BARD PAPER: OPAL8678 | Home | Traveller | BARD | OPAL |
BARD PAPER: OPAL8678 | Home | Traveller | BARD | OPAL |
Liiri possesses water only at its poles, and consequently that is where the majority of its population and settlements are congregated. The local government is descended from the personal staff of an ancient Vilani nobleman that ruled the world early in the Third Imperial era, and it is famous for its conservative and isolationist policies. Most Liirians are themselves very much engaged in interstellar trade and travel, so these policies seem anomalous.
The world itself is hot and dry, and constant windstorms create a haze of dust and moisture. Centuries of ecological abuse resulted in industrial dumping that left much of the desert contaminated with waste and pollutants, and these are picked up by the wind, poisoning the air and sickening the population. The inclusion of the world into the IDP was as much to assist it in its cleanup as it was to provide another high-tech world in the Midway. Filter masks are a grim necessity on this world, as silicosis and other lung diseases are almost guaranteed after just short exposure.
The world's grit has been a major problem for the locals since colonisation in the 230s. Sand and micron- level dust gets into everything despite the best containment measures. This can damage electronics and small motors, mar optics and clog air filtration plants. To adapt, local industry has moved away from machinery with moving parts or complex machinery, and embraced energy fields, simple biomechanics and degradation proof microelectronics and optics. Technology manufactured on Liiri is small, simple and elegant, without the "feature creep" common to other worlds creations. And it is durable and easily maintained to an unearthly degree. Since the IDP improved local tech levels, the world's products have become important to the Regency economy.
This elegant simplicity is reflected in the attitudes of the locals and their surroundings. Complex ornamentation and large public buildings are eschewed in favor of simple geometrics, simple living habitations, and careful use of empty space. Tents, canopies and other temporary structures are heavily used to convert courtyards and open fields into offices and even living quarters. The locals are nomadic in outlook, and all of their possessions are designed for easy portability. Relocation for a Liirian is not a momentous act, for them a house and a home are two different things. On Liiri all public space is owned in common, and building a home is as simple as getting permission from ones neighbors to setting up ones home. Permanent family structures are uncommmon, with marriages breaking up as soon as children are old enough to fend for themselves; to compensate kinship is a loose and all encompassing concept, with the young able to draw upon the resources of their entire extended family for education and survival.
Offworld living Liirians are famous for taking their nonchalant attitude about living quarters with them to their new worlds of residence. What Liirians call inhabitance most other world governments call squatting.