New Bergen
The cultural and political center for the entire sector, New Bergen is home to at least a half dozen small hamlets, made up of families which decided to settle together. None are more than a mile from each other, and most are merely a few minutes' leisurely walk from the neighboring hamlet. It is a somewhat plain but pretty region, nestled within a valley formed by six mountains. It is perhaps the most cosmopolitan of Cygnian settlements, with the highest and most social population of dependants and civilians throughout the sector.
New Bergen Spacefield, the centerpiece of the region, was founded literally as a large open space that arriving shuttles could land upon. First tents, then prefab shelters were constructed around the field, and on a hill about a mile away was the small complex of tents and sheds that housed the flag plot and a small satellite uplink. The tent city soon consolidated around a narrow road that ran from the field to the hill. From a quarry about three miles away, stone was cut that paved the road, dubbed Main Street. Stone from the Brotherhood Quarry was also used to build the first houses along Main Street, and from it the cornerstone to the building that would become the Cloisters was laid. Later buildings were still constructed of Fraternity granite from the quarry, though more advanced, artificial materials were also used. A variety of ferrocrete was used to pave the field, after the sod -- that which hadn't been seared by shuttles' belly thrusters -- was lovingly removed and placed down elsewhere. Currently, the city is the single largest concentration of population in the sector.
The Cloisters are the capitol buildings of Cygnus and Authority Headquarters. The activity here is actually surprisingly subdued. In times of crisis the flag is transferred almost by default to the CSA Blacksilver. Even in times of relative peace, the Cloisters seems to live up to its architectural heritage of a monastery. Here can be found the administrative offices, the JumpNIC, the Sector Treasury, and the flag plot. The actual currency is produced at an undisclosed, underground location elsewhere on the planet.
As one approaches the Cloisters from the west, a somewhat crude pond is set just before the entrance, with a statue of a stylized swan, wings upraised in flight, set in its center. The reception area is rather plain and unadorned but for various photographs taken over the course of the CSA's and BIS's history. Just past the reception area, one enters the West Cloister. Each wing is similar in layout, a two-story edifice with a garden or courtyard open to the air in the center. The West Cloister has most of the administrative offices. The North Cloister contains the JumpNIC, the headquarters minicray, the intelligence offices, and the Signal Corps command. The South Cloister has additional adminstrative offices, the Sector Treasury, and the transportation command offices. It is in the East Cloister, almost impossible to enter witout reason, that one finds the flag plot, various staff offices, and the Commander's office.
The Brotherhood Quarry is a modest one, and provides only building materials. While a small group of speculative Freemasons actually did request permission to name the local quarry this, and in fact gave name to the local building stone found there ('Fraternity granite'), the actual working of the stone and various construction projects are carried out by CSA Colonial and Corps of Engineers personnel. Slabs of granite are borne to the settlement for construcion of buildings, and gravel and other detrius is used for the making of ferrocrete. Industrial lasers and water-cutters are used to reduce the emission of rock dust. For safety reasons explosives are not used; not enough time has been taken to adequately survey the quarry for geological stability to permit the use of such. In addition, there are certain ecological concerns over the use of even simple chemical explosives.
Southern Range
Located on the southern reaches of one of Deneb V's continents, this range of mountains and valleys runs right along the ocean called 'Mare Destinum.' A variety of facilities are in this area, though it is also popular to take leave here, as a variety of surface-based activities -- such as hiking, camping, and just plain 'getting away from it all' -- are readily enjoyable.
The Galatea region is approximately three hundred square kilometers. It is filled with large, heavy horsewood trees and has fewer mountains than the rest of the Southern Range. However, the tallest peak in the hemisphere, dubbed 'K3', is here, and has at its peak an active EMS array, space tracking scanner and satellite uplink. This is the primary downlink from orbital forces, and the Spaceguard Command Center, which is also Planetary Command and System Command as well as a redundant C4I2 node, is located at the base of that mountain. Galatea is generally considered to be the most beautiful of all the regions of a beautiful planet.
On the edge of the inland edge of Galatea, the Retreat serves as a quiet place much as how Camp David served for the United States of America on Earth. There is a small satellite uplink here, a small landing pad, and a tiny electric Cessna Wyldcat-7 seaplane, berthed on the river nearby. The seaplane is intended for quick returns to New Bergen Spacefield in an emergency. The area is generally not visited, and a small team of CSA Colonial foresters maintain security and keep an eye on things. Camp Rodger Young actually predates New Bergen Spacefield by a few months. A small but growing compound, it is the primary training center of the CSA. All CSA personnel spend a certain amount of time here. New recruits go through twelve weeks of basic training, while the officer candidacy school lasts for four months. Also here are the specialty schools, and the beginnings of what will eventually become the Cygnus Space Academy. Camp Rodger Young is also known for its incredibly difficult Spatial Engineering School, Colonial and Terraforming School, and Initial Ranger Indoctrination Program. (Current Ranger policy is that a Ranger never stops learning, hence the term 'initial indoctrination,' which is a misnomer since the school lasts for a year and is considered one of the more challenging special warfare schools.) The campus is very well-tended, designed to blend in with the surrounding environment. This blending is highly effective and has resulted in some curious reactions by the local wildlife. Recruits often find flocks of forest birds roosting in the rafters of their barracks. The drill instructors don't see this as a problem; as soon as revellie is called the birds raise a worse racket than even they could manage. It does, however, make cleaning the barracks a daily if not an hourly chore. Dealing with their 'guests' without evicting them is part of the mindset the instructors try to instill in their recruits, that of adapting to their environment rather than adapting their environment to them.
A wide cliff that stretches out towards the sea, with some of the taller horsewood trees upon it, Thunder Point is a dramatic sight. While Thunder Point is often visited by hikers and campers, the location is also the site of an important part of the planet's Skysplitter defense network. Slightly inland from the point proper can be seen a geodesic dome peeking out of the top of the forest. This is the experimental planetary interdictor, originally aboard the BIS Thunderstruck, later renovated to protect Cygnus Prime (Gateway III), and now set up on Deneb V. It is powered by a large ocean-thermal electric conversion (OTEC) generator out in the Mare Destinum, a fusion powerplant a score meters below the interdictor, and a pair of geothermal taps. It is designed to disrupt the local jumpspace interstice, causing a subtle sustained discordance between the jumpspace interstice and the Trinity zone. It has not yet been used.
Nova Novosibersk
About a third of the way around the world from Galatea, the vast fields and hydroponic farms and biomass production centers of Nova Novosibersk feed the wide majority of the sector's population, as well as providing sellable surplus to foreign interests. Nova Novosibersk is a comfortable place, situated at the apex of two rivers, forming a sort of 'fertile crescent.' The weather is generally mild if damp. The centerpiece of the region is a wide structure, set on stilts above a field of wheat, connected to a landing grid also on stilts. This is the Agricultural Center, the administrative and distribution center for CSA food production on Deneb V, operated by CSA Colonial and Supply. Along the edge of the field are a series of dormitories and residences and halls for the staff, all of them mostly prefab and fully-equipted but with a thin layer of sod over them. In fact, aside from the ivy-covered struts of the Agro Center and the worked fields, there is little to suggest habitation of the immediate area; the biomass production facilities, a series or modest-sized barges that also serve as fisheries and plankton-gathering units, are based a hundred meters offshore, three kilometers away.
Battlestation Harlech The primary Cygnian space station is rated as a battlestation, though its actual function is more of a defense coordination and orbital repair yard for the various satellites in orbit. It is also a way station for persons travelling between ships in orbit and the surface. While not a popular place to visit, it does have a key place in the CSA, being an alternative command node behind Galatea and the Cloisters. It is lightly armed, mostly with defensive armaments. Currenty it is going through an upgrade program to enable it to handle various cargoes, though in time this task will be passed on to the Gorky Orbital Freight Complex planned for the next few years.
COCYTYX PROVING GROUNDS
Located well insystem of Deneb V, the Cocytyx Proving Grounds is so named because of the intense heat and radiation of Deneb at that point. It is not the most hospitable of locales in the system, and in fact the first warning about going insystem from Deneb V to Cocytyx is a 'civilian' navigational warning. Cocytyx is the general term of a section of space set between the second and third orbits of Deneb. This region, a sphere approximately four light-minutes in diameter, is clearly marked by navigational buoys -- buoys that must be frequently repaired due to the intense radiation, solar flare activity, and high thermal stresses. Within this sphere is one of the secure testing grounds for the CSA. New ships and craft are often put through their paces here after arriving from Despayre and just prior to being sent on shakedown cruises. The passive armor and hardening of CSA vessels is, by standard, strong enough to allow extended operations in this region.