Chapter 5: Cold Heart | page 1

“The stars shine so bright in the sky to remind us to look up from the mud.”

- Michael Cyrus, Prian police pilot (102 MA)

Not all worlds prospered equally under the auspices of the Central World Alliance. One of these was the native human planet of Prianus, shrouded in misty forests and chained by long, jagged mountain ranges. Prianus had even fewer resources to offer than the other Alliance worlds and was situated far from the new galactic trade routes. Being of such little interest to the CWA, Prianus benefited little from the cooperative efforts of the CWA.

Like every other founding world of the Alliance, Prianus was vastly overpopulated. Only the killing cold of the craggy mountains kept any of the planet wild. The cities were bursting with people. Life expectancy on Prianus was a full ten years shorter than on any other world. Even before the founding of the CWA, death became an accepted part of Prian life, codified and evolved into a culture of ritualized dueling. The beloved birds of prey became prized weapons, painstakingly trained to fight to the death with both other raptors and humans alike. Such duels were reviled as barbaric by the rest of the CWA but remained a central tradition of Prian society.

Prianus’ isolation did not end with trade and culture. CWAAF, the massive Alliance army, ignored the backwater planet as well. At its inception, the Core World Alliance raised its own conglomerate army, one large and powerful enough to, as designed by the legislature of the Lyceum, serve every member world. Claiming to prevent a dangerous draw on any one system’s resources but quietly hoping to keep any single planet from accumulating the power to subjugate others, the individual member worlds of the CWA were forbidden to keep their own armies. The Prian delegates to the Lyceum objected strenuously at the decision, but were overruled.

The already dangerous Prianus became a petri dish for crime and corruption. Competition for the world’s sparse resources was often uncontrollable. Prians stole what they could from one another to survive. Denied the right to raise their own army to exercise control over their population, the Prian government turned to their domestic police force to bring order to the world.

Overworked and underfunded, the Prian police had to find their own satisfaction with their jobs. Only the most dedicated men and women joined in the thankless, dangerous work of bringing safety to the wild world of Prianus. The badge of a police offer became a mark of honor and bravery, a modern knighthood of the highest moral code. New recruits willingly endured rigorous and often painful physical and psychological testing before joining. Corruption and defection among the Prian police were virtually unheard of. Their devotion and love for such a difficult task bred strong ties between officers and an even stronger sense of honor and duty. For two hundred years, the Prian police proudly brought some measure of peace and order to their world.