Okari

The innermost major moon of Nayeren, Okari is one of the earliest population centers in the outer Verda System. Alongside Trantin, it existed as part of the outermost major nation of the Alorath at the time of first contact with the Verna in 255 BC, and was later the first signatory of the Verdan Federation founding charter.

At 579 km in radius, it is very much on the smaller side for the major moons of the Verda System, and its total surface area is roughly equal to the subcontinent of Hervidar on Teralla. While it is presumed that it formed in an accretion disk like most moons, its highly variable geographic features remain unexplained. Okari is famous even beyond its system for its impressively diverse landforms, including the 21 kilometer deep Leva Canyon and the massive Checkmark Cliffs, both spreading across hundreds of kilometers of the surface.

Orbit

Of the major satellites of Nayeren, Okari is the innermost, orbiting just beyond its most distant rings. Okari orbits Nayeren once every 1.067 days, and like most moons its rotation is in a tidal lock, keeping one face pointing towards its parent. Okari's inclination is negligible.

Physical Characteristics

Otherwise a fairly standard icy moon like most in the far outer solar system, Okari is notable for its pale red color, a sign of the tholin abundance common to the realm of the ice asteroids. Its density of 1.517 g/cm³ implies a composition of at least 50% water ice. Heat from radioactive decay resulted in internal differentiation, as Okari is much too small to retain any from its initial formation. Elements like methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide may exist in quantity on the planetary surface, as well as various organic compounds. In general, these properties are fairly similar to Glau's moon Deion, although the latter is smaller and lacks the organic compounds. In the distant past, Okari possessed a liquid ocean of roughly 90 km thickness, and some argue that the ocean remains to the mdoern day in a vastly diminished state.

While it is unclear how the vastly varied terrains of Okari could form on such a small world with so little internal energy, most agree that it was driven by tidal heating in the distant past during a resonance with a moon since destroyed or ejected by Trantin. Such a resonance would have increased its eccentricity, generating tidal friction and therefore internal heat.

Surface Features

Okari's surface is unique in all the Verda System, and its like is rare in the Vernarca Nebula as a whole. Its face is covered in fractures, faults, valleys, ridges, cliffs, gorges, and more, alongside the traditional crater blanketing. Much of the northern hemisphere is much older, and covered with a number of craters as well as a thicker layer of reddish tholins. Other regions, by contrast, feater complex sets of ridges and fault scarps as well as numerous outcrops of light and darker materials.

Various regions are bounded by escarpments as old as the moon itself, or by much younger ones. These faults come with grabens created by ancient tectonic activity. These regions are also host to characteristic massive albedo contrasts between lower and higher areas of land. Okari also features a great number of escarpments across its surface of varying ages. The most notable of these is the Checkmark Cliffs, an escarpment rising over fifteen kilometers above the ground.

Despite these oddities, Okari is also home to a number of more normal impact craters. Ranging in size from 20 kilometers on down, they are almost exclusively classical, bowl-shaped craters, some of which have domed city-states constructed in them by the early Federation-era Alorath. Ejecta deposits are rare.

History

Formation

Just like most moons, Okari formed in a disk of dust, rocks, and ice surrounding the newly formed Nayeren. Unlike most moons of this size, it features areas surprisingly young compared to the age of the object as a whole, which requires a period of reheating sometime much more recent. The most recent formations date back only a few hundred million years, which cannot be explained by leftover formation heat or the decay of radioactive materials.

Okari's anomalously young surface was likely caused by a combination of tidal heating, mechanisms of orbital resonances (with what?), or even convection in the interior. A hypothetical impactor may have existed in the past, partially resurfacing the planet, but the new and old terrain are too unevenly arranged for this to fully explain them.

Shortly after its formation, the Nayeren System was occupied by a sizable array of major moons, of which Okari was a fairly middling member. During the post-formation era, these moons' orbits fluctuated, and one of them held Okari in a 3:1 resonance, heating its surface drastically. Sometime after the age of the Qomarat Empire, the dwarf planet Trantin was captured into orbit around Nayeren, destabilizing the moon system and further affecting Okari's orbit and internal heat. All the original moons except Okari and the now-irregular Nerad were destroyed or ejected in the process.

Initial Explorations and Colonization

A million years ago, Okari was the site of the outermost large-scale settlement of the Kesstra (or Silik, it is impossible to know) before the Edron Genocide, but beyond that very little is known about this era of the moon's history. The first real historical records begin with the exploration of the Nayeren-Volarus region by the newly spacefaring Alorath. First surveyed by the Endala I and II probes in 491 BC, the trajectory required to aim Endala II at the conveniently placed dwarf planet Theris took the probe within 25 kilometers of Okari's surface, making half of it the most well-observed object in the region for a long time. The later launch of the Castilo probe to orbit Nayeren and properly explore its lunar system mapped the other half of its surface, allowing Alorath scientists to begin to determine the reason for its bizarre hodgepodge of terrains.

Due to the Nayeren System's distance from Teralla, it would be another century before the first crewed mission to the planet and its moons, and that spent most of its time in the vicinity of the quasisatellite world of Volarus. However, the first real colony attempt on the moon was finally established in 369 BC to much fanfare. Fica Colony worked just like most colonies did, until it vanished completely without warning. The steady stream of data sent back from the colony's ground-based surveys went silent overnight. The population of 450 people were never heard from again, and the next mission out there to investigate found a pristine surface untouched by civilization for eons.

Later missions managed to catch their landing probes on Okari being disassembled by what looked to all the world like motes of dust moving of their own will. The moon was held under quarantine for the next decade as top scientists in the inner system worked on how to solve this problem. With Okari's would-be inhabitants restricted to orbital space for their safety, the competition grew from Trantin and the ring moons. Engineers aboard the orbital habitats had uncovered a possible method to disable the swarm by irradiating them from orbit with specific wavelengths of light, a common proposal among pitches of similar technologies.

Unfortunately, enacting this plan required the construction of a swarm of specialized probes, and the possibility of extracting the resources from Okari itself would obviate the need for them. Trantin was sympathetic to the Okarin plight, but their moon's accessible surface was made entirely of ices. Thus, the colonists hatched a plan to steal ring asteroids from the then-hostile United Settlements of Inner Nayeren and build them out of that. The first few of the heists went off without a hitch, swiping clouds of rocks from hundreds of kilometers away from the major settlements, but collection trip 3 came under heavy railgun fire from a patrol ship out of Laris and had to retreat back to Okari.

With the USIN aware of the original plan, the Okarin colonists turned to the other side of the system. The far outer moon of Malgirak was notably composed partly of accessible silicates and iron, and they quickly rushed over there to get some. This time, no one was there yet to shoot them with anything, the probes were built.

The city of Livi was finally established in 356 BC, beginning a long period of permanent habitation on Okari. Since Okari's surface was finally safe to live on, its population rapidly increased from this point forward. The Leva Canyon and Checkmark Cliffs became notable tourist destinations, even in this relatively early era of space travel. In 281, the colony declared de jure independence from its homeland of Esera, and incorporated Rab into its control following the breakup of the United Settlements of Inner Nayeren in 298.

Post-contact and Verdan Federation Era

During the V'Straki Incident of 255 BC, the primarily liberal populace of Okari was opposed to offensive action against the generation ship, with some even offering to help build living space on or near Okari if the inner system proved too hostile to the Verna's presence. Luckily, this proved unnecessary, but it established a long history of friendship between Okari and this population of Verna. Some even chose to emigrate to the moon, establishing a community which survives to this day.

In 206, the colonies at nearby Trantin unified, forming a strong military and economic alliance with Okari. The two held a stranglehold on the production of fusion fuel from Nayeren's Helium-3-rich and cheaply accessible atmosphere, giving them outsized influence over the Verda System especially as the burgeoning colonies orbiting distant Audras expanded. This dominance came to an abrupt end, however, when the warp drive was invented on Esera in 189, unlocking a more efficient and fast method of travel to far distant locations. With this development, Okari and its neighbors receded from prominence, suddenly no longer on the way to anything.

With the rapid decrease of exports, the inhabitants of the Nayeren moons quickly turned to self-sufficiency. In this era, a nation helping another simply because they needed it was a rare occurrence indeed, so relying on goodwill was not yet possible. After years of largely standing alone, elder statesman Wurz Sekler of distant Velar began to propose their Alorath Federation idea, and the people of Okari picked it up and ran with it. The Unity of Trantin-Okari became the first signatory of the Cerek Pact in 131 BC, before even the nations of the homeworlds. With that, the Verdan Federation was formed. Trantin-Okari was followed by Durna on Teralla, the Inner Jevethra League, and the Karba colony in the Katheria System, but it paved the way for the later creation of the great Vernarcan Federation, of which the original Verdan Federation is but a small part.

With the founding of the Verdan Federation, the Verda System and thus Okari was largely at peace, with over a century passing before anything interesting took place on the planet. In this time, the culture was dominated by engineering and artistic pursuits much like less remote territories of the Federation. Unfortunately, this era of peace ended in 2 BC when the Teralla Prime terrorist cell destroyed two minor habitation satellites. This attack killed 40,000 people and almost caused a collisional cascade locking the moon away from civilization for centuries, but this was narrowly averted by a citizens' effort to clean up the fragments of the habitats and put the dead to rest.

Modern Times

The creation of the Vernarcan Federation was widely supported by Okari's populace, a fervor which spread across the Verdan Federation (not to be confused). Ships sent from here were represented in the alliance fleet at the Battle of Vistari, as well as other major engagements in the Tyran War. Okari itself, in the deep core of the new Federation, was protected from military action for almost its entire history from this point.

Unfortunately, not all threats are military in nature. While the Simiri Swarm completely ignored the moon on its beeline towards Teralla, the mobilization of Okari's defense fleet to assist left the moon vulnerable, and soon political unrest overtook the planet. The charismatic politician Lusor Isvall stirred up a deeply xenophobic movement, blaming alien presence for all the (highly exaggerated) problems across the Vernarcan Federation and advocating secession. Due to both violations of net neutrality and enormous amounts of propaganda spread around the Okarin and Trantan airwaves, Isvall was swept into power and quickly declared independence from the Federation in 48 AC.

Due to the political organization of both the Verdan Federation and the larger Vernarcan Federation, there was nothing illegal about this action. The worlds of the Verda System and the Federation at large were forced to sit back and watch as the Unity of Trantin-Okari fell headlong into fascism. For the non-Alorath minority, things went from bad to worse. The Verna communes were invaded, with many community leaders being brutalized. Even the Alorath population suffered greatly, with many quietly regretting their decision as food became much more difficult to come by. The small population of Lrenn living on Okari was quietly sectioned off into run-down neigborhoods.

Sairae, a small Verna settlement of roughly 200 people on the anti-Nayeren hemisphere, refused to follow Isvall's orders to send its mining resources to the capital. Its protective dome was broken through sabotage, and the survivors massacred before any defense could be mounted. Instead of serving as a warning, the Sairae Massacre pushed public support away from Isvall and galvanized the underground resistance into open action.

The primarily Verna settlement of New Fica, deep underground near the south pole, was located far enough away from Livi and its sprawl that it could prepare for the incoming invasions, and remained de facto independent for most of Isvall's reign. As such, it accepted many refugees fleeing the new regime's oppression, building new habitation spaces for all manner of species. To this day, it remains the most diverse settlement in the entire Nayeren system.

Isvall ordered an siege of New Fica, barring anything from going in or out, seemingly forgetting that every deep-space colony is entirely self-sufficient by default. At this point, their regime was crumbling, with revolts, defections, and mutinies almost commonplace. Their reign ended on 29.4, 61 AC, when their pilot vented the air from their personal shuttle en route back to Livi, but it takes a long time to recover from such a reign. The capital was transferred from Livi to New Fica after their death, and the regime's military leaders were quickly put on trial and imprisoned for life. The first elections since Isvall came to power took place, electing a much more moderate government which immediately re-signed the Cerek Pact, rejoining the Verdan Federation.

After Isvall's death, the Unity of Okari-Trantin went through almost a century of largely uneventful time until the War of the Broken Bow. In 141 AC, the Carremmat Ro'kasa placed the entire Verda System under military occupation, lasting for the next two years and resulting in large population loss as those who could fled to Klein. New Fica's underground status didn't help it this time, and it was quickly taken by the Alliance occupiers. While the occupation only lasted until the Terminus Invasion of 143, it brought back bad memories of the Isvall years. In month 7 of 150 AC, three small ships of the moon's defense fleet joined the Working Title Fleet led by the FSS Kareland to defeat the void, with the full blessing of the populace.

Civilization

Okari's surface is home to 4 billion people residing in arcologies, domed crater cities, and smaller shelters scattered across the lunar surface. As one of the earliest members of the Verdan Federation, Okari held outsize historical influence despite its distance from Teralla, and as such has a higher population than similarly sized worlds like Velar. The city of Livi on the southern hemisphere hosts almost a tenth of this population, spread throughout both the original domed settlement and later extensions into the ice. Its low temperature also enables its use as a high-powered computational installation, with mass amounts of computronium running the consciousnesses of enormous numbers of individuals in the extreme cold.