Rada
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Setting Intro | Visitor's Guide | Author's Intentions
This article is focused on Rada, the planet fighting against totalitarian control.
Rada is a garden world of massive proportions. Towering trees of purple-tinged bark sport leaves as big as a person. Megafauna migrate across the plains, and mountain ranges dwarf glittering cities. The hostile Emerald Legion maintains control of the planet, however, drawn toward its unexplained ties to psionics. Though resistance groups are gaining momentum, the Legion's grip remains tight.
Cruel Valley
Did you know?
The metadimension is both how interstellar travel works and what feeds psionics. Rada's ties to the metadimension gives them the only known psionic creature and a majority-psionic populace. It's also theorized to be why it's difficult to access through the metadimension, guarded by difficult pathways and a knot of stormsKnights in Green
The extraterrestrials were the Emerald Legion. Today, we know to never trust the Legion. At the time, however, the Legion promised friendship. They acted the part long enough to earn powerful positions in key places. When they enacted their coup, it was over before most knew it was happening. While mechs patrolled the streets, planet-wide broadcasts promised peace... as long as civilians obeyed the new rules.Life Under the Legion
Like true totalitarians, the Legion controls and tracks every aspect of Radan life, through governance, facial recognition cameras, and telepathic interrogations. While they've left Radan culture intact, they forbid acknowledging the planet's metadimensional ties. Those who even think of disobeying rarely return home. Considering the Legion's tactics, many believe the entire planet is an ongoing experiment to them.Fighting Back
For years, Radan fought back with violence and were met with heavy losses. As the death toll rose, rebellion became quieter. If the Legion wants them to forget about their own planet, they'll find ways to collect and spread that information. It's a delicate and disjointed process to ensure one person's capture doesn't bring down the whole network. Over time, aspects of the truth have warped through retellings. It's only been decades and some facts have already been confused with myths.Their armor reminded us of tales of dashing knights. Fleeing disaster at home, they said they were. Oh, it seems obvious now. They taught us how to make ships again, but never how to go anywhere with them. They always wanted us trapped.
Hopeful Ascent
Prior to the Legion Incursion, Rada was unknown to the Talos Sector. It was the Legion's staging ground for their attempted takeover of the sector, and after their failure, rutters to and from the planet were retrieved from commandeered Legion ships. However, the only known paths require a ship to have spike-3 drive. Incredibly expensive with massive power draw, even the Protectorate has relatively few ships with such an engine. While official aid to the planet isn't likely, adding it to sector maps has allowed for other help. A few daring crews can make the journey and remain undetected. They bring supplies to covert resistance groups and take refugees out with them. The Radan Resistance has gained momentum across the planet, but eradicating a force as powerful as the Emerald Legion still seems an impossible goal.Why Don't We Help Rada?
A question asked across the sector. Nobody thinks it a good thing that the Legion has control over Rada, so why don't we do something to correct the issue? The answer is part political, part logistical, and all frustrating.Politics
Rada has become an unwilling symbol of the times. In the Age of Mistrust, helping someone comes at a personal cost nobody wants to pay. Even if that cost is theoretical.Logistics
Perhaps due to its apparent connection to the metadimension, Rada is seemingly protected within it, making providing support logistically infeasible.They hide behind "logistics" out of fear. Ask them to find a better path to Rada, or to promise aid should one be found. Force them to take a stance. You'll see. They will not help us. They are too afraid of imagined villains to fight one right here. They say the metadimension is protecting Rada. I say, it is protecting their weak alliance. If they are too scared to help us, they won't be brave enough save themselves.
Icon for Rada
Timeline
2506
Original colonization of Rada
2665
The Scream kills all psions, decimating Rada's human population
3142
First contact with the Emerald Legion
3167
Emerald Legion completes their coup
3210
Radan resistance reignited
3212
Rada added to Talos Sector maps
Information
Owning Organization
Related Ethnicities
Contested By
Inhabiting Species
Author Commentary
Visual InspirationI always imagine Rada looking like the planet Havarl from Mass Effect: Andromeda.
You tempted me in, by talking about awesome megafauna and giant trees, and I stayed to learn about quite a sad planet, and I hope things get easier for people D: P.S. I have featured this in my Reading Challenge article! <3
Aww thank you! And yeah that was some of my struggle with this article, it ended up being much easier to write about when I stopped trying to write about *all* of it...
Speculative-Fiction Writing