Diaspora Biasola Session - The Cluster

This cluster is a result of a Diaspora demo session lasting about six hour held on a local convention in Reggio Emilia, Italy, on Jan 16th, 2010. Hope you Diaspora aficionados, contributors and (why not?) authors, read and like this report.
.
This post is about the resulting cluster that emerged from rolling attributes and discussion about planets, their characteristics and topology. Hope you enjoy it.

McDonald: T+1, E 0, R 0

McDonald is a moderately advanced solar system, whose mainworld is a garden world where its inhabitants can walk freely in the open air and bathe in its seas without wearing a protective suit. It has also enough resource to sustain a growing economy. It is however a place of stark economic contrasts, where corporations are de facto world government and rule over a disillusioned, bored populace, whose only concern is drink, eat and watch the next 3D-show. These corporations are also very scared of Plone's expansionist plans, and so far their best response has been giving Plone unlimited minerary rights on the outermost planet of the system, rich in heavy minerals. So far no one in the board of directors has complained. Even if they could be able to mount a strong resistance agains Plone in case of an all-out attack, corporations are too much concerned about their immediate gains  and fail to see the cluster politics in perspective.

• Bored to death
• The rich gets richer, the poor is getting poorer
• Appeasement

Plone: T+2, E-3, R+1

Countless O'Neill islands orbit the scorched, asteroid-bombed remain of what was, according to legends, a lush world. Ancestors of current inhabitants ascended to T4 -- and then some of them vanished, leaving behind a dying world whose atmosphere was thinning by the year. The survivors managed to establish bases on the countless asteroids now orbiting plone and not only salvage the remnants of their culture and technology, but actually improve on it. However, the price was very high: a class of tecnocrats rose to power, shrouding themselves with a "Blood, soil and honour" ideology and promising endless living space to be taken from "inferior" or "unworthy" cultures. It must also be said that an underground resistance movement is very active, smuggling tech to neighbouring systems to help them prepare for the coming wars.
Nowadays, Plone is the only culture which can boast slipknot capabilities of their own: this is a distinctive advantage in furthering its Cluster domination dream and, since Ploneans High Command is very aware of it, they will undertake what it takes to mantain this advantage.

• Lebensraum!
• Vive la résistance!
• We live in the shadow of our former glory

Rigel: T-1, E-1, R 0;

Rigel is a waterworld, and the small archipelagos dotting the equator make up for only 1.4% of the world's surface. Invaded by Ploneans forces, Rigel managed very recently to wrestle its freedom, at a price: it currently has little space capabilities of its own. Being a crafty and resourceful lot, Rigelians managed to salvage stranded Plonean interface vehichles, refitted them with crude but effective weaponry and used them to attack and seize bigger, slipknot-faring, Plonean spaceships, thus making contact with up-and-coming Aliback. Since the independence, Plonean high command considered the use of nuclear orbital weapons to get rid of this nuisance, but the Environmental branch of Colonization office warned against this option, since Rigel is also a big source of  liquid water.

• Freedom has a price we are willing to pay
• Waterworld
• Best and bravest space pilots in the cluster, period.

Black Athena: T-1, E-3, R-2

 Black Athena is a small rocky world, smaller than Earth's Moon that cannot possibly sustain life on its surface. The system, as a whole, does not have any resource to speak of. Yet, there are humans living in it. A small population of political prisoners and dangerous criminals from Plone is confined here to spend their lives digging pointlessly through the planet. Over the years, the twenty-seven digging stations have developed their own internal equilibria: there are stations which are, by all means, self-sustatining dissident republic, where even the controlling prison guards have been won by "The Cause" and stations which are veritable hell-holes, where frustrated and fanatical Plonean guards amuse themselves by treating prisoners like animals.
Lately, there has been some "prison myth" of sorts growing about... things living in the deepest shafts of the mines, things that need not breath, thing which feed on miners...

• Prison World
• There is something lurking in the mines
• "There is a place in plone for dissent: its name is Black Athena"

Aliback: T+1, E 0, R+2

 The rich system of Aliback boasts the fastest-growing economy in the cluster: thanks to the ship smuggled by Rigelians, they have acquired a limited slipstream capability and thus, their position made them a natural hub for businesses... legit or not. Since their arrival on the cluster scene, Aliback made a strong alliance with Medioworld and is trying desperately to crack slipstream technology, all of this while acquiring resources, making alliances and dancing on a sword's edge with Plone's ambassadors. Because of this bustling activity, spies of all sorts have landed on the planet:.

• We are about to strike it big
• Commerce is Everything
• "Casablanca" 

Avernus: T-1, E-2, R+1

 There are no records about this, but Plone historians state that the previous culture inhabiting Avernus during Plone's collapse phase tried to defend the planet by releasing a genenginereed virus that should kill only Ploneans troops. However, they were punished for this hubris, and the plague swept the planet, killing all of its inhabitants, tainting the atmosphere and mutating horribly plants and animals living on it. Nowadays Plone scientific bases and prison camps "for prisoners who behave" are the only human presence on  the planet, warranted by a higher-than average ratio of high (T2+) tech remnants that can be found on it. However, it is impossible to grow anything on this deadly world, imports from Plone Fatherland are few and far between and yet... there is no shortage of food

• Quarantined World
• We're here on parole
• "Soylent Green"

Medoworld: T 0, E 0, R+1

 Medoworldeans are a clannish and quite balkanized bunch, that quite recently made contact with an Aliback prospecting team. This very contact fostered the formation of a world alliance whose main objective is prevent Plone from dominating the cluster. A worthy goal indeed, hampered by their limited technological prowess. The system is a source of  abundant heavy metals, and thus a lively commerce has begun between Aliback (which needs these rare metals) and Medoworld (in need of advanced tech). The most renowned medoworldean export is, however, that of military consultants: centuries of balkanization and inter-clan guerrilla made Medoworld shock troops terribly effective in desperate scenarios. There are currently some units deployed on Black Athena (working on really deep cover, indeed) and on Rigel (helping natives becoming better fighter and learning something about Plone's technology)

• My cousin and I against the Stranger
• Freedom must be exported
• Trigger-happy

Sulphuria:T+1, E-2, R+2

 Sulphuria is another world on the verge of slipstream exploitation. This is a technological capability it sorely needs, since the whole world is now a nuclear wasteland as a consequence of a devastating planetary nuclear incident that prevented Sulphuria from reaching T2. This also resulted in a worldwide ban on atom power use, so Sulphurians have become very expert in exploiting non-standard energy sources or optimizing yields of existing tech. The higher than average background radiation level has also caused a lot of mutations in humans that live there: most of them are malignant, but some of them are not only permanent, but are known to give some "edges" to their bearers. These muties fought a lot to obtain the respect due, and are still feared by most of world's population.

• Global Nuclear Incident
• We are a warning for the universe
• Active militant mutant minority