K’Shar

K’Shar is a desert world on the outer reaches of the Shackleton Expanse, defined by sandstorms that sweep across the surface in near-constant cycles. These storms scour the terrain, shift the dunes, and periodically reveal or rebury ancient ruins scattered across the planet.

Overview

K’Shar’s surface is harsh and inhospitable. The storms are fierce enough to strip exposed machinery in days and render long-term settlement difficult without advanced shielding. The atmosphere is thin but breathable, and temperatures swing from scorching daylight heat to freezing nights. Native life appears limited to hardy desert flora and insectoids adapted to the extremes.

The ruins scattered across K’Shar are its greatest mystery. Often uncovered only briefly before the sands swallow them again, they range from toppled stone foundations to partially intact complexes. Their age is unknown, and their origins impossible to determine from orbit. Some appear built on a monumental scale, suggesting a culture with significant resources or technology. The intermittent exposure makes study difficult; what is revealed one week may be buried the next.

Encounters

Any or several of these plot hooks can be used for a mission on K’Shar. Some are mutually exclusive; it is down to the writer to select and use these (or not):

• Klingon archaeologists claim the ruins as evidence of ancient Klingon settlement. What tales can K’Shar tell of ancient Klingon travellers?
• K’Shar is found to be rich in mineral resources, drawing the attention of Romulans, Klingons, and/or other Expanse natives. But mining would doubtless damage the unstudied ruins.
• Long assumed barren, the world is actually home to a subterranean civilisation adapted to survival beneath the sands. What is their relationship with the ruins?
• The storms cloak the movement of a raider faction who moved in after the Shroud collapsed, using it as a hidden staging ground.
• The ruins show signs of Vezda design, either from the beginning or suggesting their influence among the indigenous people or colonists that built them.

K’Shar can be a fine location for a story of scientific intrigue, but also political tensions, the horror of the Vezda, or some other challenge.

In Play

• K’Shar is intended as a site of first contact with a mystery. Starfleet explorers may be the first outsiders to lay eyes on the ruins in millennia.
• The nature of the ruins is for the holder of the AOR to define: ancient indigenous people, a forgotten colony, or echoes of a fallen empire such as the Vezda.
• The storms are a constant hazard. They obscure scans, damage equipment, and can bury sites before they are fully explored.