Toriafas (/ˈtɔər.iː.əˈfaːs/) was the homeworld of the Exoi and the capital of the Exoi Kritocracy until 155 ABY, when it joined the Golden Empire. It was located in the Unknown Regions. Millennia before it joined the Empire, Toriafas had evolved into an ecumenopolis.
Geography[]
Before being overtaken by cities, Toriafas was covered in rolling plains split by forests and jungles. It once had several mountain ranges. It also had ice caps, which were intentionally melted as cities climbed their way north and south; floating cityscapes initially covered the former ice caps, until construction crews built kilometer-long pylons to the ocean floor to stabilize the structures.
The oceans of Toriafas were left largely intact, though water was constantly recycled to keep it clean for reuse. Food was imported from offworld.
Toriafas orbited a binary star, and alternately had one, two, or no suns visible. It had three moons, all three of which were settled by the time of the Kritocracy-Ascendancy War and which were part of the Toriafas Defense Grid.
Society and culture[]
The Exoi favored tall, cylindrical structures. During an early high technology period, they had mobile cities with thousands of walking "legs" vaguely patterned on their own biology. Eventually these cities "parked" and were absorbed into surrounding metropolises or became the foundation of new ones. An unusual example of Exoi architecture was the Temple of Incarnate Glory, which featured numerous concentric levels of increasingly smaller cylinders.
As the heart of the Exoi Kritocracy, Toriafas was a model of both Salbin ethics and the kritocratic model. All schools had mandatory study of law from primary schooling on, with much more detailed study in law schools and judicial training programs. The Acolytes of the God-King controlled public worship on Toriafas until the planet joined the Golden Empire.
The Toriafas Capital District, in addition to housing the Temple of Incarnate Glory, was home to the meeting place of the Governing Judges. The airspace was restricted; only the God-King and the Governing Judges could travel directly in, with all others landing in other districts and traveling in by mag-lev. The District was home to thousands of monuments to former military leaders, famous judges, and dead God-Kings, eventually earning it the nickname "the Mausoleum District".
History[]
The Exoi were a law-based people from early in their development, and kritocracies developed worldwide and often independent of one another. The ultimate fusion of a centralized monarchy and kritocracy occurred over a thousand years before the Exoi encountered the Chiss Ascendancy.
The Exoi overtook their homeworld slowly. Though they created settlements which evolved into cities in the manner of most sentients, their nomadic instinct manifested itself in mobile cities in the early era of high technology, first with cities rolling on treads, then repulsorlifts, and finally legs to save energy compared to that expended for repulsors. When the Exoi developed a taste for interstellar travel, though, domination of Toriafas's surface accelerated quickly.
The militarization of the Exoi Kritocracy changed Toriafas. Cities expanded for massive production centers, and all of the planet's mountain ranges were leveled and mined for ores to create starships, war droids, and Exoi battle armor. As other planets fell to the Kritocracy, the Exoi felt increasingly comfortable getting rid of the last pockets of arable land, importing foodstuffs from conquered worlds.
After the final defeat of the Kritocracy in the Kritocracy-Ascendancy War in 3,784 BBY, the government experienced an ongoing decline for millennia. While Toriafas itself remained wealthy relative to the worlds it still controlled, it experienced a period of artistic, intellectual, and social decay that lasted millennia.
When the Golden Empire arrived in 155 ABY, Toriafas was shaken from its millennia of complacency. Much of its wealth was redistributed to the worlds it had controlled, but several worlds of the Empire brought new investments to the planet, funneling money into companies which could finally offer serious competition to the Hudrel Robotics and Android Corporation for both personal and security droids.