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From Warhammer 40k - Lexicanum
PLANETARY DETAILS
|Class=Mining World
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PLANETARY DETAILS
The Piscina system lies approximately 6,000 light years east of the [[Eye of Terror]]. The system revolves around a single primary star roughly comparable to Sol. There are eight planetary bodies in the system, two of these are gas giants with a substantial number of satellites, four are small balls of rock alternately burned by the star or frozen by the void. The remaining two worlds possess habitable biospheres.
Piscina IV and V both support native ecologies that have been widely supplanted by advanced imported life forms. Both worlds were originally colonized by Man prior to the [[Dark Age of Technology]] though subsequent events drove most of the human population from Piscina V as its thin atmosphere was polluted by industry and extreme volcanism. Mutated life (both native and imported) has subsequently flourished on Piscina V, leaving it with equatorial jungles that are spreading into the harsh desert regions which predominate toward the poles.
Piscina IV has always been the more vibrant crucible of life in the system. Its surface is covered almost entirely by surging oceans and its few land masses are but the tips of vast volcanoes thrusting up from the ocean floor. The oceans support a huge array of different plants and creatures (including some truly voracious predators). The largest single landmass is Kadillus, a many-peaked volcano that covers an area of over 3,000 square miles. Under the pull of the planet's three moons the tides can rise up to 1,000 meters, so all of the main settlements are set relatively high up on the mountain's flanks, near the rolling meadow land and forests that cling precariously to the rich but thin soil. Kadillus Harbor is the capital and from here the system's overlord, Sousan, rules in the name of the Imperium.
Piscina IV pays its tithes with the bounty of its oceans that are worked by mile-long factory ships and submersible harvesters. A combination of land based and undersea mining operations generates its limited wealth from rich veins of precious metal and stones that are found within the volcanoes' flanks. Kadillus' power and heat is supplied by ancient thermal vents bored into the heart of the volcano and high above on the surface, the squat structures of turbine houses send power to the towns and settlements.
Piscina IV is a world controlled by the [[Imperium]] but in constant battle with the [[Orks]]. Each time the Orks seem to be defeated, the [[Imperial Guard]] regiments stationed on the world come under fire from a new place under siege. The Orks tend to shore up in old abandoned mine heads and dig themselves in until they attain sufficient numbers to overwhelm the Guard troops that are sent to cleanse the area.
