Aralx

Aralx is a blue-green world seen from orbit as almost all ocean, with continents broken into archipelagos and isolated spines of stone. Its known settlement area includes a wind-scoured equatorial coastal shelf that serves as the only safe freight landing zone, surrounded by rough rock, broken ridgelines, and a nearby low mountain. The colony, officially Aralx Site Alpha, consists of small shelters and modular structures set among stark terrain, narrow fields of hardy crops, and pens for genetically modified livestock. The planet has no native fauna, only scrub vegetation and wind-carved stone, and its atmosphere and weather are difficult enough to interfere with drones and communications. Aralx is nearly uninhabitable, defined by persistent, violent weather systems that chew up infrastructure and make permanent settlement a losing proposition. Anything built on the surface tends to be temporary by design—hardened shelters, short-rotation crews, and equipment meant to be written off when the next storm rolls through. Its reputation is blunt: if something goes wrong on Aralx, the planet will finish it, and the wind will erase whatever story was left behind. Aralx’s population figure of zero reflects its lack of formally recognized permanent residents, not the absence of people. Site Alpha’s colonists occupy an uncertain legal category and are easy for larger institutions to treat as temporary trespassers. The mismatch between lived settlement and official statistics becomes one more tool used to deny the colony standing, supply priority, and political protection.