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Description

The queen of Hortensios with the crown prince at the summer palace. They don't always dress like that. It's not the most discrete outfit, and kind of defeats the point of withdrawing to that secundary residence, which has a lot less guards and defenses. The reasoning, I suppose, is that this pretty little planet doesn't exactly represent a strategic advantage for any of the various factions active in the region; that out of a perhaps foolish hope, they assume that no foreign power would deign to take them out or kidnap them; that their nonchalance somehow reinforces their defenses in the same way as a more powerful nation's demonstrations of military might would reinforce theirs.

This world building thingy is part of a series on lost utopias.

www.deviantart.com/61021376/ar…

www.deviantart.com/61021376/ar…

www.deviantart.com/61021376/ar…

youtu.be/QpxN2VXPMLc

400 years ago, in midst a frenzy of space colonization and unbridled optimism, far away in the Dim Sun region, an eccentric multi-billionnaire seeked to create an earthly paradise from scratch, and to that effect, purchased three habitable planets. Many other people had a similar intent, as well as many more who had a less idealistic vision in mind, and it materialized in the phenomenon known nowadays as the Star Trail. Most of these stars in the present day, are dead, but all three planets of this constellation are still alive in their own respective way.

Obscured by tragic events and the downfall of its dreamy owner, the crown jewel of this enterprise was Lucifer's Blackstar, and it was to be populated exclusively by herbivores. Its old name is archived somewhere in the millions of folders of the Galactic Stock Exchange in Palera, where nobody would really care about finding it, as this dark story holds much terrifying implications; that is to say pretty much, it's lost to the ages.

Second, was Aryatis. This one was the industrious core, as well as the laboratory. It was populated with panthers, with the goal of testing the possibilities of including predators into a form of vegan diet. There, various tests were performed, one of which a vast bio-engineering program seeking to produce "meat" out of vegetal material. Reportedly, hybrid species were successfully created. To this day, the Panther empire is a powerful and ambitious nation.

The third planet was more of a vanity project. Quiet, rather small and isolated, economically irrelevant, Hortensios was designed with a few ancient civilizations in mind, and the owner dedicated it to his wife, after whom the planet was named. To the people they elected to populate this cosmic pearl, they left refined architecture and the knowledge necessary to replicate it; they made sure that the inhabitants would never venture too far astray from the delicate frame of what the planet's owner considered a utopia; however, they had conceived said frame in such a manner that it could theoretically evolve indefinitely in the same general direction. The people itself, unicorns, is a mystery, because there's no such things on Ellig. There could be archives detailing the affair buried somewhere, but they have yet to be found or at least disclosed to the public, and that's assuming they've not been destroyed in the tumultuous times that followed the fall of the owner. Some believe they were genetically engineered locally or on Aryatis, which is plausible given what is known of their accomplishments; others think they were imported from another galaxy, which is far-fetched and asks more questions than it answers.

Whatever the case may be, similar to Aryatis (and even to Lucifer's Blackstar in a twisted fashion), this quaint little Trianon went its own way, mostly prosperous and peaceful, long after its owners had perished on the chopping block.

Of all three planets of the defunct empire, this one deviated the least from the top down approach of its conception. Whether or not this is due to heirs of the ruined family's surviving members living there in exile, is up to debates that have yet to happen outside of some tabloids who mix annoying paparazzi work, science fiction and conspiracy theories : much like the planet itself and its people, they live there humble and quiet lives, looking at the outside turmoil with a mixture of ennui, and understandable fear which they keep under control with shaky interplanetary treaties, and culinary rarities. The scandalous rags give confusing reports of orgies and heavy use of fungi from Palera; but after the scum has passed, this beach of fine sand glimmers under the moon; they simply say that the very atmosphere of Hortensios is an adequate and natural anodyne.

Description

The queen of Hortensios with the crown prince at the summer palace. They don't always dress like that. It's not the most discrete outfit, and kind of defeats the point of withdrawing to that secundary residence, which has a lot less guards and defenses. The reasoning, I suppose, is that this pretty little planet doesn't exactly represent a strategic advantage for any of the various factions active in the region; that out of a perhaps foolish hope, they assume that no foreign power would deign to take them out or kidnap them; that their nonchalance somehow reinforces their defenses in the same way as a more powerful nation's demonstrations of military might would reinforce theirs.

This world building thingy is part of a series on lost utopias.

www.deviantart.com/61021376/ar…

www.deviantart.com/61021376/ar…

www.deviantart.com/61021376/ar…

youtu.be/QpxN2VXPMLc

400 years ago, in midst a frenzy of space colonization and unbridled optimism, far away in the Dim Sun region, an eccentric multi-billionnaire seeked to create an earthly paradise from scratch, and to that effect, purchased three habitable planets. Many other people had a similar intent, as well as many more who had a less idealistic vision in mind, and it materialized in the phenomenon known nowadays as the Star Trail. Most of these stars in the present day, are dead, but all three planets of this constellation are still alive in their own respective way.

Obscured by tragic events and the downfall of its dreamy owner, the crown jewel of this enterprise was Lucifer's Blackstar, and it was to be populated exclusively by herbivores. Its old name is archived somewhere in the millions of folders of the Galactic Stock Exchange in Palera, where nobody would really care about finding it, as this dark story holds much terrifying implications; that is to say pretty much, it's lost to the ages.

Second, was Aryatis. This one was the industrious core, as well as the laboratory. It was populated with panthers, with the goal of testing the possibilities of including predators into a form of vegan diet. There, various tests were performed, one of which a vast bio-engineering program seeking to produce "meat" out of vegetal material. Reportedly, hybrid species were successfully created. To this day, the Panther empire is a powerful and ambitious nation.

The third planet was more of a vanity project. Quiet, rather small and isolated, economically irrelevant, Hortensios was designed with a few ancient civilizations in mind, and the owner dedicated it to his wife, after whom the planet was named. To the people they elected to populate this cosmic pearl, they left refined architecture and the knowledge necessary to replicate it; they made sure that the inhabitants would never venture too far astray from the delicate frame of what the planet's owner considered a utopia; however, they had conceived said frame in such a manner that it could theoretically evolve indefinitely in the same general direction. The people itself, unicorns, is a mystery, because there's no such things on Ellig. There could be archives detailing the affair buried somewhere, but they have yet to be found or at least disclosed to the public, and that's assuming they've not been destroyed in the tumultuous times that followed the fall of the owner. Some believe they were genetically engineered locally or on Aryatis, which is plausible given what is known of their accomplishments; others think they were imported from another galaxy, which is far-fetched and asks more questions than it answers.

Whatever the case may be, similar to Aryatis (and even to Lucifer's Blackstar in a twisted fashion), this quaint little Trianon went its own way, mostly prosperous and peaceful, long after its owners had perished on the chopping block.

Of all three planets of the defunct empire, this one deviated the least from the top down approach of its conception. Whether or not this is due to heirs of the ruined family's surviving members living there in exile, is up to debates that have yet to happen outside of some tabloids who mix annoying paparazzi work, science fiction and conspiracy theories : much like the planet itself and its people, they live there humble and quiet lives, looking at the outside turmoil with a mixture of ennui, and understandable fear which they keep under control with shaky interplanetary treaties, and culinary rarities. The scandalous rags give confusing reports of orgies and heavy use of fungi from Palera; but after the scum has passed, this beach of fine sand glimmers under the moon; they simply say that the very atmosphere of Hortensios is an adequate and natural anodyne.