Library Data on Smaragd and Morlaic

Smaragd

Smaragd, a medium-to-high-technology Imperial world with a tainted atmosphere.  It is breathable, but traces of chlorine are irritant to human lungs, eyes and soft tissue, and may cause damage with longer exposure. The inhabitants have filters and air locks on their buildings, and wear goggles and filter masks when out of doors. A parliamentary democracy is assumed to be governing the planet for the Imperium; the elected president (“Connat”) gains the Imperial honorary title of Baron for the duration of his term of office. The spectacular emerald sky and sheer mountain ranges shrouded in roiling clouds of all hues of green draw a few tourists from all over the subsector, but the main source of prosperity is the export of mid-tech industrial components to the neighboring planets.

Smaragd was settled by a huge colony ship from a neighboring system that had become gradually uninhabitable during the Long Night. Unfortunately, a stray meteor damaged the ship, forcing it to crash. Most of the colonists survived, but much of the specialized equipment was lost or damaged. The survivors had a hard time of it and would have died out if the native species (see "Morlaic" below) had not helped them out.

The plant-sophonts’ selfless assistance proved to be a boon for the early settlers. As soon as a communication device was developed, the plants helped build shelters and plant fields – one needed only say, “I need assistance”, and they would pitch in. The early settlers relied heavily on the Morlaic to survive.

On modern Smaragd, those Morlaic who live in government-protected reservations are still at TL 1 or 2 and are left in peace; their contemporaries in the human cities are employed in almost every job conceivable that is simple (communication is still limited to basic concepts) and does not require much moving around; they work the conveyor lines in factories, or as domestic servants. No chance of encountering one as a vendor or barista: they have no concept of money and would cheerfully give away the goods to anyone who said they required them.

Still, the current prosperity of Smaragd rests largely on the inexpensive labour of the Morlaic. The humans’ standard of living is fairly high, with little social difference; society is very stable due to everyone’s modest wealth, and the crime rate is so low that policemen go unarmed.

Morlaic 

The Morlaic are a pentalateral species (having a five-sided body symmetry) and appear much like a two-metre-tall, somewhat pear-shaped cylinder of tightly furled leaves (much like a rotund palm tree trunk) with a sense-organ bulb on top and five tentacle-leaves branching out from the bulging lower half. They can extract their roots from the earth and move about, but their locomotion is painfully slow.

Morlaic communicate via heat spots on their central stalks.  A translator is an infrared emitter and sensor with interpretative software.

Usually, Morlaic gather in “copses” of between thirty and one hundred individuals, sharing work to overcome their relative lack of mobility. Materials or tools will be passed from hand to hand (or rather from leaf to leaf) until they reach the individual who requested them. This kind of assistance is an automatic instinct that cannot be countered or resisted; a Morlaic will always obey a request. Since all Morlaic work for the good of the copse, there obviously never was a need to develop a counter-instinct. In this rather cooperative way, the Morlaic technology has advanced to TL 2, with basic metallurgy and similar techniques. Their civilisation never developed weapons, but they have devised a series of defensive mechanisms to protect themselves from the more nimble herbivores on the planet, such as barbed fences.