World Name: Novo Franklin
Star Type: F6V
Position in System: 8
Time to Jump Point: 13.87 days
Recharging Station: None
Nobel Ruler: Various petty kings
ComStar Facility Class: B
ComStar Representative: Precentor Hadror Ninn
Population: 100,000
Percentage and Level of Native Life: 10%,
Reptile
Description:
A hot, agricultural world known for its long summers and mild
winters, Novo Franklin was settled in 2598 by refugees from the
Outworlds Alliance who were fleeing Kurita invaders. Unable to
decide on a common form of government, the refugees broke up into
diverse factions, each going their own way. During the following
centuries, these various groups evolved into a starkly feudalized
system. Now the majority of the planet's inhabitants are bound to
serving the needs of a privileged minority capable of enforcing
its will with BattleMechs.
The Franklin Fiefs consist of approximately fifty small
principalities located on the tiny, isolated agricultural world
known as Novo Franklin. Each of these principalities maintains
its own militia, but most of these groups are armed only with
primitive weapons. A handful of ancient BattleMechs and a single
small spaceport represent the most advanced technology on the
planet, whose population uses ancient agricultural techniques to
eke out a living from Novo Franklin's rocky soil.
The world was first settled in 2598 by refugees from the
Outworlds Alliance fleeing Kurita invaders. Within a few years,
these original settlers had divided the small planet's arable
land into approximately fifty large farms, whose boundaries
closely match the fifty or so principalities that survive today.
Eventually, these landowners began to recruit war refugees,
deserters, and other fugitives from the Inner Sphere to work the
fields, offering to pay for the immigrants' transport costs and
provide them with food and lodging. In exchange, the immigrants
would repay these outlays with their labor. However, the
landowners, who controlled Novo Franklin's economy, used their
power to ensure that no immigrant ever fully repaid his
"debt." Unable to pay their debts and book passage off
the planet, the immigrants faced the choice of accepting their
lot or starving. Under the planet's archaic code of law --
formulated and enforced by the landowners -- the debts incurred
by these immigrants were passed on to their offspring. Within a
generation, the landowners of Novo Franklin had produced a class
of serfs.
Novo Franklin's ruling class has employed a number of measures
to preserve this neofeudal system for the past several centuries.
The planet's isolation has undoubtedly been a factor in their
success. That isolation, and the fact that Novo Franklin contains
only a single, small spaceport, has enabled the planet's ruling
class to closely monitor and control all contact the planet's
workers have with the outside universe. In addition, the ruling
class prohibits workers from educating their offspring. Any
worker who displays the ability to read and write or who teaches
such abilities may be executed under the planet's laws. The
rulers educate their own offspring, of course, to ensure that
their families continue to maintain their dominant positions
within Franklinian society.
In addition to these measures, Novo Franklin's ruling families
retain the exclusive right to interpret and enforce the laws of
their planet. At times the families have imported mercenaries to
aid them in enforcing the laws, but the families generally have
little problem doing so themselves, as the planet's workers are
legally prohibited from possessing any form of weapon. In
addition to banning weapons, workers are prohibited from
possessing almost all modern tools and appliances. One result of
this ban has been the reintroduction of animal husbandry on Novo
Franklin to produce horses and other beasts of burden.
Reportedly, Novo Franklin once boasted nearly an entire
battalion of BattleMechs, but recent intelligence reports place
the number at twenty-four. All of these machines are owned by the
ruling families, but these are dispersed among dozens of
political states over half the northern continent. It is unlikely
that any state could muster more than two lances.
In recent years, certain pieces of information have become
available regarding the Franklin Fiefs. Apparently, each of the
planet's ruling families maintains a militia, purportedly to
defend its principality against aggressors. In reality, the
frequent internecine warfare between the principalities produces
few, if any, casualties and no property damage. These conflicts
appear to be mere diversions designed to distract the large
populations of workers from the underlying inherent inequality
and injustice of Novo Franklin's economic system and society. The
planet does not appear to possess an organized military, though
the principalities' militias have cooperated to brutally suppress
the handful of worker revolts that have occurred during the
history of the Franklin Fiefs.
Lords and ladies of the territories are given to ritualistic
combats (BattleMech jousts are a common entertainment for the
masses) and bashing in the heads of their subjects and sometimes
each other to enforce family interests. Social and scientific
progress are all but absent.
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