Mahina
Mahina, designated IX3766-B and known as the Ocean Moon of Kessel, is a temperate ocean moon orbiting the planet Kessel in the Kessel system. Mahina is tide-locked to Kessel, causing half its surface to enjoy 24 hours of sunlight and only 4 hours of twilight each day. The moon's far side experiences an average of 4 hours of twilight each day, followed by 24 hours of very dark nights.
Mahina used to be almost entirely underwater save the small landmass of the Mahina Isles until Kessel's gravity began pulling the moon's orbit slowly closer to its parent—causing tectonic upheaval and venting water into its atmosphere that resulted in more small landmasses rising from the ocean. Today, the Mah Sur Ocean covers over 90% of the moon's surface. The atmosphere is highly saline and wracked by violent storms that can cause high tides of over 300 feet. The moon's inhospitable weather requires its land-dwelling settlements to build and constantly maintain Lakua, massive weather terraforming generators that keep the worst storms and tides at bay.
Mahina's gravity is earthlike most of the year but increases as it approaches its annual atmospheric Lunar Conjunction with Kessel, a period of time where the planet and moon's atmospheres touch, allowing migration of certain species and inflicting the most dangerous storms and cold snaps upon both bodies. Within several thousand years, scientists predict Kessel's gravity will pull Mahina out of its orbit and result in a collision of stellar bodies that will prove a world-killer for the planet and its moons.
The current migrant settlements attract refugees of all types seeking to hide or start a new life. While fishing and spice mining is the primary economy of the larger underwater moon settlements, the economy of the Mahina Isles centers around export trade, transport from the spaceport and to the underwater cities, and tourism to the isle's Fussa Baths. Fussa, a local substance resulting from the death of large deadly spore clouds, has a similar appearance to bacta—fussa's healing properties are lesser, but bathing in the substance regularly allows most organic species to regulate their body temperature to a moderate degree with their thoughts for several weeks. A recent discovery, the closely kept secrets of fussa farming has drawn attention and criminal activity to the Mahina Isles.
MAHINA HISTORY
Previously, the migrated settlements of Mahina worked for the Galactic Empire, the Pyke Syndicate, and the First Order—serving as fishing colonies to support the glitterstim and prison enterprises on the planet Kessel. The collapse of the Empire in 5 ABY caused thirty years of faction wars in the Kessel system. In 35 ABY, the settlements of Mahina declared independence and established the Moon Council, a governing body of four Councilors representing the four largest settlements on the planet: the land settlement of the Mahina Isles and the massive deep ocean "bubble sanctuaries" of Strata, Tari-Vorti, and Galta.
One year ago, the Moon Council voted to trade with and purchase protection from the Spice Runners of Kijimi to help oust the arrival of the Hutt Clan to the moon. Currently, the council has gathered to the Mahina Spaceport where it will reside until it can unanimously agree on whether or not to accept a recent offering from the native Nakua civilization. The sentient sea species have offered their aid and knowledge of how to survive on the moon in exchange for a promise to stop polluting the waters and over-mining the deep sea spice.
Over the last several thousand years, other migrant colonies attempted to make a presence on Mahina. Each colony failed to survive the moon's harsh realities in the end, leaving behind deep sea ruins and artifacts that provide food for local rumors and myths. Notable ruins include a crashed Imperial Star Destroyer that lies half submerged atop an ocean coral shelf, the skeleton-filled remains of a high-elevation tree-top village on the Mahina Isles, and the Makuahine Lighthouse—an abandoned ancient lighthouse structure on a tiny rock one hundred miles from the isles.
THE MAHINA ISLES
The smallest population center on the moon, the Mahina Isles are never-the-less the largest above-water landmass and home to the quaint but busy Mahina Spaceport. The isles are located on the side of the moon not facing Kessel, granting the region long days and short twilights. Outside the spaceport and its trade towers in the center of the isles, scrapyards and poor scrap villages dot the culled landscape, with more quaint and rustic villages settled further out on the isles. Around 10,000 people make the isles their home. Within the past year, Brothers and Sisters of the Order of the Four—a monastic religious group from Mahina's sister moon Dokiri—traveled to the isles and began to take a pilgrimage to aid the needy where they can and share their stories and philosophies with the local populace.
Most island residents live in small but stable communities, though some families and small groups live nomadically by traversing the great jungles, plains, caves, and the icy region of the northern isles created from a strange side effect of the Lakua generators. During the last Lunar Conjunction, lowering tides revealed a large new landmass southeast of the isles. Called the Badlands by locals, the low-altitude wasteland is bordered by hills and mountains with an active volcano at its center. The region is relatively unexplored and frequently floods when tides rise.
Island life tends to move slower than in many other civilizations, attracting smugglers, outcasts, and refugees seeking a quieter and calmer life. When someone migrates to the isle permanently, they must first interview with the Counselor so he can determine whether they will be a good contributor to the local communities. This often requires them to at least visit Oli should the Counselor not currently be in session at the spaceport, before they relocate to the settlement of their choice. If they are welcomed into the community, their previous lives no longer matter. It is taboo to ask prying questions of your neighbors on the isles, and the locals remind each other of this with the phrase, "The past is buried salt, and the future is open sky."
Everyone who lives in the communities contributes somehow to its survival or economy, working together, without much official leadership. If someone is good at something, they do that thing, and others let them. Music and dancing, mid-day naps, sharing meals, nightly revelries, and daily hard work contribute to a strong sense of community and happiness. However, crime and criminal organizations remain an issue, and unguarded travel outside the villages—even to the nearby beach—is not considered safe. For this reason, many ex-smugglers and mercenaries contribute to the villages by acting as armed guards and travel companions.
Rumors and myths abound in the Mahina Isle communities. Some more prominent rumors include:
- If you fly or ride your way up a water vortex during a Lunar Conjunction, the Mahina Dragon will grant you a wish.
- Several people who disappeared recently after traveling into the tunnels leading up to the Lakua generator found a series of caves that go deep beneath the mountain, where a secret paradise is located.
- A hidden cache of Imperial treasure promises unimaginable riches to anyone who finds it, though whether its secret location is an island burial site, a floating weather station, a sunken land mass, or an ancient deep sea ruin is hotly debated.
- A benevolent and powerful entity arrived recently on the Moon and has taken up residence in an ancient lighthouse ruin in the Mah Sur Ocean. The lighthouse's beacon has since relit after thousands of years of disuse, leading locals to claim the entity can repair broken technology and bring dead electronics back to life through her mysterious powers. However, the few who have voyaged to the Makuahine Lighthouse have not returned.
THE BUBBLE SANCTUARIES
Most refugees who come to Mahina find the isles not to their tastes, often due to the lack of emphasis on profiteering, the heavily salted air, living in subterranean tunnels, or the fear of deadly storms. Most of the planet's settlers buy or bargain their way into one of the three overpopulated underwater cities, where there are a lot of credits to be made from deep sea spice mining since Kessel's spice mines have become largely abandoned in recent years. Life in the sanctuaries is modern, and the city's owners are wealthy enough to afford advanced technology and luxuries unseen on the moon's surface. Each city features its own underwater Lakua that creates a breathable air bubble and keeps sea life at bay.
The smallest city, Tari-Vorti (population ~800,000), is located at the edge of the mysterious Douscaya Trench. The city is contained within a single rectangular mega-structure at the center of its bubble. Outsiders often call Tari-Vorti Droid Haven, as its denizens are droids from every corner of the galaxy. Its Moon Councilor, an assassin droid X-1LL3R or "X" allows outsiders to enter the city for no longer than four hours per year, where they can do business and trade. The droid city is currently building a massive underwater vessel with which they hope to plumb the high-pressure depths of the unexploded Douscaya Trench in hopes of striking it rich off of untouched spice mines.
The larger cities, Strata (population ~2.2 million) and Galta (population ~5.6 million) are overcrowded, multicultural, modern cities with a distinct lack of modern security. Corporate theft and violent crime run rampant. Allies and spies of the Hutt Clan linger in Galta, undermining the efforts of the bothan ex-mercenary Moon Councilor Hosk Me'me to bring back some semblance of order to the city. Meanwhile, the charismatic mon calamari Moon Councilor of Strata, Rako Vebbar, has profited off of his rival city's strife by simultaneously paying the Spice Runners of Kijimi for protection against the Hutts while helping to fund Hutt insurgents' efforts to take control of Galta.
While all three underwater cities and their leaders rely on the spaceport and taxi services from the Mahina Isles on the surface, they pay little other heed to the comparatively smaller and poorer communities above. Though they have tried to bribe Moon Councilor Gil Avik at times to sway a vote in their favor, he has always refused their offers. However, the isles' representative to the Council also wisely abstains from voting any time a matter is put forth that might place him in the crosshairs of one of his fellow Councilors' assassins.
NATIVE SPECIES
Nakua. While most species native to Mahina never evolved advanced intelligence, the Nakua have lived in harmony with the harsh world for thousands of years. The Nakua appear akin to massive pink-fleshed dolphins and can grow as large as 40 feet long. Their advanced language is incredibly complex, consisting of high-vibration chittering when they make statements and subtle body-to-body physical contact with their long noses to express emotions and questions. Due to their multi-linguistics and the speed at which they communicate via sound waves, universal translators often miss the nuances of their language.
The Nakua subsist on fussa and a unique spice found on the ocean floor, giving them a euphoric and accepting disposition. Nakua often live to be several hundred years old before they die. They pass down their ancient history from generation to generation through a form of oral and kinesthetic storytelling, generation to generation. The Nakua will defend their schools and spice farms from predators and spectators. They otherwise avoid most contact with migrant species to Mahina. The Nakua have seen several migrant colonies make the deadly moon their home throughout their history. They know all migrants will ultimately suffer the same fate—the salt always takes them, leaving only their bones and memories behind.
The Mahina Dragon. The strangest creature on the moon is called the Mahina Dragon by the locals. The flying serpent has scales that change color with the weather, and its long body stretches several miles when fully uncoiled. The Mahina Dragon predates even the Nakua's known history of the world, has no known kin, and does not communicate with other species. While once it lived on the Mahina Isles, its massive serpentine formed shaping permanent grooves in the mountains and forests, it has long since migrated into the seas and skies. During the annual Lunar Conjunction, the Mahina Dragon eats its fill for the next year by hunting migrating kamanio and other sea creatures as water vortexes pull them from the moon into Kessel's atmosphere. Thrill-seekers, bounty hunters, and local madmen have attempted to hunt and kill the Mahina Dragon for sport—but not enough laser cannons seem to harm the legendary creature.
Kamanio. Another common animal species on Mahina are the kamanio, predatorial fanged pinkish that hatch eggs in the deep sea and grow quickly to 12 feet in length by subsisting on algae and smaller fish. kamanio sprout wings and migrate from sea to air near the end of their life, which lasts between one and two lunar years. At their life's twilight, kamanio attempt to migrate off the planet by flying and surfing water vortexes being pulled from the Mah Sur ocean to the planet Kessel during the annual Lunar Conjunction. Most kamanio that survive to the end of their lifespan die fertilizing glitterstim spice mines on Kessel and being eaten by Spice Spiders.
Korcha Spores. While not an animal, clouds of parasitic Korcha Spores native to the moon move atop tides and on stormwinds, sometimes attaching to trees and crafted structures. Korcha Spores can be deadly to breathe and corrosive to metal and flesh. However, when large volumes of the spores die, the algae-like substance they leave behind can be processed into Fussa—a valuable saline substance with properties similar to bacta that is also very nutritious.
Common Species. Other common animals include Blub, a large edible fish found in high waters, and Shallowbuck—a furred mammalian evolved from underwater reptiles with a similar appearance to dear but with longer pink fur and massive white horns. The ocean features much biodiversity and creatures undiscovered or unnamed by current migrants. However, the Mahina Isles' only animal species is the shallowbuck, who are for some reason never caught up in Korcha clouds. Due to this, many land-dwelling locals hunt Shallowbuck to sell their furs as protection from the deadly spores. Whether or not shallowbuck fur cloaks actually protect travelers is extremely contested.
Both underwater and in the jungles of the Mahina Isles, plantlife and trees tend to be far more massive than on most other habitable worlds. Their leaves and bark are often pink or orange in color, except for where large deposits of white seasalt gather in their grooves. Most vegetation and fruit on the moon causes a sense of low-level and slightly addictive euphoria in organic creatures.
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