Bifrost

Bifrost

A world of soaring peaks, huge glaciers, and dark, mysterious forests. Cold oceans, teeming with life in their shadowy depths. And scattered across its surface, glittering cities, shining like incandescent gems. Bifrost is blessed with mild, beautiful summers and cursed with brutal, cold, dark winters. It is not not truly welcoming. It is certainly not forgiving. And yet through our recorded history, it has been our home. Little is known about the civilization of six centuries past, but our ancestors certainly had a much higher level of technological development when they settled our frozen world. While we have once again begun to thrive and grow, we are nowhere near the previous peak of human accomplishment. Only three generations ago, winter famines were still commonplace. It has only been a few decades since we were able to finally regain the trust of the Angels and begin taking tentative steps out into the shallows of the stellar sea beyond our shores. Only a few decades since the first explorers set foot (again) on Sentinel and discovered the treasures that waited silently over the centuries for us to reclaim them.

Government

For about one hundred years, Bifrost has operated under a united worldwide government. By a combination of treaties (and unfortunately a few regrettable wars) the separate Nation States were dissolved to form a Parliamentary Republic wherein legislative power lies with a Parliament and Prime Minister, while matters of State are handled by a President elected by popular vote from candidates chosen via a meritocratic selection process.

Climate

Bifrost's sun (Sunna) is a main sequence star of a spectrum and luminosity fragments of old science texts tell us is well suited to human life. The planet itself seems to be in the midst of an "ice age" and will be so for several thousand more years, most likely. While the atmosphere is close to ideal for human standards, the temperature range is definitely below the range our species considers "comfortable". As such it has been determined our people's difficulty in producing sufficient food and building sufficient shelter to survive the harsh winters is probably not typical of human settled worlds.

There is a narrow band of the planet's surface within 15 degrees north and south of the equator that remains ice free year-round, but the majority of the landmass (and particularly the fertile areas) lie outside of that area of relative warmth.

Population

There are currently about 750 million inhabitants of Bifrost, with nearly a million more people living on the various satellite stations, asteroids, and small ships plying the mineral wealth of the system. Additionally there are about two million sturdy souls clinging desperately to life on the arid surface of Gjallarhorn as it orbits over Bifrost.

Military

A small standing army is maintained, but with the world unified its necessity is constantly questioned. As a result, it is only given the most threadbare amount of funding. With the beginning of an interplanetary economy, however, piracy was not far behind. As such, there was no question about the necessity of space Navy. Bifrost has put to "sea" a flotilla of nearly four dozen ships of various classes, organized into three "fleets." Despite a furious effort, only the most basic Spike Drives have been reverse engineered, leaving Bifrost without the ability to visit the distant stars. Work continues on developing the necessary drive tech to enable us to sail the sea of the stars as our ancestors of old, but for now we must be satisfied with short jaunts to Sinthgunt, the dim brown dwarf sister of our sun, where it wanders out beyond our system's halo of comets. The fleet has established an anchorage there (as well as mining and construction facilities), and it makes an excellent location to train crews and develop competency for the day when the gates of our system are opened fully to the surrounding stars.

Satellites

While there are dozens of stations--and hundreds of unmanned communication and observation platforms--orbiting Bifrost today, three in particular dominate the attention of any observer:

• Sentinel - An asteroid moved into a stable orbit around Bifrost
• Gjallarhorn - The large moon, the only natural satellite of Bifrost.
• The Angels - Alien defense platforms ancient beyond reckoning, The Angels automatically defend Bifrost from all threats. For centuries, they also prevented our people from leaving the surface of our world.

The Rest of the System

Beyond the immediate orbit of Bifrost, the system is sparsely settled. Sprinkled through the belt and even on the surface of some of the moons in the system one can find habitation complexes, refineries, drilling platforms, and even trading posts and facilities dedicated to leisure and entertainment. Private ownership of space craft is still a rarity, but not unheard of. Of course, tools that can break apart space rocks are also quite capable of threatening ships and stations... And the fleet can't guard every cargo ship in the system...