Aite

Aite
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Orbital Distance	1.4 AU
Orbital Period	1.7 Earth Years
Radius	5,941 km
Day Length	24.9 Earth Hours
Atm. Pressure	0.8 atm
Surface Temp	20 °C
Surface Gravity	0.88 g
Mass	0.758 Earth Masses
Satellites	2
Capital	Adrasteia (disputed)
Colony Founded	2104 CE
Population	1,540,000

Aite is an Earth-like world with a variety of habitable land ranging from deserts to jungles to tundra. It also possesses faint rings, an unusual feature for a non-giant planet. The rings contain rocks up to a meter in length and a wide dust cloud that stretches nearly 23,000 km from the center of the planet.

This impressive celestial phenomenon, however, is dwarfed by the fact that Aite's largest moon, Litae, is in an unstable orbit and is predicted to impact the planet within the next two centuries. Knowing that any Aitian venture is living on borrowed time, colonial population and investment has been orders of magnitude less than other garden worlds.

Known Settlements

• Adrasteia (Capital - disputed)
• Derrai
• Freedom Falls
• Linissa

Satellites

• Litae
• Unnamed Moon

Communication

With a sparse population and a ring blocking line of sight to anything in synchronous orbit (33,452km altitude), Aite has a lot working against it when it comes to facilitating communication both planet-side and off-world.

Aite's ties to the wider galaxy consists of 20 satellites in polar and inclined orbits that are a remnant from when the world was still under council influence. Off-world corporations have taken ownership of these satellites post-independence and have taken to maintaining them to keep their orbits stable. Others depending on it, mostly colonies' central up-links and companies, end up paying for this maintenance in the end.

It is possible for a vehicle, property or small village to get their own extranet up-link with relatively simple hardware, but they will have to pay to not be last in line -- if they get any access to all without paying.

Point-to-point wireless arrangements are used between colonies that have strong relations and a need for communication. The lack of regulations enable these to operate on multiple frequencies to maximize throughput, though they usually take care to avoid interfering communications between hosts and extranet up-links. Long-range cable installations exists, but they are mostly between wireless antennas and colonies.

Quantum entanglement is a way to conduct secure and consistent communication between colonies. The low bandwidth, high hardware cost, and no on-world manufacturing means there are no known users.

Transport

Aite is a very sparsely populated planet, which brings with it a lot of challenge when it comes to moving people and cargo around.

Hiring Transport

Those that come to Aite without the resources of an off-world company at their command may find great difficulty travelling around the world, let alone leaving the world.

It's rare to find any centralized infrastructure for customers to find transport companies and vice versa, and timetables are a rare sight for local transport. Traveling between colonies would thus require contacts or knowledge of what channels they use to connect with customers. It's inherently risky to conduct business on Aite, which means that most transport companies rely on a chain of trust to connect with reliable transports. However, struggling startups may take a deal with a riskier clients.

Trucks are the most common, and the low value of their transports means that it's paid off in short order. There is a barrier to entry, however, as the inconsistent state of roads – or the lack thereof in places – might prove challenging to an inexperienced driver. Then there is getting to their destination on time with the cargo and passengers intact.

For longer distances, airborne transports start to make more sense. The high value of the vessels and the risk of operating makes the contacts harder to find, and many may outright refuse passengers. Those that don't hire security which adds significantly to the fare. A concerning amount of transporters tend to use old crafts that have long since lost their spaceworthiness, and the lack of anything resembling regulations means that passengers should be as careful about whose ship they step on as the ship captains.

Waterborne vessels exist to transport goods and people between coastal colonies. However, the distances between colonies of note along the coasts are great, and that means that trips are few and far between. Booking passage on one is quite difficult without knowing any of the captains. Most ships has a limited capacity, but given the small size of most of the colonies they work for, that should not become an issue for anyone not big enough to justify the cost of running their own transporting.

On any transport there are also the risks of it being a means to capture people for sapient trafficking. If an offer is too good to be true, that is most likely because it is. That being said, there is no rule or generalization without a myriad exceptions. A kind soul may just not mind company on the lonely road.

Vehicle Ownership

The planet's undeveloped nature is reflected in the vehicles available to the average person living on the planet, namely wheeled vehicles with capabilities to brave the regional terrain. Many of them contain modern technologies that are not difficult to manufacture for a well equipped frontier colony.

Shuttles are much, much rarer. Even a large colony like Freedom Falls has very few of them due to their steep import price. Larger ones, let alone space worthy vehicles are mostly the property of off-world corporations exploiting the planet for its resources.