"There they became farm servants for pay in the household of the king."- Herodotus
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We decided that I would stay on the Farm for one extra day. I woke early and sent a quick update to my commanding officer, then made my way downstairs and began some chores.
I grew up on this world. I live on Paquin, but this planet is my home.
Zenobia, or Albion as it appears on many star charts, has the coolest and dimmest climate of any planet in the Core. We are not near a main sequence star like Londinium or Sihnon. We do not orbit one of the protostars like Santo, Persephone or Shadow. We receive light from multiple sources by being equidistant to several sources at any given time.
When the White Sun sets, then the protostars Qin Shi Huang, Lux and Murphy are all out in the sky. During the tiny sliver of time when these also have set, we get light from Red Sun, Himinbjorg and Heinlein. This late twilight condition is our darkest time of the day, but it doesn't last long.
Given our location in the White Sun system, having no real night is essential. It allows us to accumulate the heat necessary to support life.
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As a result, our fauna is mostly crepuscular, biologically adapted to be more active at dawn, dusk and on moonlit nights, like cats and dogs, rabbits and ferrets, guinea pigs, mice and rats. Moose and deer inhabit our forests. Swifts, nighthawks, woodcocks and crakes fill our skies.
Viney, leafy vegetables and root vegetables grow well here. We can grow mountains of fodder crops and hence we have a lot of feed lot livestock. Lots of good fodder crops also makes for a good dairy industry. We are famous for our cheese.
Clover and ferns and a lot of climbing and creeping ivy grow well under these conditions. Here you will find clover grazed beef. Sheep and goats are also popular. Sheep and goats are well suited to the lighting and the grazing conditions.
And, because of the crepuscular conditions, Zenobia ranches a lot of browsing animals like deer.
Most of the flora is shade tolerant, or grows but slower.
Some plants do exceptionally well in our long but relatively cool shaded days. We grow the best garlic, ginger, ginseng, goldenseal and onions in the 'Verse. Our garlic, ginger and onions are intensely savory. We are not so good at making spicy things like chili peppers.
Although Jerusalem Artichokes like the sun, they grow in bad soil and in low light if there are long days. It is a source of inulin, a kind of sugar. It is the potato of sugar. It looks like sunflowers but has tuberous roots like potatoes and grows on marginal land. Jerusalem Artichokes are our major source of locally grown sugar.
The giant amount of root and leafy fodder along with Jerusalem artichoke, potatoes, yams, turnips, means great pork. You couldn't get better unless you fed them a diet of mother's milk and baby food. Since our root plants grow like wildfire from the perpetual twilight, we can graze the pigs in the field.
Fruit trees need full sunlight conditions.
Apples will grow here, but generally, they tend to be smaller, and more tart that you might find on a brighter world. However, they can be used to make a variety of fine desserts to follow a thick venison steak smothered in a cheese and onion sauce, with fluffy white potatoes, glazed carrots and yams.
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To Colonel Aodhfionn MacMoragh, Special Projects
From Major Siamendes, SIU
Update
1) Jadeist activities may have spread to 34 Tauri as one source claims members of this group have been seen on Dragon's Egg, near Hales Township. This has not been verified.
2) Debriefing begun with tenant at the Farm-One facility: NavCorp methods, and approach. Transcript forwarded.
3) The tenant at the Farm-One facility has reported that one satellite orbiting Avalon has been recently reconfigured to pass over that location at 90 minute intervals rather than once per day. This appears to cause the tenant some concern. The tenant remarks "If it was official, they would program 16 of them, but they only used one."
4) The tenant at the Farm-One facility has also reported that NavCorp has embedded a signal to drones and distributed networks in the video of an android auction. The tenant reports that NavCorp have been losing control of their drones. The tenant recommends finding these rogues.
5) A total of 13 files from the Hive have been unlocked so far. These include material on Alliance training techniques as follows:
Alliance Mental Mapping Protocol
Topics named in this protocol with their own file:
Nootropics
Nootropic Diet
Lucid Dreaming
Dream Learning
Gansfield Effect (Ganzfeld)
Uberman Sleep
Treadstone Protocol
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[OOC -My thanks to co-author Jai Raghilda
for her eloquent description of our world.]
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