A very recently discovered system--with recent meaning "within the last few months"--Jackpot is a binary star system with three planets and a massive alien megastructure that, as the namer of the system indicated, is the equivalent of hitting the jackpot. Discovered by a multi-faction team of gatecrashers from Portal, Jackpot has remnants from not just one, but two alien races, one of whom left behind still-functioning infrastructure and industry.

Primary Star Name: Roulette Type: K3V Notes: Close orbiting binary; the orbital period is only a matter of a few hours, with both stars barely outside one another's Roche limits. Secondary Star Name: Pachinko Type: M6V Notes: Close orbiting binary; the orbital period is only a matter of a few hours, with both stars barely outside one another's Roche limits.

Type: Hot Jovian Gravity: 4.7 g Diameter: 230,000 km Mass: 4.83 Mj (1522 Me) Atmospheric Composition: 87% Hydrogen, 12% Helium, <1% Trace Elements Day Length: N/A (Tidally Locked) Orbital Period: 136.22 hours Satellites: None Description: Windfall is an extremely close orbiting Hot Jovian, with an orbital period of only five and a half days. The planet's atmosphere has expanded considerably from the heat and is visibly streaming off into space as the solar winds of the binary primaries erode it, making it appear to be a contender for the title of the galaxy's largest cometary body. However, what makes Windfall aptly named is the alien megastructure occupying Windfall's L2 point. Nicknamed "The Dealer", it resembles a hybrid between a ramjet scoop and a solar sail approximately 60,000 kilometers across. The structure manipulates the tail of Windfall's magnetic field and captures a fair proportion of the eroding planetary atmosphere, which is eroding at a rate of approximately 25 million kilograms per second. The structure then separates the captured gases into its primary components--hydrogen, deuterium and helium-3, with a leavening of other elements. It then liquefies and bottles these elements into storage containers composed of other elements harvested from the gas stream, as well as mined from elsewhere in the system (predominantly Monte), and then launches the pods towards Jackpot, where they are caught and queued up for delivery through the Pandora Gate. The gargantuan station uses a combination of the manipulated magnetic field, the solar sail and the occasional use of good-old-fashioned attitude jets for stationkeeping. At present, a team of argonaut xeno-archaeologists and researchers are en route to the Dealer, hoping to examine it firsthand. They will be arriving in approximately five weeks.

Type: Terrestrial (Marginal) Gravity: 0.73 g Diameter: 11,900 km Atmospheric Pressure: 0.88 atm Atmospheric Composition: 74% Nitrogen, 19% Carbon Dioxide, 6% Oxygen, ~1% Water Vapor Hydrosphere: 44% Surface Temperature (Min/Mean/Max): -120 C / 5 C / 45 C Day Length: 22.23 hours Orbital Period: 389 days Satellites: Three [url=http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/bibliophile20/GMing%20Resources/Ec... Link[/url] Description: Another marginal world with an unbreathable atmosphere, it is still more habitable than Jackpot to transhumans, being both warmer and with a larger hydrosphere and significantly thicker atmosphere, as well as closer to the system primaries. Iktomi and House remnants can be found here as well. However, due to the focus on the Dealer and Windfall, there have been no visitors as of yet. This planet also has an extreme orbital inclination to the system's ecliptic of nearly 9 degrees, making travel problematic. Monte's climate, due to being much more hospitable than Jackpot's and therefore much more weathering, as well as being more geologically active, has been much less kind to the Iktomi and House remnants on its surface. Some of the House deep infrastructure still functions, or can be made functional with comparatively little effort, but time and weather have taken their tolls here. However, some House mining infrastructure still exists, with a mass driver still regularly launching materials to the Dealer for use in gas storage pod construction. Three other mass drivers around the planet, however, have apparently been decommissioned by the effects of time and weather, although all three are still intact and could be put back into service with sufficient effort.

Type: Terrestrial (Martian) Gravity: 0.66 g Diameter: 11,300 km Atmospheric Pressure: 0.21 atm Atmospheric Composition: 74% Nitrogen, 21% Carbon Dioxide, 3% Oxygen, <1% Water Vapor, ~1% Trace Elements Hydrosphere: 6% Liquid, 15% Glaciated Surface Temperature (Min/Mean/Max): -93 C/ -11 C / 46 C Day Length: 27.2 hours Orbital Period: 517 days Satellites: One [url=http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f23/bibliophile20/GMing%20Resources/Ec... Link[/url] Description: A marginally inhabitable world, Jackpot would have been left far down the lists of desirable planets if not for one thing--the alien infrastructure and industry found here that is still operational. The planet itself is nothing terribly exciting; a marginal world with 52% the mass of earth, a thin, cold atmosphere, a minimal hydrosphere and a rugged series of glaciated mountains, with no life (at present). However, at least two alien races thought it worthwhile to settle here, and one of them was not shy about thinking big in the slightest. The more recent alien race to settle here before transhumanity was the Iktomi; given their general preferences regarding planets, they would have found the place homey, and their windharps and other structures litter the planet. However, they were not the first settlers here; another alien race was here first, and was here at least four million years ago. They built the (still-functional) infrastructure that gave Jackpot its name. Dubbed "The House," in accordance with the theme chosen for names in this system, the original builders of the system's infrastructure were superb engineers, but little more is known at this time about them. What is known that they were capable of engineering on a planetary scale, creating extremely durable and long-lasting pieces of machinery, whose construction, while within the realm of transhuman effort, is both elegant and simple, with nothing more added than needed. Beyond extremely robust safety and fail-safe features, the structures so far examined approach that definition of engineering perfection--when there is nothing left to take away. First and foremost of the Dealers' creations is the gas collection facility known as The Dealer at the Windfall L2 point; the Dealer collects, refines and ships gases stripped from Windfall by the primaries' solar winds to Jackpot. The gases and other collected elements are contained within large but extremely functional spherical containment vessels; these containment vessels are of sufficient size to be taken through the Pandora Gate, and are frequently found linked together like beads on a necklace. These containment vessels are launched through space to Jackpot on ballistic trajectories. At Jackpot they are caught by an orbital space station, taken down an orbital elevator, and delivered to a holding facility approximately five kilometers from the Pandora Gate. The entire system appears to be automated, extremely durable to the point of being massively overengineered, and possessed of extremely efficient auto-repair systems, and, most notably, still functional. Indeed, when the gatecrashing team investigated the gas holding facility, they found it overflowing with storage modules packed full of refined gases, a backlog ten millennia in the making. Hence, "Jackpot!" The Pandora Gate is located on a high, cold mountain plateau only 100 kilometers north of the planetary equator. The plateau has been extensively developed, with initial investigations showing that it was once a geologically inactive mountain peak, which has since been removed and leveled. Also on this peak is the connection point for the orbital elevator, an extensive staging ground and spaceport, and large underground and aboveground storage and holding facilities, many of which are currently stocked with containers of refined gases. Conditions on the plateau, twelve and a quarter kilometers above the planetary sea level, are inhospitable, with temperatures in the range of -80 C, and atmospheric pressures of less than 30 pascal. This has, of course, contributed to the functionality of the site's architecture and infrastructure, as opposed to the ruins found elsewhere in the system and planet, in not having to deal with the full extent of the damaging effects of weather; the plateau is well above Jackpot's troposphere.

Unfortunately for the recent discovers, they are not the first to find Jackpot in the last few years. An exhuman gatehopper team found the planet a few months before the gatecrasher team arrived and decided to stay long enough to explore and record the planet's ecological history in response to the massive industrial construction it has hosted for the last several million years. This particular exhuman group originated as a highly insular group of argonaut ecologists with extremist preservationist views. They began gatehopping to "record everything we can before transhumanity does to the galaxy what humanity did to Earth--despoil everything in sight." Sleeved in custom-designed minimalist-impact synthmorphs outfitted with personal power plants, they have spent three and a half years by themselves, wandering the gate network, often forking and at high simulspace acceleration, giving them the better part of an experiential century isolated, with only each other for company. This has made them... strange, with a communal outlook that no longer defines themselves as being transhuman. In their present outlook, transhumanity is seen as a transmissible corrupter, polluting the pure and untouched by its mere presence. Of the group, there are currently a variety of viewpoints on what to do if and when they reencounter the great corrupter of the pristine. One faction is pacifist and believes that recording all they can about the natural world about to be lost to the all-devouring maw is all that they can do, while other factions argue for more aggressive approaches, arguing that engaging in some minor corruption and blocking transhumanity's advance across the galaxy now will be worth stopping the major corruption brought on by transhumanity's presence when they reach and despoil the pristine worlds. A third faction believes that finishing the job that the TITANs "botched" and wiping out the remainder of transhumanity is the best possible option, although they are somewhat at a loss for possible ways to achieve this end at present, but will keep a weather eye out for opportunities to present themselves. Ironically, this group of exhumans still possesses extensive e-rep and r-rep scores, albeit ones that are extremely out of date, but should some of the exhuman commune decide to contact the gatecrashing community, they would receive a warm welcome from some of the researchers (at least until their exhuman attitudes became apparent), and they also have contained within their databanks extremely detailed surveys of no less than 32 exoplanets, three of which are lifebearing. The group's synthmorphs can best be described as "sensor-studded spider-balls". Heavily customized and modified arachnoid synths, these synthmorphs contain just about every sensor system known to transhumanity, long-endurance personal power plants, and a variety of other enhancements and modifications for making the synthmorphs into the group's ideal of low-impact exploration bodies. Their primary weakness is a lack of materials to effect repairs and improvements, as they refuse to engage in resource extraction of any kind--an extremist viewpoint of the old "leave no trace" camping attitude. However, they can and will steal resources that transhumans have already extracted, as, in their exhuman perspective, these resources have already been despoiled and they can put them to better use than transhumanity can and therefore cleanse them of their transhumanity-derived taint. Extremist Preservationist Exhumans (23) + Preservationism + Exploration - Transhuman Expansion COG: 24 COO: 19 INT: 17 REF: 10 SAV: 14 SOM: 25 WIL: 23 MOX: - Morph: Arachnoid Enhancements: Standard Enhancements: Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Extra Limbs (10 Arms/Legs), Mnemonic Augmentation, Pneumatic Limbs Sensors: Enhanced Vision (w/sense filter), Enhanced Hearing (w/sense filter), Enhanced Smell (w/sense filter), Polarization Vision (w/sense filter), Lidar, Radar, Direction Sense, Echolocation, Radiation Sense, Anti-Glare, Chemical Sniffer, Nanoscopic Vision Other Enhancements: Life Recorder, Oracle Nanomachines, Medichines, Personal Power Plant, Industrial Armor, Ghostrider Module, Grip Pads, Chameleon Skin, Weapon Mount (Microwave Agonizer) Traits: Mental Disorder (Pick two), Oblivious, Social Stigma (Clanking Masses, Exhuman), Shut In Skills: Academics (three of Geology, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Xeno-archaeology or other Academics skills): 75, Animal Handling: 35, Art: Natural Grandeur: 50, Beam Weapons (Microwave Weapons): 35 (45), Climbing: 35, Deception: 35, Flight: 45, Fray: 50, Freefall: 35, Freerunning: 40, Hardware: Robotics: 50, Infiltration 55, Infosec 45, Interfacing: 45, Interests: Exoplanets: 55, Interests: Ecology (Xeno-Ecology): 75 (85), Investigation (Evidence Analysis) 75 (85), Kinesics: 25, Language: Exhuman Patois: 80, Native Language (Choice of English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic or Mandarin) 85, Medicine: First Aid: 45, Navigation: 45, Networking: Scientists: 65, Networking: Ecologists: 75, Perception: 65, Persuasion: 35, Pilot: Aircraft: 40, Profession: Gatecrashing Procedures: 55, Profession: Forensics: 35, Programming: 50, Protocol (Preservationist): 35 (45), Psychosurgery: 55, Research: 60, Scrounging: 45