Statistics:
Star System: Helios
Astronomical Designation: Helios d
Astronomical Name: Gaia
Class: Class E
Radius: 6534.6 km
Mass: 6.02×1024 kg
Satellites: Hecate
Atmosphere: Oxygen-Nitrogen with some CO2 and trace gasses
Population: 9.1 billion
Political Information:
Polity: Compact of Humanity in Assembly
Status: Core World
Government: Federal republic
Capital: Shandug
Tian, originally called Gaia and designated Helios d, is the largest of four Class-E worlds in the Helios star system. The system was so named because of its close resemblance to Sol, so much so the planets all bear Greek equivalents to the Roman names given to Sol’s planets. An extra inner planet is called Hephaestus while the fourth Class-E world from the sun, Helios f, is named Demeter after Ceres, the largest dwarf planet in Sol’s inner system and occupying an analogous position.
Originally called Gaia when colloquial names were given to the system’s worlds, it was discovered after travelers found a stable wormhole from Aurora, Earth‘s second interstellar colony, and the Helios system. The Chinese Federation, in a consortium with the Subcontinental Zone and the North American Trade Zone, claimed the planet and renamed it Tian, for the Mandarin word for “heaven.” Workers sent ahead to build infrastructure on Tian could not make land claims and squatted on the neighboring Class-E worlds and in the systems asteroid belt and outer worlds’ moons. They founded Aphrodite (plunged into near-perpetual civil war when the original claimants arrived by sleeper ship), Ares (which resembled a terraformed Mars), Demeter, Zeus, Chronos, and Ouranous. The last three were gas giants with elaborate moon systems. (Poseidon, the outermost major planet, had no moons.)
Because of its close resemblance to Earth, including a large, Mercury-sized satellite named Hecate, Tian grew quickly in population and wealth. Some considered it to be the cultural and financial capital of the Compact of Humanity in Assembly. Marcus Dazar began his pioneering projection-drive flight to what later became Etrusca from Tian. As a result, the nearby Zeus shipyards sprang into being, and even Aphrodite benefitted from a spacing industry based on Tian.
Tian’s capital is Shandug. Originally, settlers wanted to call it “Xanadu,” but the majority Han, Taiwanese, and Cantonese settlers frowned on the name. They preferred the original name “Shandug,” the Mongolian city from which Xanadu is derived.
With a mix of English, Mandarin, and Japanese on the planet, a Tianese language, still widely spoken as of 383 IE, evolved. Tianese became the basis for the more universal Humanic.
Seventy-six percent of Tian’s surface was water. The population was evenly distributed thanks to careful settlement planning, with the area north of the Mongolian Mountains still sparsely inhabited. Shandug anchors the most populous region, being one of the largest cities in the Compact. The northwest corner of the main continent was called Tianamerica for its mix of American, Candian, and British settlers, with a small Mexican and Cuban contingent.
The Navy maintained a large regional command on Tian, including an orbital hub, with its ground facilities in the foothills of the Mongolian Mountains. Nearby, Cybercommand moved its headquarters to a nuclear-proof bunker within those same mountains.
Tian, as part of the Helios system, was approximately twenty light-years from Earth.