Date: Sun, 9 Apr 1995 09:55:36 -0400
From: eclipse@ultranet.com (Mark Urbin)
Subject: Venice article data

Here is the Venice data again.  I should sit down with my copy of World
Tamers today and work out more detailed world data.
  (Pocket list history quiz:  How long have I been saying that? ;->)


Venice circa 1115: C35A995-8	Hi Wa	714 Na         114 Na M5 III DM         F


Water World, thin atmosphere, population  7 billion (3.25 billion human &
3.75 billion Phin), TL 8, Civil service beauracy gov.  Law level permits
long arms.

The seven largest landmasses are no larger than the island of Hawaii on
Terra.

  The Class D starport is on the island of Rome.  The islands of Urbino
and Naples are government-run resorts, where vacations are expensive or
available as top prizes in the government run raffles.


The other large islands, Bern, Bonn, Liverpool and Dresden, are heavy
industrial sites.  Workers are housed offshore in floating buildings or
buildings anchored on the shallow sea bottom surrounding the islands.

Most of the planet's population lives in floating cities, built out of
locally manufactured light plastics (a kelp derivative).  Solar and wind
power is used to crack water into hydrogen, which fuels MHD turbines for
steady power.  The cities serve as bases for various sea-product industries,
including fish and kelp farms, fishing fleets, sea-based dredge mining, and
light manufacturing industries.  These cities are built of linked buildings
designed wide and deep for stablity.  The cities float free with stablizing
engines built in buildings to keep a city from drifting too far from their
area of ocean - though buildings, neighborhoods, and whole cities
occaisionally move.  The cities also provide 'shore leave' and other
support to smaller vessels.

There are also cities built on the summit of submerged mountain or plateau
tops.  The `ground floors' of these cities are from 50 to 150 meters below
the surface.  Most buildings rise above the water level.  Power comes from
a combination of solar, wind, petrochem, MHD turbines and nuclear fission.

Neo-Amsterdam, the largest of these cities, is built on a string peaks
along an undersea mountain chain, with `floating-city' structures providing
connections.  Neo-Amsterdam is one of the primary sources for TL 8
electronics on the planet.  Neo-Amsterdam has a population of 63 Million
Solmani decended humans and Phins.

  The mountain top hubs that make up the Neo-Amsterdam chain are called,
Manhatten, Bronks, Brooklyne, Konigin, Staten, Scarsdale, Pokipsea, Neo
Paltz, Bison and Albany.

Smaller than the floating cities are city-ships, large (50-100Kton)
vessels carrying an industry and its thousands of workers.  The industry
moves to its resources.  For instance, the _Dutchess County_ filter-mines
metals from the sea water (preferably near active under-sea volcanoes).
It's crew filters several metals from the sea water, refines the metal, and
rolls the ingots, selling several types of finished metal product - then
delivers the metal as needed.  Other industries include large scale
fishing, seaweed farming, submerged mining operations, and petrochem
extraction.  City ships are powered by imported fusion or locally built
fission reactors, petrochem-powered (if the city-ship has access to a
pumping station), or by IC engines fueled by a high-energy alcohol analog
brewed from kelp.  This fuel, Kelphol, is also a popular export item.
A cut down version is flavored with local additives and sold under the brand
name `Venician Flame Water'.  VFW is a popular drink in parts of Reavers
Deep.

Notice that more than half of the population is (dol)Phins.  Some of these
work in close cooperation with the humans - some as `fishboys' at the fish
farms, spotting and repairing holes in the nets, driving schools of fish
toward collection pens.  Others scout for fishing ships, safety swim
buddies for human divers, and undersea construction workers.  Many also
live 'free' in mid-ocean.

Venice does a lot of trade with the Ekaftouth system.  Ekaftouth is an
asteroid belt system with no human/aslan friendly planets.  High tech items
and rare metals flows from Ekaftouth.  Venice exports fresh foodstuffs and
provides a vacation spot with gravity, sky and beaches.


Venice 1125: Hard Times

Venice        1534 C35A7FD-6	Wa i1	714 Na         114 Na M5 III DM         F


During the HT era, interstellar trade fell off, limiting the ability to
gain and maintain the technology level, but things hung together well.  The
imported weather and communication satellites continued to operate.
Existing structures can be repaired, though no new cities are being built.
New ships can be built (though construction of new city-ships slowed
greatly and very few new fusion plants are imported).  Ship-building output
slowly decreases in size as metal becomes rare, shrinking the size of ships
that can be built. Petrochem sites can still be found and tapped.  Fish and
kelp can be farmed.  In fact, NeoAmsterdam's TL8 electronics industry's was
exporting more than before as other words sink to that level.  This growth
was short lived however.  Key manufacturing tools came from off planet and
couldn't be replaced when they failed.  Production was in a downswing even
before the virus hit.


Venice: 1135-1200 - Virus Infestation

Venice	1534 D35A764-4	Wa	114 Na			914 Na M5 III DM

Venice was first infected by a `Destroyer' strain of the Virus.  Infection
was through a 200 ton trader.  It infected the Class D starport computers
on the island of Rome, before crashing into the starport's fuel refinery.
A 400 ton trader docked at the port was infected also.  It rose just high
enough to smash into a powered down SDB.  The starport was reduced to a Class
X starport in about 90 seconds.  There are a few patches of concrete large
enough to land a 200 ton trader, but's that's about all you will get in the
way of services.  There might be some equipment stored underground still.
Natives won't go to Rome anymore.  The Rad count is still a bit high.  There
are also still tales foating about from those who escaped the island.


A lot of lives were lost very quickly.  Submersible vessels took their
occupents with them when infected.  Computer assisted deep diving suits
became computer assisted coffins.  Fly by wire aircraft adopted the glide
ratio of one winged pelicans.  The lower levels in Seamount top and floating
cities flooded, trapping and killing hundreds of millions within 24 hours in
the initial infection.  Several floating cities and City-Ships sank out right.
Population continued a downward spiral over the next 30 years.  Loss of
weather satellites resulted in lower kelp crop results.  Lack of high tech
equipment to harvest it with made the problem even worse.  Lack of aircraft
to spot fish schools and the equipment to do fish harvesting in massive
quantities resulted in dramatic reductions in the fish harvests.  Many people
starved during this time.


By 1175, Venice was again producing more than enough food for it's population.
Venice has some 900,000,000 humans.  Figure at least that many Phin.  Many
Clans are living `free' in the oceans and don't like to be counted.
About half of the Phin harnesss were equiped with radios and locator
beacons.  These where used when they surfaced.  This allowed closer
communication with shipboard humans in fish herding and mining operations.
Many infected harnesses used their waldo's to destroy themselves.
Unfortunally the Virus really couldn't tell the difference between the harness
and the Phin wearing at the time.  A lot of Phin's died that first day.
The harnesses without the radio equipment survived fairly well.  There was
a lot of mistrust of harnesses after that, by both Phins and humans.
Distrust between some Phin clans and humans broke out years later when several
Phins known to own functional harnesses where found dead and their harnesses
missing.  Shortly after that incident, the City-Ship _Ulster County_ brought
it's main computer back online.  Seems they had some how found some uninfected
CPU's to repair it with.  The _Ulster County_ sank four years later.  A
re-infection had caused considerable internal damage.  A combination of
high pressure steam leaks and Kelphol storage tanks exploding.  Survivors
also claim explosions from below the waterline hastened the vessel's sinking.

  The Phin clan MacKensy still is a major owner in the City-Ship _Columbia_.
A Kelphol powered vessel that contains the only major Phin hospital left
operating on planet.

  The MacKensy and Mcleod Phin clans are intergal parts of two of the largest
organized salvage operations on Venice.

  Other Virus side effects.  All the communications and weather satellites were
either destroyed rendered inoperable when the Virus first hit.  Any
satellites still in orbit can be considered targets or plunder waiting to
be taken.

[  --I have two views on this.  1) Such space junk is seen as a source of
possible Virus infection and should be destroyed.  Good target practice for
your laser gunners.  A typical low tech `scavenger' approach.  2) Such space
junk is a wealth of spare parts.  This is coming from those with the needed
tech to protect themselves from reinfestation and the ability to make us of
the electronics it can salvage-- ]


  Venicians were never much of space going culture and remain planet bound
in the New Era.  Traders and explorers coming there can find a wealth of
material though.  At the low end is lot's of fresh food.  Both meat (fish
mostly) and veggies (mostly a wide varity of kelps, both raw and processed).
The Venician processed kelps are a good shipboard foodstuff.  It's
concentrated; high in calories and protein; stores well and comes in a wide
varity of flavors.  The floating cities support a fraction of their former
populations.  They are a goldmine in old tech salvage.  It's a time consuming
process though.  Many rooms in the still floating building were flooded or
exposed to the salt water oceans and/or spray for the last 70 years.  Rooms
still sealed though hold TL 6-8 household and light consumer goods that
will bring a good profit on many other planets in Reavers Deep.

  Venice's oceans made a good hiding spot for many pirates during the Hard
Times.  There are many rumors and tales of treasure cashes hidden beneath the
waves.  Every dozen or so years, one is found.  This keeps the stories alive
and fresh.  Some tails tell of entire starships, stored underwater, powered
down and Virus free...

  The human & Phin natives of Venice are of Solmani decent.  Some clans still
take pride in their heritage.  You can even find `offical' Solmani Party
members in Neo Amsterdam and the City Ship _Middlesex_.  They are `pure'
humans and damn proud of it.  They dislike geengineered humans, particularly
their Wuan `neighbors'.  A Venician will however, take the side of a Wuan
before that of an obvious alien.  Wuans may be designed, but at least they
don't have the fur pelts of the Aslan.  This view doesn't not extend to their
Solmani decended Phins though.  Most Venician humans view the Phins as
`brother Venicians'.  The majority view the _Ulster County_ affair as a dirty
bit of history.  There are extremist groups on either side though.  Random
acts of violence still happen (mostly when there are no witnesses to the acts).

  The basic TL is 4.  You can find pockets of 5 and 6 scattered about.  When
I say the TL is 4, I mean that is what the local population can produce.
There are still pre-Virus items floating about.  Some actually do float.
Last count put a half dozen Contra-Grav vehicles on the planet.  This
includes one grav belt.

  The current government structure of Venice is Balkinized/Feudal Technocracy.
Kinda depends on where you land and who you talk to.  The folks who produce
TL 6 electronics at Neo Paltz will tell you that they are in charge.  The
folks producing steel on the _Dutchess County_ will tell you that they are
in charge.  The O'Conner Phin clan living free in the southeastern hemisphere
will tell you that they are the ones really in charge.  Take your pick.

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