Ghiave-Fouteena, Liguria System
| Planet Name | Ghiave-Fouteena, Liguria System |
|---|---|
| Stellar Classification | Yellow-White Main-Sequence |
| Habitability Grade | A3 |
| Satellites | 0 |
| Orbital Period | 421 Days |
| Rotational Period | 26 Hours |
| Capital | Ghiave-Fouteena |
| Population | 170 million (circa 31129), 62 million (circa 31154) |
One of the last solar systems explored during the Republic’s initial expansion beyond its first few colonies, Liguria had been an exciting target for Umbrian astronomers. They had initially estimated that the system’s sun, a yellow-white main sequence star, harbored two possible candidates for habitable worlds, as well as an extensive debris field that may have contained valuable minerals.
What they would discover would take them all by surprise: the third planet in the system was completely covered in a shallow ocean. Their good fortune would continue, as the planet’s thick atmosphere contained a higher than average concentration of ozone, protecting it from its star’s aggressive UV light.
Despite a high habitability gradient, this natural wonder would garner less excitement from the commercial interests which drove colonial decision-making. Sensing challenges in establishing and maintaining operations on the water-bound world, Liguria Three would remain sparsely populated. Only a few isolated research outposts would be created, manned by a handful of reoccurring expeditions which sought to categorize the planet’s plant and animal life and better document its turbulent weather patterns and ocean currents.
This quiet oasis on the edges of Republic space would be forever changed by the discovery of a host of habitable worlds in the region of space that would come to be known as the Frontier.
Soon after the discoveries were confirmed, the Senate dedicated funding to continuing the Republic’s advance in from the edges of the galactic rim. It wouldn’t take long for those worlds surrounding the perimeter to receive new attention, and Liguria Three was quickly set upon by hundreds of thousands of settlers and adventure seekers.
The events that lead to the planet’s unusual name would now unfold: two dueling corporations used the courts to try to press their claims to large swaths of the planet. This petty rivalry would include competing proposals to name the world, and the never-ending legal saga would cause its development to stagnate. Other planets, such as Tratirne, would succeed in becoming the gateways for deeper expeditions to the Frontier, and population growth and private investment slowed.
Eventually the Senate combined the two proposed names, giving the planet its unusual official designation, but the damage had been done. The more transient elements of the population moved on, and slowly the corporations that had built the large stilt-cities on the planet’s oceans began to follow.
In the end, this would bother the remaining population of the planet little, as they had reinvented their world while corporate interests had squabbled. Ghiave-Fouteena would embrace the sea, creating expansive aquaculture infrastructure which would prove to be a significant source of foodstuffs and biomass for the growing colonies in the Frontier.
Ghiave-Fouteena would again become a relatively quiet backwater, but the planet’s residents preferred it that way, content to live their lives on the reefs and open seas of their new home.