Soraki

The human colony of Soraki is an old installation and is one of the oldest colonies in the history of manned spaceflight.

[edit] History

In 2089, a large international group targeted the Delta Lyra[Alpha Mirak-VII] star system for colonization. They constructed thirty-three large-capacity generational colony ships and were able to contain about two million colonists and their equipment. The former People's Republic of China, Russia, and United States of America provided the majority of funds for this endeavour, which was the then-largest interstellar venture ever launched.

Equipped with large-scale fusion bomb propulsion and laser sails, the fleet traveled from Earth's orbit to the distant Delta Lyra[Alpha Mirak-VII] system. Sixty-seven years later, the colony ships arrived at their destination. According to a popular Sorakin folk tale, the leaders of the fleet, former United States admiral Soris and Colonial Admiral Mikhail Akislo [a man born-on-board to a combined Russian-Colonial family] decided to name the star system Soraki, a combination of their last names. In reality, Soraki was chosen as the name of the system by popular vote of the colony ship captains.

2156 found the colonists in the now-Soraki system, searching for a habitable planet. Their fears increased as no Earth-like planet was discovered in the system. Deciding that colonizing the high-gravity, arid Soraki II was better than simply dying in space, Colonial Admiral Akislo ordered the landing of the colonists. The colony ships, unable to enter atmosphere, continued to orbit the planet until their eventual recycling for building materials.

The initial colonists on Soraki II found it difficult to adjust to the planet's high (1.7g) gravity. Portions of the colonial council wanted the remaining still-orbiting generation ships' gravity plates brought down to create a normal-gravity habitat. Another faction formed rapidly, wanting the colonists to live 'naturally' on their new home without the assistance of gravity plates. Instead, this faction said, the now-defunct colony ships should be used to construct mining vessels with the purpose of extracting resources from rich Soraki III. In the end, ten ships were gutted for their materials (the Central Habitat formed from these); twenty were turned into seventeen mining craft and a trio of light frigates. So began the Soraki Navy.

Soraki II's arid climate forced farmers to develop orbital-based hydroponics aboard the final three colony ships. This advanced space agriculture stablized food production for the colony until the development of hardy crops capable of surviving on Soraki II. By 2162, food production had created an immense surplus and, consequently, was able to withstand and support a two-decade-long population explosion. One of the primary saviors of this period was the crop celery-corn, a combination of the two Earth foods of the same names.