TradespaceIndex | Time Under Chaos | Settings | Shadows of Note | Tradespace  Head of State: Varies by planet 'Tradespace' is how Larissa refers to her home Shadow, saying that Thari lacks the conceptual framework to render its actual name properly. The natural laws of the place are such that sufficiently large conglomerations of the lighter materials in the universe undergo nuclear fusion--that is to say, they collapse into spherical bodies and solidify somewhat, starting a process that liberates energy, thus becoming stars. Unlike in Amber, all stars in Tradespace are suns with at least the potential to support life. Circling certain of these suns are smaller spherical accretions of matter, called planets. The smaller planets, closer to the suns, are the ones that humans usually choose to live on. Many of them sustain conditions quite similar to those of Amber or Shadow Earth. In fact, the original planet on which human life in Tradespace occurred was one sufficiently similar to Shadow Earth that Larissa suspects its early history was identical, though the records that would prove it are long lost to time. In between suns and planets, there is nothing at all, not even air. To travel between planets or suns requires airtight ships that can propel themselves with their own on-board engines, taking many years because the distances are so great. Humans usually undertake this travel in a medically-induced state of hibernation. A quirk of physics in the Shadow makes it so that the faster one is moving, the slower time passes, at least when compared to slower-moving places. Thus, the hibernating humans on a spaceship travelling at great speeds between the suns age at a slower rate relative to the planet-bound. Whereas 10 years might pass for a ship's crew, 100 years could pass in the system they left. This means that space travelers can have lifespans that, while not exceeding the usual human 500 or so years as far as the travelers are concerned, span millennia as planetary civilizations are experiencing time. Humans in Tradespace have inhabited the planets of over 1000 suns, making it nearly impossible to say any one thing about the culture in the Shadow. Over the millennia, civilizations rise and fall, growing and changing. Larissa herself belonged to the Trader culture, a sprawling civilization that is tied together not by a government, but by a common ethos of trade, and which dominates, at least in terms of economic power, human civilization. 'Tradespace' are the planets that the Traders have dealt with. There are potentially billions of other planets within the Shadow--some may be inhabited by humans who are too busy building societies to get in contact with their older brethern and be counted. Others may even be inhabited by intelligent beings that are not humans. |
