the entire upper echelon of the government was killed by Skitarii strike teams in what became known as the Week (although it was only five local days) of Hate.  The Council of Peers, until then, a minor body which only served to formally rubber-stamp any appointments by the rest of the government, was compromised, and became the power behind the throne, choosing the replacement officials for their pliability.  They were joined by the foundation of the Office of Oversight, which watched over everything.

Oversight shaped the society to a final goal of efficiency and utter control.  The meritocracy which the Iderions had encouraged was expanded, as were the restraints to movement and reduction of each part of society to a tool.  The society had taken its modern form by M34, and has only solidified since then; orders becoming traditions, and, eventually, an inability to conceive of any other way.  In the Age of Apostasy, the Adpetus Mechanicus pulled out at the request of the Administratum, as it was not felt that the planet was worth causing a controversy.  The planet was firmly in the Dorvastor-Anargo alliance, although played only a minor role, as the remaining bureaucrats in Oversight fought to keep control with the removal of much of the high technology.  The rebellions which arose in several cities, in what, historically, might be viewed as the last gasp of Etherian freedom, were brutally suppressed; by military might, and, in three cases, where it was beyond their ability to easily control, through the targeted use of biological weapons.  With the hab-blocks isolated from each other, one hab-block could be utterly purged of human life without the risk of contaminating others.

Etheria was rapidly liberated when the Thorian forces came to the system, as the Adeptus Mechanicus turned the back-doors they had left in the systems of surveillance and control against the master of the planet.  With no-one able to leave their hab-block as security locked down, and the planet’s defences turned against the defenders, the planet could not fight.  Life remained the same for the population, excluding a complete change of the ruling figures in the government, which included the Council of Peers, and the long term effects were minimal.  Indeed, the recapture of Etheria might be viewed as one of the cleanest and quickest conquests of a planet, although the noted actions and control exhibited by the Adepts of Mars over planetary defences were noted in the long term, and the Magos accompanying the fleet was severely reprimanded for “unsuitable revelations of the Inner Mysteries”.

Date of preparation: 154 M41
World UWP: B89988A-A N Ri 702 Im 7BB
Diameter: 8,100 miles (12,960 km)
Density: Molten Core, 1.08 terra
Mass: 1.08 terra
Gravity: 1.08 terra
Primary Mass (Star): 0.94 sol
Orbit number (Planet): 0.7 AU
Orbital period (Planet): 220.635 days
Rotation period: 18.343 hours
Axial Tilt: 27 degree’s
Orbital Eccentricity: 0.0
Seismic Stress Factor: 0.343
Asteroid Belt Zones: 0
Primary Mass (Planet): 1.08 terra
Atmospheric composition: Standard oxygen-nitrogen mix, with moderate pollution taint
Surface pressure: 1.8 atm
Stellar luminosity: 0.9 sol
Orbit factor: 447.045
Energy absorption: 0.62
Greenhouse effect: 2.3
Base temperature: 23.869 degrees C
Orbital eccentricity modifier: Tc=0.0 degrees C, Tf=-0.0 degrees C
Latitude temperature effects: 1=+21, 2=+14, 3=+7, 4=0, 5=-7, 6=-14, 7=-21, 8=-28, 9=-35, 10=-42, 11=-49 degrees C
Axial tilt effects: +16.2 degrees, -27 degrees
Daytime plus: +0.36 degrees
Nighttime minus: 0.5 degrees
Native life: Exists
Atmospheric terraforming: No
Greenhouse effect terraforming: No
Albedo terraforming: No
Temperature terraforming: No
Hydrographic percent: 86%
Hydrosphere composition: tainted liquid water
Number of tectonic plates: 10
Hydrosphere terraforming: No
Terrain terraforming: No
Number of major continents: 2
Number of minor continents: 1
Number of large islands: 4
Number of small islands: 89
Number of archipelagos: 34
Notable volcanoes: 8
Weather control: Yes
Natural resources: Ores, radioactives, crystals, compounds
Processed resources: Agroproducts, metals, non metals
Manufactured goods: Durables, Consumables, parts
Information: Recordings, Software, Documents
Total population: 7,000,000,000
Local customs: Unusual significance of art/All population.
Robots required for farming/All population
Cybernetic interfaces/ Adult population
Hair never cut/ Females.
Marriage only at certain times/Military figures.
Live with extended families/All population.
Primary cities: 5
Secondary cities: 30
Tertiary cities: 55
Orbital Cities: Present
Progressiveness: Progressive, Enterprising
Aggressiveness: Expansionistic, Neutral
Extensiveness: Discordant, Friendly
Representative authority: Civil Service Bureaucracy, Several Councils