Rán

"Our amber Lady of the Sunset Sea, and her Husband ever dances. And their Daughters nestled lap at me, their waving ice enchants us."

Rán, formerly known as Epsilon Eridani and originally properly named Ran in the 21st century, is the Ninth Assemblage, the ninth closest system to Sol. Initially settled by breakaway fleets from the first flight out to Alpha Centauri, the star's consistency and wealth of resources have enabled one of humanity's best efforts for extra-solar habitation for the past three hundred years.

While Rán is often thought of as a well-endowed system in terms of resources and general unity, differing from the Centauric turbulence its settlers could have been part of, the system has been in steady decline for decades. The wealth of space and resources is caught between expanding bureaucracies and state-sponsored grey-market pirates, struggling for control over what exists and the flow of production despite the system's abundance.

Politics and life are both slow and creeping around Rán, relying on a fragile sense of unity to prevent a trophic cascade of the human variety. Actions to change the system often take decades of planning, and while there are a wealth of places to explore, few believe in novelty in the adventure outside of the Nine Waves.

The Sun

Rán is a young K2 orange dwarf, among the larger stars in the Thirteen Assemblages at just over four-fifths of Sol's mass. Although its magnetic activity is more prominent than Sol, its consistency avoids the unpredictable danger of the many flare stars amongst the Assemblages.

System Layout

Rán's still-forming system is home to three major planets, all gaseous, and three distinct discs of debris. Over a dozen dwarf-planet candidates have been named, though their future prospects as existing worlds or full-sized planetary bodies remains unknown. Rán's relatively diffuse matter could well be put to practice as the first system humanity designs, albeit in the far far future millennia from the present day.

All major planets in the Rán system are, following the pattern set by the initial designation, named after jötnar in Norse mythology. The belts vary on this, with Gerdsbelti being named after the jötunn Gerðr, Lokabjalti after the half-jötunn god Loki, and Niflhelsbelti for the frigid realm of the dead. Dwarf planets within these belts follow the jötunn names, though many coincide with Sol system minor objects.

Gerdsbelti

Gerdsbelti (gerdsbelti) is the inner debris belt around Rán, maintained by the presence of Ægir. In a few hundred million years, it is theorized that anywhere from three to ten rocky planets may form from the hadean-type planetesimals and dwarf planets that inhabit the belt. It stretches from 1.6-2.2 AU from Rán, and its dwarf planets are named for Norse figures connected to the jötunn Gerðr. However herded by the gas planets it may be, Gerdsbelti is stabilizing and aggregating into larger bodies over time. Collisions between bodies are common enough that habitation on any of the dwarf bodies is dangerous.

Gerdsbelti is under consistent surveillance for the prospects of metals and silicates that can contribute to the system proper. Bases on asteroids that spend much of their time outside the main belt, particularly Ægir's trojan groups, have vested interests in handling transport logistics between the belt and the moons.

Of the powers vying to settle and keep control within Gerdsbelti, the ascendant IKEA-Älmhult Commonwealth is the most prominent. Following a strict corpo-national culture of cost effectiveness and risk analysis, their dedicated astrophysics analyst teams won the strategic battle for the belt before it began, planting blue-and-gold flags on the most lucrative and clear-orbit bodies in the belt to begin their financial empire anew. Subcontracting other businesses native to the proper nations of the Moons, a sort of bureaucratic order emerged over the past three centuries that remains the backbone of Ránnite expansion. Damage to the delicate power balance in Gerdsbelti would ripple out to the rest of the system in months, if not weeks.

Ægir

Ægir (Ägir, Ægir), formerly designated Epsilon Eridani b and originally given the Anglicized name AEgir, is the first proper planet from Rán as well as its largest. Named for the jötunn who embodied the sea in Norse myths, its turbulent grey bands and dense ring system are visible from all largely-inhabited worlds around it.

Ægir is an incredibly close analogue to Jupiter, having a mass and orbit very reminiscent of Sol's fifth planet. Jupiter's most loathed qualities, notably its thick radiation belts and plasma tori, are present around the planet as well, maintained by its tightly disruptive moon system that has not yet fallen into resonance. These are slightly mitigated by Rán's overall dimmer luminosity compared to Sol, but nonetheless influences everything about Ránnite development on Ægir's major moons. The thicker regions of this radiation only cover the inner three moons, but a more diffuse field of plasma extends all the way out through Hrönn's orbit.

Ægir's notable lack of the typical ammonia-giant redness has been extensively studied, with conclusions coming down to different chemical makeups deeper in the cloud decks and interactions with Rán's lower UV output. Like most planets, its true mechanics are still not fully understood. Theories of compound-reducing biota in Ægir's lower atmosphere have been proposed and refuted multiple times.

Magnetic interference from Ægir's 12-gauss magnetic field causes telltale artifacting in digital communications, which gets exponentially worse the more relays and travel time there is for a message. Applications of interferometry in communications technology between the giant's moons have helped to reduce this "noise", with newer iterations working better to match and cancel out Ægir's specific patterns, but clear communication is generally only possible through redundant text transcriptions of any audio messages or on the closest approaches between two moons.

Blóðughadda

Blóðughadda (Blóðughadda) is Ægir's innermost major moon, a close analogue to Jupiter's moon Io. Together with Bylgja, Blóðughadda creates the intense radiation belts that surrounds the inner moons. These belts, herded by the giant's immense magnetosphere and amplified by the moon's plasma torus, render even the outer moons dangerous for long-term habitation without significant shielding. It is the most volcanically active body in the entire system, earning it the informal nickname Muspelhel.

Blóðughadda is nearly three times Io's mass, and while the unstable periods between itself and the other moons contributes to a slightly higher eccentricity, its orbit remains fairly circular. Its mass and tighter orbit, though, remain the main factors in tidal forces giving rise to the truly lethal radiation belts around Ægir.

The moon's surface is covered in sulfur compounds, brought up from the mantle through its unyielding volcanism and spilled out onto the surface. What clouds do form from these eruptions are quickly stripped away through solar wind and magnetic interaction, leaving the world airless and covered in streaks of reds and yellows. Basaltic igneous flows are also common, giving the moon the iconic dark spotting it is known for. These blood-red streaks and blackened basalt deposits are the distinguishing features that gave Blóðughadda its name, the first of the moons to be given one.

Despite its relatively large size for a moon, having a little over a quarter of Earth's gravity, Blóðughadda is entirely uninhabited. Even heavily-armored ships and probes fizzle out in its orbit, and landing on the surface is a guaranteed way to contract lethal acute radiation sickness. Shelters that could be constructed are too expensive to be of much worth, and the resources provided by the moon are better found on its calmer neighbors or harvested from the radiation belts themselves. Settlements would be easily prone to its rapid resurfacing and constant volcanism, and would not last more than a few centuries even if theoretically shielded from the radiation.

Bylgja

Bylgja (Bylgja) is a case study of a moon type not found in the Solar system. Classed as something of a "dirty ice ball", it has a roughly even mixture of both volatile ices and silicate compounds in its outer crust. Impurities give the permafrost a brownish hue, as well as allowing a slightly more self-sufficient mining industry. Bylgja has some sulfur compounds on and near its surface, caused by a continuously volcanic nature similar to, though less intense than, Blóðughadda.

In terms of gravity, Bylgja has the seventh-lowest of Ægir's moons. At just 15.6% of Earth´s gravity, much volcanic ejecta is still lost to space and furthers the radiation belts around the system. The moon is named after the daughter of Ægir and Rán whose waves come with pressure, and pressurized indeed is Bylgja. With a thin subsurface ocean catching much of the silicate and sulfurous material as it bursts through the lower crust, the majority of what erupts from the upper surface is wet soot and water vapor. These eruptions can often cause quakes felt far from their origin point.

Bylgja is sparsely settled, though still subject to the immense radiation of the inner moons. The dosages are such that heavy shielding can protect from truly lethal amounts, though this mostly takes the form of underground bunkers better shielded by the ices on top of the meter-thick lead and aluminum plated walls. Infant mortality on Bylgja is statistically the highest throughout the entire Rán system.

Dröfn

Dröfn (Dröfn) is the third major moon from Ægir. While still deep enough in the radiation belts that a day unshielded is lethal, being irradiated around half as much as Io, modern shielding is capable of entirely preventing adverse effects within habitats. Most permanent structures are built with the same level of shielding as on Bylgja, but can exist primarily above ground.

Dröfn has chaos terrain and chasmata across much of its surface, and while it has no geological activity whatsoever, conclusions are that its history is similar to Dione or Miranda. In the primordial heat of the forming Rán system, Dröfn likely had increased tidal activity and outgassing, making the moon flex and crumple back on itself a number of times until reaching the state it is today. Its ice has surfaced through these flexings, giving it one of the purest water-ice surfaces of Ægir's moons.

Dröfn is the modern-day frontier world of the Rán system, with most of its thirty million residents being only a generation removed from other bodies. As shield architecture and the supply chain to fund it have both steadily grown over time, the prospects of settling on Dröfn have become more reasonable. Nations do struggle to expand to the folded moon, though, as the radiation causes messages outbound for beyond Himinglæva to become near-unrecognizable.

Uðr

Uðr (Úðr) is Ægir's fourth major moon, as well as its second largest. Gravity on Uðr is nearly identical to that on Hrönn, the largest of Ægir's major moons, and its thin nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere provides a thin layer of protection against the radiation, though its distance is a much greater factor in its habitability. Uðr is the innermost moon with a population above fifty million, and is the third most populated body in the entire system.

Uðr has a substantial subsurface ocean, heated by the great tidal forces between itself, Ægir, and the other moons. While this ocean is kilometers below the moon's icy outer crust, it has been studied through seismography extensively. The expected salt content of Uðr's ocean is enough to classify the entire body as brine, with a possible range of 16-21% salinity, depending on ammonia content. Though this has dissuaded many theorists believing Uðr to be potentially habitable, some believe that extremophiles may thrive in the dark brine.

Uðr's terrain is young and rather uniform, regularly refreshed by cryovolcanism and outgassing every few million years. This generally flat terrain is extremely useful for construction, should one have the shielding necessary to fend off the radiation from Ægir. As infrastructure in Gerdsbelti advances, Uðr seems to grow in response more directly than any of the other moons.

Himinglæva

Himinglæva (Himiqläva) is the fifth major moon from Ægir. Besides Hrönn, it has the thickest atmosphere of Ægir's moons, though its pressure at the surface is only 0.003% that of Earth's. Himinglæva was the innermost moon of Ægir to be settled in the initial landings, though this was partially due to the wealth of resources and lack of limiting atmosphere on its body. Of the Nine Waves, Himinglæva has had the most peaceable history, with no large-scale conflicts arising until the 2400s.

Himinglæva's surface has an Iapetus-like pattern of darkened regions, though the processes that cause them differ. Because of the instabilities in the chain of orbits, large masses of dark compounds occasionally fall out of Lagrangian stability and onto a collision course with the moon. As they destabilize, they form something of a thin belt that becomes aligned with its orbit. Both the leading and trailing sides of Himinglæva's surface are covered by these compounds, though they cluster more towards the equator. These dark regions are rich in minerals useful for enriching artificial soil, as well as bound nitrates and nitrites, which are essential for maintaining agriculture.

Usage of Ægir's radiation for a primitive crop-engineering became a trend on Himinglæva alone, evolving from scientific attempts to make Rán-specific efficient foods into something of an explorative field of art and science. With the largest non-hydroponic farms in the system, the moon has a surplus of room to experiment and produce hardier and more productive foods.

Dúfa

Dúfa (Dúfa) is Ægir's third largest moon, home to a thriving population and a subsurface ocean. Dúfa's distance from Ægir provides a modicum of shelter from the radiation, though not nearly as much as its outer neighbor. Unlike Hrönn, however, Dúfa has no thick atmosphere to hinder launches from the surface, and developed a much more prominent economy of space travel and exports.

Efforts to breach the icy crust and explore Dúfa's subsurface ocean have been continuous under Danish groups for the last century, though they remain unsuccessful so far. The Hergeman Borehole is so far the deepest and most extensive excavation attempt. In the process of attempting to reach the near-infinite saltwater supply beneath the crust, Dúfa's history as a moon has been extensively researched from the layers of ice.

Dúfa's land serves as military training grounds for many multi-world nations, as its gravity is nearly high enough to match Hrönn's. While not intended to create forces to invade nations on Hrönn, the gravity-training programs do raise some concern for nations primarily based on the seventh moon. Dúfan governments begrudgingly accept limitations and monitoring, as a full-scale invasion from any of the established Hrönnic powers is a doomsday scenario for the airless world.

Hrönn

Hrönn (Hrönn) is Ægir's seventh and largest major moon, as well as the most populated. It is the only body in the system with liquid bodies on its surface, a combination of alkanes similarly structured to Titan. Having the highest gravity of the moons at 0.29 Gs, as well as a substantial enough atmosphere to block much of Ægir's radiation, Hrönn was quickly established as the most densely populated body around Rán, with a modern population of around 780 million.

As a hydrocarbon-rich world, Hrönn has an immense value in terms of base materials for life, and therefore organic chemical engineering. The moon provides base chemicals for the rest of the system's sustained ecosystems to break down into more natural, Earthlike materials.

Hrönn is ravaged by storms, as while its eleven-day orbit gives it a slow rotation, the liquids on its surface are often near their boiling points. The energy transfer between its day and night sides creates persistent storms of ethane clouds and rain. Its cloud coverage is not a total layer like on Venus or Titan, but the skies remain choppy in even the best seasons. The night side tends to have fewer active storm cells, energy in the sky dissipating, but landing in the darkness is a challenge of its own.

Hrönnic settlements do not require any extensive pressurization measures, as the surface atmospheric pressure is just barely higher than that of Earth. The temperature differential is enough to warrant some measures against depressurization, but a crack in the dome-cities is less immediately catastrophic than on any other body in the system, and usually able to be patched with no immediate evacuation order.

Hefring

Hefring (Hefriq) is the eighth and smallest of Ægir's major moons, as well as the moon with the lowest population of Ægir's throng. The vast majority of development on the moon is under its surface, made in preparation to engineer infrastructure that will one day allow its inhabitants to increase its rotation rate. The underground cities have some of the best natural shielding from Ægir's radiation, and besides the extreme hölman effect from the negligable .013 Gs, it remains one of the safer places for a Ránnite to settle.

Hefring's main economic niche comes from its extremely low gravity and distance from Ægir's deep gravity well, both of which make it an ideal launch point and dock for long-range massive space cargo. Acting as the dock and slingshot between Ægir's moons and the belts, most materials shipped through the system reach Hefring at some point. Hefring's specialization works in tandem with Kólga's, taking maximum advantage of each of their tiny surfaces to collectively provide for the rest of the system.

IKEA's economic stranglehold on the moon remains the biggest limiting factor in its wealth. While not physically present, IKEA-Älmhult controls the exports from Gerdsbelti in their entirety, and threaten retraction of all businesses for considering competitors viable. Hefring's government under Denmark has taken some attempts to corroborate with Lyngvi Corporation in the outer system before, but currently shows careful loyalty to IKEA to not destabilize the system as a whole.

Kólga

Kólga (Kólga) is the ninth of Ægir's major moons, the furthest out, and the least irradiated. With barely more gravity than Hefring, it maintains a steady economy of shipping and transportation into and out of the Ægirran moons. However, the radiation it experiences is only a few times greater than Luna's, providing an even greater economic advantage.

Kólga's development is primarily based around communications with the rest of the system, taking bounced messages from the inner moons and reconstituting them to the best of their operatives' abilities before sending them, less prone to the giant's garbling, out towards other orbits. Communications stations dot the entire surface of the moon, with wire arrangements stretching along its surface to grant any station the ability to route any message in the direction it needs to go.

A semi-permanent connection to Hefring's own outbound stations is maintained from the city Kóldrammen, since Hefring manages much of the cargo being shipped into the Ægir moon system. Updates on orders and IKEA-Älmhult communications are vital for the smooth function of the whole system.

Lokabjalti

Lokabjalti (Lokabjalti) is the intermediate asteroid belt between Ægir and Fárbauti. It stretches throughout orbits from 8-20 AU out from Rán, though it has a comparable amount of material to the tightly-packed Gerdsbelti. Lokabjalti's dwarf planets, as per the astronomical conventions of Rán's people, are named after Norse figures with a connection to Loki. This belt hosts the largest dwarf planet in the system, Fenrir. While both Gerdsbelti and Lokabjalti were targets of the initial settlement, many Lokabjalti territories and projects rapidly fell to ruin or consolidated with the Ægirran moon populations, decaying while IKEA scrambled for Gerdsbelti's resources.

A secondary settlement in Lokabjalti has been successful due to the support of the development and extraction firm Lyngvi Corporation and their project of building infrastructure throughout the belt. The disparate micro-states of Lokabjalti, while totaling very small numbers of personnel, have in aggregate enough to rival the economic chokepoints of Hefring and Kólga thrice over. The formation of the Lokaþing, a union of all these small states into an allied power, has given the belt a more stable state and official collaborative protocols. While their ability to trade with the inner system remains deeply hampered by IKEA-Älmhult and their exclusion pact, the attitude held by the developing frontier is one of eventual progress, a rise to power that will one day force IKEA to bend the knee and allow free trade and competition.

Fárbauti

Fárbauti (Fárbauti) is the second proper planet from Rán, formerly designated Epsilon Eridani d by the IAU after its detection in the late 2080s. As it was never confirmed prior to the Sol King's arrival, Fárbauti remained unnamed until the fleets out to Rán arrived. It was named for the father of Loki, as its presence explained the previously poorly understood Lokabjalti.

Fárbauti's formation and composition is somewhat mysterious. Its atmosphere is very rich in helium, with little impurities left over for useful gas harvesting. The planet itself is very close in mass to Neptune, though its composition has very few of the volatiles one would expect from a planet so far beyond the frost line. Remaining a gas dwarf, its birth may have been one of outward flinging by Ægir, supporting its higher eccentricity as well.

Fárbauti's orbital territories have a loose alliance with the Lokaþing, supplying gas for their fusion power grids when IKEA manages to restrict exports from Ægir. However, they are much more loyal to the idea of an outer frontier. Political efforts to deter Lokabjalti from the goal of eclipsing the inner system and reuniting with them have so far been slow and unsuccessful, but funding toward the exploration of Niflhelsbelti has been promising.

Þjazi

Þjazi (Þjasi) is the outermost planet of Rán, formerly designated Epsilon Eridani c since its proposal in the 21st century. Because of its inclined orbit, Þjazi was difficult to confirm, just as Ægir originally was. It only received a proper confirmation after the parameters of candidate d, Fárbauti, were narrowed down enough to make its orbit fit. Proposed names for the planet included Thor and Odin. Both were overridden by the Ránnite settlers, as they declared full planets would be named after jötnar.

Þjazi is a very dim and resource-poor gas planet. Like Fárbauti, its composition is abnormally volatile-poor, despite being between the masses of Uranus and Neptune. Hydrogen and helium trade is dominated by Ægir already, and the third planet's distance from Rán makes transit incredibly time consuming. The lack of moons around Þjazi has been similarly taxing on development, as nearby asteroids have had to be mined out and repurposed for any sort of infrastructure in lieu of on-site bodies.

Despite trade concerns for the inner system, the Þjazian population derives trade from the sparse populations filtering out into Niflhelsbelti, acting as the gateway and last supply stop before the dense icy belt. Unfortunately, Þjazi has no moons to gather resources from, but orbital stations slowly assembled over the cenuries have become some of the most impressive in the entire system.

Niflhelsbelti

Niflhelsbelti (niflhelsbelti) is the thickest and most massive of Rán's belts, originally called the main belt by the IAU. It stretches out from 65 to 75 AU from Rán, and is primarily made of dim icy bodies, akin to Sol's Kuiper Belt. Niflhelsbelti is much thicker than the Kuiper Belt, however, and has evidence of a much more violent past. The dwarf planets that are forming there seem to be re-forming more than an initial coalescence, indicating a potential past collision between planetoids.

As a political power, Niflhelsbelti functionally does not exist. Lokabjalti is the true "outer frontier" of the system, with prospects in both minerals and ices funding a viable independent economy. Niflhelsbelti is difficult to scrape useful metals or minerals from, extremely far from the rest of the system, and entirely dependent on Þjazi for resource routing and support. They exist on a lifeline that gets more distant as Þjazi advances along its orbit, and eventually this system will collapse and make way for the next frontier along the arc.

Demographics

Rán was primarily and initially settled by a breakaway fleet from the initial NATO exodus to Alpha Centauri. Conflict with the other powers along their thirty-five year journey, particularly the powers from the Americas, led to a near-critical situation between regions. Tensions heightened by Russia in particular lead to some breakages. Much of the initial proceedings through this time are lost, but the Nordic countries ultimately peeled off and redirected themselves towards the orange dwarf. These initial populations make up the vast majority of Ránnite peoples, hailing mostly from old Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and some from a combined fleet between Denmark and the Netherlands.

Future settlements from across Earth and Mars eventually made their way to Rán in the 2300s, bringing news of the goings-on of Sol with them, albeit nearly a century out of date. These minority populations have a wider range of ethnicities, but have been ultimately strongarmed by precedent into assimilating into the generally Nordic descendant culture established by the first wave.

Population by Location
Body/Region	Population	Daily Radiation
Gerdsbelti	57,000,000	Cosmic only
Blóðughadda	0	~207 Sv
Bylgja	2,500,000	~60 Sv
Dröfn	30,000,000	~17 Sv
Uðr	184,000,000	~4.9 Sv
Himinglæva	78,000,000	~1.4 Sv
Dúfa	330,000,000	~0.4 Sv
Hrönn	780,000,000	~0.12 Sv (upper atm) ~1.6 mSv (surface)
Hefring	1,250,000	~33 mSv
Kólga	3,625,000	~9.7 mSv
Lokabjalti	12,300,000	Cosmic Only
Fárbauti orbit	7,305,000	Shielded, mostly cosmic
Þjazi orbit	4,020,000	Shielded, mostly cosmic
Niflhelsbelti	2,000,000	Cosmic Only
Space stations	8,000,000	Varies, mostly cosmic

Rán Hölmanism

The exceedingly low gravity of the moons of Ægir has given Ránnite humans a generally taller frame than baseline. While diligent exercise allows them to preserve some semblance of Earthly strength and capabilities, they are still debilitated by forces over half of Earth's own gravity. Ránnite humans average over two meters in height, with the most extreme examples born in the Belts and on Hefring and Kólga reaching closer to three.

The "hölman"^[1] effect (tall-man effect) is well researched and studied. Its health effects are known and combated by every government in the system with dedicated pharmaceutical research and mandated exercise regimens in almost every education system. Because there are no bodies where gravity is high enough to prevent the hölman effect, failure to provide for the youngest generation to support healthy growth is setting a delayed crisis for the nation in question. Drammyngland, a former nation on Dúfa, was fully annexed by the neighboring Nordravland territories once their three-year supply gap caught up to their adult populations and their military strength failed.

↑ "Hölman" is a unified neologism in a Ránnite creole. The terms vary for each official language: Hávaxinn (Icelandic); Højmand (Danish); Høymann (Norwegian); Långman (Swedish)

Governance

Rán's nations are a mixture of extant Earth nations and newly devised ones. International relations have broken down a handful of times, and the Nine Waves Union currently only has participation from Sweden, New Keflavík, and Nordravland. Cooperation is necessary for the survival of any independent power, but its diminishing need as nations became more established has led to more belligerence in recent decades.

Ultimately, though, the laws of supply and demand rule the system. Admission of ill will towards the aggregate powers in Gerdsbelti, even with significant presence in the other material-rich belts, is effectively nation-scale suicide. Being cut out of IKEA-Älmhult's contracting rights removes a massive amount of silicates and metals from a power's supply chain, which prevents most ability to expand or repair vital infrastructure. Their capital settlement on the dwarf planet Ymir is in the outer reaches of Gerdsbelti.

Language

The languages spoken in Rán are primarily North Germanic languages, including Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Danish. While some blending of the Ránnite dialects of these languages has occurred, Iceland's continued devotion to linguistic preservation has inspired similar movements in the other extant Nordic countries. Purist sects of each diverge decade by decade from the less conservative Ránnite dialects that are emerging. What started as a few loanwords and sparse slang is slowly becoming new hybrid tongue.

For standard international communications, Swedish has taken precedence as a result of initial population sizes and the rise of IKEA-Älmhult. English was proposed as a neutral international language when the first discussions occurred after the separation from the Alpha Centauri fleets, but this was superseded by a majority language within their own population. Messages are typically broadcast twice on a time delay, so the combined data can work to repair what damage cosmic and planetary noise caused to each recording.

Nýrúnar

The Ránnite peoples have long debated language and writing, with the etymology of their main sites coming from long-extinct parent languages of their own. As part of a cultural revival movement and to unify people, an all-encompassing alphabet was created as an alternative to the latin-derived scripts Rán's citizens primarily use. The exact creator and date of introduction have been lost, but scholars suspect it is of Icelandic make.

Nýrúnar (Nýrúnar), a Futhark-derivative runic script, accounts for the phonologies of the officially recognized languages of the system. While most are directly copied from various Futhark scripts, including elder, younger, and even medieval runes, some are derived from bindrune-adjacent iteration and a few are entirely new, particularly the rune Jarð. Many have multiple accepted pronunciations depending on the language one is writing in.

Nýrúnar is used primarily for formal and ceremonial writings, having something of a reputation of prestige. Usage of the script spiked during the secondary settlings of Rán by later Solar exoduses, part of a movement to preserve the Nordic identity that had developed throughout the system's history.

Table of Nýrúnar Runes

Nýrúnar Runes
Rune	Name	Meaning	Sounds (IPA)	Orthographic Use Cases	Shape Origin
f	Fehu	Wealth	/f/, /v/	"f"	Elder Futhark
v	Vöru	Product, goods	/v/	"v"	Iteration on Fehu
ú	Uruz	Cattle	/u/	"u", "ú" (Icelandic)	Elder Futhark
u	Ur	Possibly cattle or sleet	/ʏ/, /ʉ/, /ʊ/	"u" (Icelandic, Norwegian), "y" (rarely)	Iteration on Uruz, appeared as variant Medieval Rune
þ	Þurs	Term for jötnar	/θ/, /ð/	"þ" (Icelandic)	Elder Futhark
ð	Jarð	Earth	/ð/	"ð" (Icelandic)	New creation loosely based on Þurs
a	Ansuz	God	/a/	"a"	Elder Futhark
á	Ást	Love	/au/	"á" (Icelandic)	Bindrune of Ansuz and Uruz
r	Reið	Ride	/ɹ/, /r/, /ʁ/	"r"	Elder Futhark
k	Kaunan	Debated, possibly "Ulcer"	/k/, /kʰ/, /c/	"k"	Elder Futhark
g	Gibu	Gift	/g/, /k/, /x/, /ɣ/, rarely /j/	"g"	Elder Futhark
w	Wynn	Joy	/w/, /v/	"w"	Elder Futhark
h	Hagal	Hail	/h/	"h"	Elder Futhark
n	Nauðr	Need	/n/	"n"	Elder Futhark
i	Innan	Inside	/ɪ/, /i/	"i"	Elder Futhark
í	Íss	Ice	/iː/	"í" (Icelandic)	iteration of Innan
j	Jear	Year	/j/	"j"	Elder Futhark
ä	Æhwaz (Ähwaz)	Yew	/æ/, /e/, /ɛ/	"ä" (Swedish), "æ" (Danish, Norwegian)	Elder Futhark
æ	Æð	Blood vessel	/ai/	"æ" (Icelandic)	Bindrune of Ansuz and Æhwaz
p	Perþ	Debated, possibly "Game"	/p/, /pʰ/	"p"	Elder Futhark
s	Sól	Sun	/s/	"s", "z"	Elder Futhark
x	Vöxtur	Growth	/ks/	"x", "ks" (rarely)	Bindrune of Kaunan and Sól
t	Tiwaz	The god Týr	/t/, /tʰ/	"t"	Elder Futhark
b	Björkan	Birch Tree	/p/, /b/	"b"	Elder Futhark
e	Ehwaz	Horse	/ɛ/, /e/	"e"	Elder Futhark
é	Él	Hailstorm	/je/, /jɛ/	"é" (Icelandic)	Iteration on Ehwaz
m	Mannaz	Man	/m/	"m"	Elder Futhark
l	Lögr	Lake	/l/	"l"	Elder Futhark
q	Ingwaz	Yngvi, a name for Freyr	/ŋ/	"ng" (situational)	Elder Futhark
d	Dagaz	Day	/d/, /t/	"d"	Elder Futhark
o	Oss	Æsir	/ɔ/, /o/	"o"	Medieval Runes
y	Algiz	Elk	/y/, /ɪ/, /i/	"y"	Elder Futhark
ö	Ör	Arrow	/œ/, /ø/	"ö" (Icelandic, Swedish), "ø" (Danish, Norwegian)	Medieval Runes
ó	Óþila	Estate	/ou/	"ó" (Icelandic)	Elder Futhark
å	Ål	Eel	/ɔ/, /o/	"å" (Swedish)	Younger Futhark
ý	Ýr	Yew	/iː/	"ý" (Icelandic)	Younger Futhark

History

Initial Settling

The Nordic nations were supposed to arrive in Alpha Centauri, like the several other world powers that decided to flee to the nearest star. They were supposed to settle somewhere, anywhere close in. The travel time was perhaps a few decades; perhaps it would be somewhat longer if the planets were uninhabitable. They went with the first fleets out in 2100, closely following the rest.

However, international tensions began rising. As the claims on worlds never seen, but vaguely known became more aggressive, more individual, and more complicated, some groups felt threatened. When Russia in particular piloted this aggression towards parts of their fleet, one Swedish ship decided to turn another way. Several more followed. The flight had been going on for six years at this point, but the nations historically on Russia's Western doorstep collectively decided to settle a different system entirely. They set their sights on Rán, a promising young orange dwarf system with little known about it besides its two or three gaseous planets.

The settlers arrived in 2203, met with more consequences of the system's youth than they expected. While Ægir and the other two giants had settled out their orbits and masses, the rest of the rocky planets that were suspected to be possible had not yet formed. The debris disc was thinned out to nearly nothing, but the influence of the giants prevented them from forming large planets this early. What remained were the Belts, analogous to Sol's own in size and distribution. And what seemed most stable were the moons of Ægir, irradiated though they were.

Monopoly of Gerðr

Initial settlements opted for Hrönn and Dúfa, their low gravities being the highest in the system and their radiation levels being readily blocked with shielding. But a power vaccum quickly opened. Resources for shielding and construction were in low supply and very high demand. Engineers could only work with blueprints for so long. However, in the spirit of corporatocracy, IKEA had already anticipated this and claimed the dwarf planet Ymir as their new mining collective. Far beyond just a furniture company, they quickly reestablished themselves as a materials and prefabricated ready-to-assemble construction company. Their old Earth-bound business models translated well to this new expansion.

Gerdsbelti was originally also settled by several municipalities hoping to build themselves from the ground up: Norwegian shipping lines in particular became prominent. But the risks involved and the low ability to control such distant infrastructure were costly, and IKEA was ready to save big. By the 2250s, they had founded the enormous metropolitan area of Älmhult-Ymir, declaring themselves autonomous and self-sustaining. With this enormous base of operations and a steadily increasing workforce, the newly founded IKEA-Älmhult offered treatise agreements with the rapidly rising splinter nations of the outer system, giving them cheaper high-quality materials exchanged for the ices and hydrocarbons present beyond the frost line.

Over the next few decades, nations loyal to IKEA-Älmhult and their practices expanded much quicker than those independent of them, and the ability to stay within Gerdsbelti rapidly declined for all who defied them. Through rigorous business and engineering, IKEA had taken the belt for their own.

The Nine Waves Break

By 2300, several of Ægir's moons had been settled. To foster cooperation through the harships of making mostly-barren ice worlds a new home for humanity, the Nine Waves Union had been formed between Sweden, Iceland, Norway, and Denmark, as well as the first few nations declaring themselves a new Ránnite republic. Collaboration was absolutely essential to survive the early generations, especially in the fields of pharmaceuticals and healthcare.

But resources began flowing from Gerdsbelti faster and with greater quantity, and shielding technology improved, reducing the need for as many cancer medications. And of course, cities expanded across Hrönn and Dúfa, lighting up their night sides like Earth and Luna had been lit up. With expansion came redundancy, and with redundancy came expendability. Hubris followed. Territories "collectively" organized began to see their individual borders are more real.

In the case of linguistic purity, the old Earth nations had begun to see the neo-North Germanic creoles as a sign of their decaying prominence; Iceland especially took offense to this. Cultural borders became legal, then militaristic over time. Sweden called the Nine Waves to advocate for demilitarization entirely, citing the consistent upward trend in quality of life and life expectancy in their century without war. Norway and Denmark and Nordravland agreed. Iceland's new defense representative responded with a quick writing of the letter Æ between the runes Ä (Æhwaz) and Æ (Æð), and left the meeting.^[1]

War between Iceland and a now-defunct colony on Uðr called Snjóvei began a few days later. The Union, being primarily based on Hrönn and Dúfa, had difficulty convincing their people to oppose this. Like the chokehold IKEA had against all nations for their trade, Iceland had begun to militarize enough to hold the rest of the system down with force. Smaller states stayed with the Nine Waves Union, attempting to find safety in a collective force, but Norway left soon after.

Loki Gambit

IKEA-Älmhult's Board of Executives has typically been dedicated to their values as a corporation. But as the nations of Rán expanded and required more for maintenance and the assumption of benevolent cooperation eroded, some people began to suspect the Board of manipulating politics across the moons for their own ends. After all, you can sell more at a higher cost for express shipping for reconstructing destroyed cities, for selling and manufacturing both weapons and shields. The idea that the corpo-nation was war profiteering off of the various conflicts springing to life was not rare.

IKEA's own planetary defense and debris management systems could be easily refitted into weaponry against belligerent nations trying to settle in Gerdsbelti, which they now fully controlled and monitored. And though Gerdsbelti was the richest belt for stones and other metals, it was not the only belt in the system. Niflhelsbelti, Rán's own Kuiper Belt, was much too far away and poor in minerals not already found on-world. But Lokabjalti, despite starting over five AU outside of Ægir's orbit, had enough resources to potentially rival Gerdsbelti in aggregate. Not to overtake, dominated by icy bodies as it is, but enough to disturb IKEA's monopoly.

The settlers of Lokabjalti were initially a sparse few who hoped to find a unique opportunity outside the inner system. Their prospects were dim, but they had some basic infrastructure on the dwarf planet Fenrir. Lyngvi Corporation, an independent firm hailing from New Keflavík, changed all of that. Using their own steady stream of venture capital, they set up machines meant for on-world mining on Fenrir, which had gravity rivaling Bylgja. Originally purchased from IKEA-Älmhult's planetary development branch and rated for usage on worlds between 0.1 and 0.17 Gs, these machines spelled the turnaround of the debt-heavy Lyngvi Corporation and Fenrir's population as a whole.

For five long decades, they sold to nobody, reinvesting their developments across Lokabjalti into their own, communicating with the Nine Waves rarely. Their development of the fusion energy grid through the Ámsvartnir Metropolitan Area is what first caught the attention of the inner system. At minimum six AU distant from IKEA's wrath, they had begun setting up wider infrastructure across the ring of asteroids and dwarf planets. But while IKEA-Älmhult couldn't directly oppose them through military force, they could use their head start to compete.

Legal disputes against LyngviCorp for use of patented mining technology beyond purchased limits and for corporate gain fell through, as the struggling Nine Waves Union was beginning to once again collapse into a minority of nations and neither entity resided primarily within Ægir's orbit. While LyngviCorp had originally purchased the machines for use on Bylgja, they were still operated within similar conditions and for the same purpose. The second generation of machines, while able to be sued for patent infringement, was only one of several. Everything they tried outside of directly threatening a system power only slowed LyngviCorp's rise.

IKEA-Älmhult has threatened every nation, however. Access to Gerdsbelti's resources is mutually exclusive with partnering with LyngviCorp and the Lokabjalti infrastructure. Justifying it as "reducing redundant transport costs" for those buying from the outer system, IKEA-Älmhult positioned themselves as the superior option for nations trying to stay ahead of one another. LyngviCorp remains profitable within the expanding populace of Lokabjalti and beyond.

↑ Historically, Nýrúnar had been dominated by Icelandic influence. The name itself came from Icelandic for "New Runes". Pitting the rune for Æ or Ä, taken from the oldest runic script, and the bindrune for Iceland's "Æ" against each other was the country's signal of leave. They were done accommodating the others, tired by the pan-Nordic identity many had come to believe was just borrowing from their nation's independent writings.

[1] "Hölman" is a unified neologism in a Ránnite creole. The terms vary for each official language: Hávaxinn (Icelandic); Højmand (Danish); Høymann (Norwegian); Långman (Swedish)

[2] Historically, Nýrúnar had been dominated by Icelandic influence. The name itself came from Icelandic for "New Runes". Pitting the rune for Æ or Ä, taken from the oldest runic script, and the bindrune for Iceland's "Æ" against each other was the country's signal of leave. They were done accommodating the others, tired by the pan-Nordic identity many had come to believe was just borrowing from their nation's independent writings.

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