Corico

The gardens, which we now call oases, would move each night under the cover of darkness, hiding from the wrath of the dragons. Even now that the dragons are gone – dead, trapped, or up in the stars – the oases constantly change. But the custodians of those gardens still care for us. Wherever an oasis can be found, so can life, and plentiful food and water. That's the best gift one can find.

–An extract from a Balra myth, The Oasis Spirits.

The homeworld of the Balra, Corico is a small planet, orbiting on the near edge of the Rylor system’s habitable zone. Its atmosphere is a 70/30 nitrogen:oxygen mix, with unusually low levels of carbon dioxide. As a result of this lack of insulation, it has very warm days and cold nights, resulting in an arid, rocky landscape. Water is scarce on the vast savannahs and mesas that make up the bulk of the world’s landscapes, and it is never stationary. Due to the harsh thermal difference in day/night cycles, water evaporates totally in the midday sun before condensing, with pouring rain being nearly synonymous with Corico's night-time. This rainfall forms “oases,” pools of water around which life blossoms briefly, before the oases evaporate in the blistering heat.

Furthermore, the iron core of the planet is cooling, enduring the millennia-long process of its atmospheric gases sloughing off into space, killing the planet. It won't happen today. Nor tomorrow, nor any of our lifetimes, nor our children's lifetimes. But the temperature is rising, leaving the planet inhabitable in only the poles, and scorching and bare elsewhere.

Animal life on Corico tends to be nomadic in nature, moving from oasis to oasis, following the rainfall as temporary watering-holes shift positions. Territorial disputes occur frequently and often, as species fight to stake their claim on emerging watering holes. Plant life is virtually non-existent, with no guaranteed stationary bodies of water to count on. As such, moss and lichen make up most of the vegetable matter, flourishing rapidly around the oases before receding back to hibernation as the water evaporates.

The Balra are medium-height, bipedal reptilian predators, lean and thin, with venom glands nestled in the frills on their necks and retractable claws on each of their digits. They have a very social culture, often found in small nomad-packs of a handful of Balra. These groups are close-knit but welcoming to other packs they may come across.

The only sapient species on Corico, the Balra have developed an advanced civilisation. Ancestrally from Corico’s North Pole, they have settled the planet's South Pole as well, crossing the arid sand-seas found at the planet's equator. The development of rain-catchers and glass domes allow for a static water supply, and therefore permanent settlements. However, due to space constraints with maintaining such a water supply, the majority of Balra keep with the traditional, nomadic lifestyle. As such, Balra often form close, familial relationships with those they live and work with: a bond tight enough that they can and do trust others with their lives regularly.

While Balra are the dominant species on Corico, they are not the apex predators, being hunted by large, ambush predators called Mudstalkers. These are large, mammalian creatures that lurk in oases, springing upon their unsuspecting prey. Between their ruthless hunting and the harsh landscape of Corico, the Balra survived through pack tactics, natural weapons, and their drive to progress. Metallurgy was discovered, taking ores from the rocky landscape. Weaponry was invented – bolas used to catch prey, spears, guns and lasers to ward off deadly Mudstalkers¹⁾. Wagons were constructed, allowing transport of more supplies than what could be taken on your back and allowing for the ability to care for the injured or unwell. Settlements were formed, new lands in the south discovered, and rigs established in the wastelands for mining Corico's natural oil supplies. All of this led to the New Worlds Initiative: a space program allowing Balra explorers and settlers to find new lands less harsh than their own. To find a better life for the inhabitants of Corico.

An oasis in the Corico North Pole

The planet's harsh, desert environment pushes life away from the Equator, leaving its species marooned in the far North and South. Ancestrally, the Balra hail from the North Pole; however as technology progressed, they were able to explore and settle the new worlds of the South.

Settlements on Corico tend to have capitalist economies. This is more prevalent in built-up cities, but full-scale markets and bartered trade deals are common among the nomads as well.

Due to the constantly shifting water supply, all permanent settlements on Corico have, as a major part of their infrastructure, water catchers and filtration units. Therefore, city architects tend to expand outwards rather than upwards to accommodate more rain-catchers and permanent oases. This results in wide expanses of one or two story buildings, surrounded by the various equipment for catching and storing long-term water reserves.

This naturally limits living space, so many Balra choose to live a traditional nomadic lifestyle, using permanent settlements as a base camp to restock supplies, rather than a place of residence. They wander from watering-hole to watering-hole, acting as hunters, livestock herders, and scavengers.

However, whilst settlements bring security to the Balra, they also pose a danger. The high concentration of prey, along with the guaranteed source of water, make settlements an attractive prospect to a wandering Mudstalker. Natural predators of the Balra, they can often find their way into a settlement, where they proceed to terrorise the populace until fought off. As such, Balra learn quickly how to fight, nomads and city folk alike.

The climate of the South is cooler than that of the North. Still hot and dusty, but far less. Whilst the water cycle in the South is harsh, it is less so than the North, with instances of naturally occurring permanent water sources and fertile land. Before exploring the south, arable farming was not possible for the Balra. The only permanent water sources were artificial, and far more beneficial for maintaining a settlement than for use in farming. The South opened up a whole new path in developing Balra civilisation, allowing for scientific advancement to flourish.

As such, Southern Balra are less reliant on a nomadic lifestyle. Whilst it is still practiced for hunting and herding, the nomads are now supplemented by the large cities formed in the South, which are able to become far larger than Northern settlements, unbound by the North's lack of water. This means the South Pole is now far more built-up and industrialised than Corico's North, and has become the dominant trading power on Corico.

Due to the nomadic nature of the majority of the population, most of Balra culture is centred around the tight, almost familial bonds formed in a nomad-pack of Balra. These nomad-packs are normally formed of 4-10 Balra, rarely topping a few dozen at particularly lucrative oases.

These nomad-packs aren’t fixed, either, with packs merging at large oases, and splitting in times of drought. The average pack lasts a month or so with the same cast of nomads; however, Balra close to each other will tend to stay together for years, joining and leaving nomad-packs together. Each time a pack is formed, a “weave” is created, half ceremony, half bonding activity, in which a repeating pattern is designed, woven from the grasses and dyed with the flowers of the temporary oasis where the pack formed. Each nomad then adds this weave to their cloak, forming a patchwork of colours, patterns and lines building up the tapestry of that nomad’s life. There is a reason the leader of any nomad-pack is called a Bak-at, a “Long Shawl.” It’s a measure of their experience, their life, and the extent of their relations and bonds. What better term of respect could you give?

Whilst the nomadic bonds aren’t as obvious in Balra who live in permanent settlements, it is nevertheless there. Permanent communities must still rely upon each other for food, space, and most importantly, water. It's a similar story on the multi-cultural settlements on space stations and off-world colonies, the tight bond between a ship’s crew and a colony’s inhabitants mimicking the traditional nomadic lifestyle most first-generation Balra settlers experienced growing up.

However, no culture is a monolith. On more populous settlements, such as those in the South or large off-world colonies, there is no need for pack bonds as a means of survival. Whilst the safety and security of a population is never a bad thing, many of the older Balra settlers fear that with it, their traditional way of life is being lost. Second- and third-generation settlers often struggle to form packs, to build up the weaves of their cloak. Some forgo it entirely, seeing it as an outdated concept.