Natural Features

Doonzhee is an Earth-like world orbiting a sun with a yellower cast to its light than Sol. Its sky is a darker blue-gray than that of Earth, fading to creamy yellow near the horizon, and its large moon subtends three and a half times the angle of Luna from Earth.

Much like Earth, Doonzhee has several large continents with an active geology producing towering mountains, broad plains, island arcs, valleys and canyons, and all the other features one tends to expect. Its poles are covered in ice, transitioning to tundra and taiga and then to temperate forests and plains. An arid belt is found at around 30° latitude with extensive deserts and scrubland. The tropics are primarily dense rain forests.

Doonzhee's photoautotrophes have purple photopigments, giving them purple leaves and stalks. The largest grow into trees, with fern-like fronds, bark scaled from the scars of old leaf stems, and seeds that grow under the frond stem or clustered as bulbous nuts or fruits around the base of the crown. Many are edible, and they are now popular throughout the rest of the Verge. A number of Gummiland species have become invasive, and can be found in areas near civilization.

History

Doonzhee was first explored shortly after the Gummi established their first settlement on Grummer. The environment was suitable for Gummis, Gummiland life, and their entrainments, so the Gummis began planning for a second colony. While Bondle went on record as the second Gummi colony in the Milky Way galaxy, Doonzhee was a close third.

The Doonzhee colony grew steadily. The light quality was adequate for Gummi, Pirang, and Tweechi crops. The Pirang, being mainly carnivorous, switched to grazing their stock animals on native or Gummiland forage crops.

The battle of the Fvughluu Fields

When an unscheduled repulsor beam was detected impinging on Doonzhee from space, the satellite repulsor-tracking network was alerted and began tracking the beam's source. It was determined to be a small incoming object, with an estimated mass of around a gram, maneuvering to head toward the planet. The fact that it had been detected at all was pure luck, given the small size of the object and the narrowness of the beam. Wary eyes watched as the source decelerated into orbit around the planet, its maneuvering beam flicking on and off intermittently to make course adjustments. After several passes around the planet, the source switched its maneuver beam to a tractor and pulled itself in to an expanse of broken terrain in a wilderness not far outside of one of the planet's minor settlements. A pair of stealthed reconnaissance aircraft were flown over the landing spot. The worst fears were confirmed when long range photographs imaged a quantity of Squirm. A call to arms was issued across Gummi Space, and troops and equipment were mustered and deployed. The Verge republic offered its assistance, and mobilized the Republican Army. The Doonzhee militia was first on the scene, evacuating the nearby residents and setting up defensive fortifications at the settlement.

Long range observation suggested the Squirm did not realize that they had been detected. The best guess of the analysts was that they were setting up a scout base for infiltration and observation, to prepare the ground for a full scale invasion after the Verge's wormhole network had been compromised. This lasted until the Squirm forces sent out their own scout aircraft. This was shot down before it got in range of the militia forces, but it alerted the invaders. Soon, the reconnaissance photos showed that the aliens were sending through heavy military equipment and large quantities of personnel. It appeared that a full scale invasion of the planet was underway.

50 kiloseconds later, the Squirm hit the militia's base. The militia did not have the numbers to resist. They managed to delay the enemy's advance, buying time for the Gummi's muster and the Republican Army to arrive in force at the cost of their own lives. Due to their fierce, if ultimately doomed, defensive fighting, when the Squirm war machine advanced toward the farmland around Nogliuu they were met by the dug in forces of a full division of the Republican Army. The Republicans raked the squirm columns with laser artillery, cutting through the Squirm units and halting their advance. They then began harassing their flanks with their cavalry units. As the Squirm attempted to pull back out of range, they were hit from the other side by the Gummi Space Muster, which sprang the other half of the trap. The muster's aircraft, although shot out of the sky in large numbers by the Squirm beam cannons, managed to relay coordinates of the cannon's locations to the Republican's long range artillery. After the Squirm air defense was neutralized, the assault on the Squirm's forces by the Gummi Space Muster and the Republican Army began in earnest.

The resulting battle destroyed most of the Squirm's fighting forces. The bomber sent to take out their staging base was shot down, so the combined Gummi Space and Republican forces advanced back across the ground the Squirm had so recently covered before. The first order of business once near the Squirm base was to survey the surrounding landscape over multiple length scales with causality scanners to ensure that no additional Squirm wormholes had been emplaced. Two additional sites were located and destroyed with collapse bombardment. Then the main base was assaulted. As the Republicans were closing in, the Squirm broke their wormhole connection and set off a massive causality bomb. The advancing division was devastated, but the Squirm invasion was over.

Government

Like most Gummi worlds, Doonzhee is coordinated rather than governed by the advice of local and regional committees. The Pirang on Doonzhee mostly rely on their Gummi friends for leadership, although some Pirang communities are experimenting with this Human idea of "representative democracy".

People

The population of Doozhee is about equally split between Gummis and Pirangs. The Pirangs prefer to live among the Gummis, seeking their presence, comfort, leadership, and advice. This is somewhat difficult because Gummi residences cannot accommodate the large and lanky Pirang, but Pirang pack-huts are interspersed among the Gummi residences and they rely heavily on the presence of their neighbors.

Those Pirangs who tend their herds and flocks are more independent. Lacking constant Gummi guidance, they form small communities, often migratory, who manage their own affairs.

There is a sizeable Tweechi minority. They tend to self-segregate into their own flock nest-clusters, instantly recognizable by their height and their regular community singing. A few Humans and Laers have settled on Doonzhee, as have a couple dozen Mant hives, and the one troop of Pannovas that call the planet home are something of a local celebrity among the ever-curious Gummis.

Places

Nogliuu

Nogliuu has advanced from being little more than a crude disembarking station for the Doonzhee wormhole through a small frontier town to the small sized city it is now. It is still growing, with new neighborhoods springing up like mushrooms around its outskirts. The recent investment in industrial parks has paid off with several Nogis setting up campuses for the development, engineering, and manufacture of various high-tech goods. This is a city still trying to find its voice and place, looking to invest in its culture and arts. The Nogliuu coordination committee is actively considering sites to construct a new museum to showcase Doonzhee's history, natural and otherwise. The city has a reputation as a good place to raise a family, although its opportunities for entertainment and meeting other people are rather limited and some complain that while it is a good place to raise a family, it can be a hard place to start a family.

Fvughluu Lake

Amid the farmland on the outskirts of Nogliuu lies a vast circular lake, the now-filled crater of the final causality bomb from the Squirm invasion. These days, it is mostly used for pleasure boating, fishing, swimming, and relaxation along its shores. But on an island at the lake's center is an onyx obelisk set as a memorial to the many brave soldiers who lost their lives in the fighting, protecting the Verge from destruction.

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