List of planets in The Saga of Seven Suns

The following is a list of planets in The Saga of Seven Suns, a series of science fiction novels written by Kevin J. Anderson, and its sequel trilogy The Saga of Shadows.

In the series, humanity has colonized many worlds in the Spiral Arm, and is divided into three branches: the Earth-based Terran Hanseatic League (Hansa) and its subordinate planets, the independent world Theroc with its telepathic green priests, and the Roamers, interplanetary traders who prefer starships and hidden bases to a conventional planet-based civilization. The only other known intelligent species in the galaxy are the Ildirans, an ancient civilization at its peak, and the long-extinct Klikiss, whose planets remain empty but for their unusual ruins.^[1]

Human

Terran Hanseatic League

In the future, the human race has colonized multiple planets in the Spiral Arm, most of which are governed by the powerful Terran Hanseatic League (Hansa).^[1]

• Earth - Center of human culture and economy and the capital of the Hanseatic League.^[1]
• Mars - Headquarters of the Earth Defense Forces (EDF), and their primary base for administration and training purposes.
• Oncier - Gas giant planet with four large moons which is chosen by the Hansa to test the recently-discovered Klikiss torch technology. The torch can ignite the planet and convert it into a sun, eventually making its satellite moons into habitable worlds perfect for human colonization. The test is successful but reveals the existence of the elemental hydrogues who live in the high-pressure core of the planet, and the inadvertent hydrogue genocide at the hands of the humans incites the ire of the other hidden hydrogue populations across the galaxy. Their brutal retaliation and forced cessation of the collection of the stardrive fuel ekti threaten to cripple both the human and Ildiran civilizations, and serve as an effective declaration of war.^[1]
• Boone's Crossing - Forested planet attacked by the hydrogues in their search for the verdani worldforest.
• Corvus Landing - Remote planet on which the Theron green priest Beneto chooses to serve.
• Crenna - Ildiran planet on the very edge of the alien empire. An illness spreads among the Ildiran colonists that renders them blind; fundamentally terrified of darkness, the affected Ildirans go mad and die. Adar Kori'nh evacuates the remaining colonists. Immune to the plague, humans from the Hansa begin settling there. Chairman Basil Wenceslas sends his agent Davlin Lotze to infiltrate the colony and investigate whatever artifacts the Ildrians have left behind. Davlin finds nothing of note, but becomes attached to the colonists. He returns later to help evacuate them when a battle between the hydrogues and faeros extinguishes Crenna's sun.
• Dremen - Dismal world with some agricultural value. Jan Covitz and his daughter Orli try to make a life there before joining the new colony on the abandoned Klikiss planet of Corribus.
• New Portugal - Planet known for its production of wine.
• Ramah - Islamic religious haven.
• Relleker - Resort world hard hit when the hydrogen-induced ekti shortage impacts interstellar commerce. Davlin Lotze and Rlinda Kett stop at Relleker on their way to aid the human colonists escape Crenna, but Relleker's planetary governor Jane Pekar is loath to aid them with any of her colony's dwindling resources. When Davlin and Rlinda return with the Crenna refugees, Pekar grudgingly gives them temporary sanctuary. Soon after they leave, Relleker is attacked by hydrogues, who destroy the human settlement. Relleker is later the site of a Klikiss subhive battle.
• Rhejak - Ocean world, famed for the native algae that is an essential ingredient in anti-aging treatments.
• Usk - The Hansa makes an example of this planet after it renounces the Hansa Charter.
• Yreka - General Kurt Lanyan of the EDF sets a trap at Yreka to catch the Roamer pirate Rand Sorengaard and his gang. As the war against the hydrogues continues, remote Yreka receives little Hansa support and their supply shipments dwindle. When the Hansa discovers that the Yrekans have been hoarding ekti and their governor refuses to surrender it, the EDF attacks, destroying important food stores and seizing the ekti. Later, Denn Peroni convinces the governor to establish Yreka as the hub of a new black market that would allow Roamers and planets abandoned by the struggling Hansa to trade with each other.

Theron

In the series, the most prominent human world aside from Earth is Theroc, a planet covered in semi-sentient worldtrees that is quietly independent from the Hansa. Theroc's "green priests" are able to commune with the trees and communicate telepathically across space when touching a treeling, making them indispensable for instantaneous communication across the galaxy.^[1]

• Theroc - A sovereign world not part of the Terran Hanseatic League, Theroc boasts lush vegetation and a variety of large insect animal life, and its food and textile exports are considered luxuries across the Spiral Arm. The planet is covered by the worldforest, actually the elemental verdani race, with whom Theroc's green priests can commune telepathically. The planet is ruled as an independent state by its Father and Mother, and usually takes a neutral political stance. The last of the verdani had fled to Theroc after losing an ancient war against the hydrogues; when the hydrogue menace is reawakened, they eventually find the thriving verdani and begin to lay waste to Theroc. The verdani's old allies, the faeros, help to keep the hydrogues at bay but do as much damage to Theroc. The planet becomes the capital planet of the new Confederation created King Peter, who has defected from the crumbling Hansa. He and his queen Estarra, heiress to the Mother and Father of Theroc, also assume those titles. In the aftermath of the Elemental War, the verdani and their subservient green priests continue their proliferation across the spiral arm.

Roamer

In the series, the Roamers are clans of industrious humans living a clandestine existence in the fringes of space, managing a profitable economy centered on the sale of the valuable stardrive fuel ekti and other commodities.^[1]

• Rendezvous - Roamer central seat of government, not an actual planet but a connected collection of structures and hollowed asteroids in the Meyer system. Long before the events of the series, the generation ship Kanaka had stopped in the Meyer system to collect vital resources required to continue on their journey, and some of the colonists had decided to remain in the system. Rendezvous is later attacked and destroyed in a raid by the Earth Defense Forces after the Hansa had declared the Roamer population outlaws.
• Barrymore's Rock - Roamer fuel depot based on a rugged asteroid, later invaded by Klikiss robots.
• Constantine III - Stormy primordial planet and site of a Roamer facility that extracts certain raw materials, such as long chain molecules (which are difficult to synthesize), from its thick atmosphere.
• Daym - Gas giant and site of one of the first Ildiran skymines to be leased to the Roamers. Long before the events of the series, the Daym skymine had fallen towards the depths of the gas giant. There had been only one survivor, who had spoken of strange creatures in the depths of Daym.
• Erphano - Gas giant orbited by a Roamer skymine managed by Berndt Okiah. When the war against the elemental hydrogues begins, the hydrogues living within the core of Erphano emerge and destroy the skymine, killing its occupants.
• Forrey's Folly - Large asteroid in orbit around a K2 star, settled by Clan Kowalski. A century before the events of the main series, a Roamer named Karlton Forrey had attempted to settle the asteroid, but he had accidentally miscalculated the orbits of its many moonlets. The site became known as Forrey's Folly when many of his ships crashed into these moonlets.
• Franconia - Gas giant and site of Roamer skymine managed by Boris Goff; this gas giant suffers from moon-sized hurricanes.
• Glyx - Gas giant orbited by an Ildiran skymine which was later handed over to the Roamers and managed by Berndt Okiah.
• Golgen - Hydrogue-occupied gas giant which is the site of the first human encounter with hydrogues. Following the test of the Klikiss torch at Oncier, the hydrogues living within the core of Golgen emerge and destroy the Blue Sky Mine, owned by Roamer Ross Tamblyn. Later, Ross' brother Jess Tamblyn stages a revenge attack against Golgen by sending asteroids along carefully calculated decaying orbits from the system's Oort cloud to collide with the gas giant. Golgen is later rendered safe for skymining again when Jess unleashes elemental wentals into its atmosphere, keeping the hydrogue population isolated within Golgen's core.
• Haphine - Hydrogue-occupied gas giant and site of one of the first two Ildiran skymines leased to the Roamers. This skymine is later destroyed by the hydrogues. Haphine was also the site of a wental-hydrogue battle after the atmosphere of the gas giant is doused with wentals in a bombing run led by Cesca Peroni.
• Hurricane Depot - Artificially constructed station located at the center of a pair of orbiting planetoids. Used by the Roamers as a commercial hub, during its management by Roberto Clarin the complex is destroyed in a raid by the EDF.
• Isperos - Planet rich in precious minerals that orbits close to its system's sun. Roamer inventor Kotto Okiah designs and builds a facility there that allows mining but can withstand the planet's intense heat. The mining process culminates in ingots of material launched by railgun far out into safer zones of space for pickup by Roamer ships. Later, a meteor passes close to the planet and misaligns the railgun, triggering a series of problems which compromise the safety of the facility and ultimately destroy it. Kotto and his crews are able to flee to safety.
• Jonah 12 - Incredibly cold planet and the location of a Roamer colony designed by Kotto after the destruction of the mining facility on Isperos. Roamers on the planet mine the gases frozen on its surface for use in industry. Cesca Peroni flees there with aged Roamer Speaker Jhy Okiah after the EDF attack on Rendezvous, and Jhy later passes away peacefully. The facility is later destroyed when the workers inadvertently uncover a giant cache of Klikiss robots hibernating deep within the ice. The robots swiftly attack the Roamer base and level it with ease. Nikko Chan Tylar and a wounded Cesca escape the base alive and manage to rig a reactor to incinerate the base and the invading robots.
• Osquivel - Gas giant whose rings are the site of a hidden Roamer starship manufacturing site owned by Del Kellum. When EDF pilot Robb Brindle traces the hydrogue warships that had attacked Boone's Crossing back to Osquivel, Roamer and EDF captain Tasia Tamblyn secretly warns Kellum of the impending EDF visit. Kellum manages to disguise the facility so that it goes unnoticed by the EDF battle group. The EDF forces are decimated by the hydrogues and flee; while salvaging the wreckage, Kellum's people find some survivors and bring them back to the shipyards. Needing to keep the location of his facility secret, Kellum reluctantly refuses to let the survivors leave. Kotto Okiah examines an intact hydrogue warglobe left behind after the battle and uses it to come up with his "doorbell" technology as a weapon against the hydrogues.
• Plumas - Ice-bound planet where water mines operated by the Roamer Tamblyn clan are located. The main settlement is deep under the icy surface in caverns lit by artificial suns. When Jess Tamblyn unknowingly leaves a trace of wental energy on Plumas, it becomes corrupted and seeps into the long-lost frozen body of his mother Karla, and reanimates her. Possessed by the wental, she uses its power to begin destroying the facility before she is stopped by Jess.
• Ptoro - Gas giant and site of a Roamer skymine owned by the Tylar clan before the hydrogue ultimatum halts most ekti collection. Later, Ptoro is the site of the first offensive use of the Klikiss torch by the EDF.
• Sunshine - Photon-bathed planetoid settlement run by the Tomara clan, which consists of subterranean warrens for habitation whose energy demands are provided by solar collectors. Work is done on the planetoid's surface only at night.
• Welyr - Gas giant and site of a Roamer skymine managed by Shareen Pasternak. This skymine is one of the earliest to be destroyed by the hydrogues. Five years later, Welyr is the site of a Roamer blitzkrieg raid and a bombing run performed by Del Kellum which seeds the atmosphere of the gas giant with wentals.
• Sheol - Introduced in The Dark Between the Stars (2014), Sheol is an unstable, lava-covered world that is the site of Lee Iswander's mining operations, which extract useful and valuable materials from the environment. Iswander ignores Garrison Reeves' warnings that the planet's temperatures may soon fluctuate and exceed the shielding limits of the facility, and a disaster soon occurs. The entire mining facility, including the habitation modules, is consumed by the lava, and 1543 workers are killed.^[2]

Ildiran Empire

In the series, the Ildiran Empire has existed for over ten thousand years, living peacefully due to a communal mental interconnectedness called the thism. Each Ildiran has what is called a soulthread, and these soulthreads are woven together by their leader, the Mage-Imperator. Ildirans have a very specialized society, with specific castes that are adept at performing particular tasks. The castes are physically different from one another, and have different suffixes at the end of their names. Ildirans are the first extraterrestrials that humanity encounters upon exploring space beyond Earth, and the Ildirans share their stardrive technology with humans.

• Ildira - Capital of the Ildiran Empire, heavily populated primarily due to the Ildiran fear of isolation. Ildira is in a binary system, however its unusually close proximity to two other star systems, results in seven individual suns being clearly visible with a high degree of magnitude in the Ildiran sky; as a result, the planet experiences no night. The Mage-Imperator resides in the capital city of Majistra.
• Dobro - Ildiran world whose Designate is traditionally the second born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator. The planet is secretly the site of a clandestine breeding program sanctioned for centuries by a line of Mage-Imperators trying to create a telepath that can communicate with the hydrogues. A main component of this program is a group of captive humans from the generation ship Burton, once peaceful cohabitants on Dobro but ultimately enslaved. The human green priest Nira Khali is forced into the program by Mage-Imperator Cyroc'h but is ultimately freed after Prime Designate Jora'h rises to power.
• Hyrillka - Ildiran resort planet whose Designate is traditionally the third born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator. Hyrillka is located in the Horizon Cluster, and is notable as the center of production of the potent stimulant drug shiing. After nearly being killed in a hydrogue attack, the Hyrillka Designate Rusa'h, younger brother to Mage-Imperator Jora'h, awakens from a coma and is driven to overthrow Jora'h. Using the ability of shiing to dull the Ildiran's connection to the telepathic web of thism, Rusa'h converts Jora'h's heir Thor'h and a growing number of Ildirans to his cause. Rusa'h kills his own successor Pery'h and kills many Ildrians who resist him before he is defeated. Jora'h appoints his young son Ridek'h as Designate. Rusa'h is later resurrected as an avatar of the faeros, who are soon out of his control and devouring Ildiran souls. A faero-hydrogue battle nearly destroys Hyrillka's sun before the faeros are victorious.
• Colusa - Ildiran planet whose Designate is traditionally the fourth born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator.
• Scotia - Ildiran planet whose Designate is traditionally the fifth born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator.
• Alturas - Ildiran planet whose Designate is traditionally the sixth born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator. Alturas is the third planet to be targeted by Rusa'h for induction into his alternate thism.
• Galt - Ildiran planet whose Designate is traditionally the seventh born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator.
• Kamin - Ildiran planet whose Designate is traditionally the eighth born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator.
• Shonor - Ildiran planet whose Designate is traditionally the ninth born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator. Shonor is the fourth world targeted by Rusa'h after Alturas.
• Heald - Ildiran planet whose Designate is traditionally the tenth born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator.
• Vondor Qe - Ildiran planet whose Designate is traditionally the eleventh born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator.
• Hrel-oro - Ildiran planet whose Designate is traditionally the twelfth born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator. Hrel-oro is a dry and warm planet with very little vegetation, though it is rich in minerals and is mined by the Ildirans for desirable metals. Due to the arid climate, it is populated mainly by members of the Scaly kith. Power is supplied to Ildiran settlements by solar power stations and wind turbines.
• Dzelluria - Ildiran planet whose Designate is traditionally the thirteenth born noble son of the ruling Mage-Imperator. Rusa'h' travels to Dzelluria with his captured warliners to absorb the planet's population into his thism network. The Dzelluria Designate refuses to cooperate with Rusa'h, who kills the Designate, takes the planet by force and coerces the Designate-in-waiting to join him.
• Maratha - Ildiran resort world; its Maratha Prime complex is bathed in constant sunlight for half the year. A second complex, Maratha Secda, is being constructed by commissioned Klikiss robots on the other side of the planet so that the visiting population can utilize the resort world year-round. When the Klikiss robot master plan commences, they awaken a hibernating hive of robots buried deep below the surface and destroy both complexes to build ships and weapons. They are later wiped out by the Ildiran Solar Navy and the return of the original Klikiss race.
• Comptor - Forested Ildiran planet; the Saga of the Seven Suns celebrates one of is former Designates, the favorite of the then Mage-Imperator, who had died there in a forest fire.
• Garoa - Ildiran planet in the Horizon Cluster that is captured by Rusa'h's thism network.
• Orryx - Former Ildiran colony world that is virtually forgotten after its fall. Orryx had been, according to Ildiran apocrypha, the first Ildiran world to be vanquished by the Shana Rei, who had covered the entire world and the septa of warliners that was sent to defend it in a blanket of darkness, killing the Ildirans.
• Qronha 3 - Gas giant orbiting in the Qronha binary system, close to Ildira. Before the novels, it had been home to the last skymine still in Ildiran hands. Adar Kori'nh tries twice to clear Qronha 3 of hydrogues, and only succeeds the second time by sacrificing his life. Later, both the Hansa and the Ildirans set up new skymines on the gas giant, but soon the hydrogues reawaken and the skyminers flee. Qronha 3 is also where the hydrogues keep many of their human prisoners, including EDF pilot Robb Brindle. Eventually, Jess Tamblyn flies his wental ship straight into the hydrogue city and destroys it with wental power, also rescuing the prisoners, who by then include his own sister Tasia Tamblyn.
• Kuivahr - Introduced in The Dark Between the Stars (2014), Kuivar is an oceanic world. Ildirans of the Swimmer kith live in the sea around the research complex of Tamo'l, one of Nira's half human/half Ildiran daughters. Tamo'l studies and cares for the less successful mixed breeds from the defunct Dobro breeding program. Kuivahr is also the site of the distillery run by Roamer Del Kellum, the former Speaker of the Roamers.^[2]

Klikiss

As the series begins, the Klikiss race is thought to be extinct, and their abandoned worlds are xenoarchaeological curiosities. After Klikiss transportal technology is discovered on Rheindic Co, many more Klikiss planets are discovered and colonized by humans.

• Llaro - Ancient capital of the Klikiss race and the first Kilikiss world to be discovered by humans. Tasia Tamblyn says of it on arrival, "It's not exactly the garden spot of the galaxy ... but at least it isn't a hellhole." After the Roamer population are declared outlaws by the Hansa, the EDF detains Roamer prisoners of war on Llaro. The Klikiss race returns and seizes control of Llaro, killing the EDF overseers and preparing the Roamer colony for assimilation.
• Corribus - Klikiss world where it is believed that the Klikiss race had been finally exterminated by an unknown foe. Xenoarchaeologists Louis and Margaret Colicos discover the Klikiss torch on Corribus. Human colonists arrive on Corribus through the newly-discovered Klikiss transportal, but their settlement is soon destroyed by Klikiss robots in stolen EDF warships. Hud Steinmann and Orli Covitz are the only survivors of the attack and eventually escape the planet.
• Cjeldre - Former Klikiss world resettled by humans which has a very long, cold winter season. It is recaptured by the Klikiss, but Adar Zan'nh rescues the stranded human settlers.
• Happiness - Neo-Amish world to which Prince Daniel is exiled by King Peter.
• Hifur - Abandoned Klikiss world retaken by the Klikiss before being destroyed by Klikiss robots.
• Rajapar - Klikiss world regained by an independent Klikiss breedex.
• Rheindic Co - Louis and Margaret Colicos and their compy DD discover a hidden Klikiss city on Rheindic Co, in which they discover an intact Klikiss transportal. The seemingly-docile Klikiss robots in their party turn on them, killing Louis and abducting DD while Margaret escapes through the transportal. Hansa Chairman Basil Wenceslas later sends Davlin Lotze and Rlinda Kett to Rheindic Co to find the missing xenoarchaeologists,
• Pym - Desiccated world once inhabited by the Klikiss, it has huge salt lakes and mineral deposits. EDF General Kurt Lanyan leads an expedition to Pym to rescue its human inhabitants from the returned Klikiss, and is later killed when he returns to eradicate the Klikiss.
• Scholld - Klikiss world whose returned Klikiss warriors destroy a small part of the Klikiss robot fleet.
• Szurael or Szeol - Klikiss world first explored by Davlin Lotze but deemed unfit for human habitation due to its large predators and acrid air. It is later used by the Klikiss robots as a base of operations for their war against humanity.
• Wollamor - Former Klikiss world colonized by humans using the Klikiss transportal. The Klikiss robots arrive and destroy the settlement, but are in turn destroyed themselves when the Klikiss breedex from Llaro invades. The Klikiss robot Sirix and his soldier compies next bombard the planet and destroy the Klikiss.
• Xalezar - Abandoned Klikiss world settled by humans in the colonization initiative.
• Zed Khell - Abandoned Klikiss world not settled in the colonization initiative and quickly retaken by the Klikiss.
• Eljiid - Introduced in The Dark Between the Stars (2014), Eljiid is the abandoned Klikiss world that Margaret Colicos retires to after the events of The Ashes of Worlds (2008). She studies the ruins there until her eventual death by natural causes, and is buried there. In The Dark Between the Stars, Princess Arita of Theroc travels there to study the local botany, in particular a possibly sentient variety of cacti called Whistlers. Tom Rom also comes to Eljiid to retrieve "royal jelly" glands from mummified Klikiss bodies left on the planet. Later, the Shana Rei ally with the remaining Klikiss robots and destroy the colony on Eljiid, killing its inhabitants.^[2]

Other

• Charybdis - Primordial ocean world where Jess Tamblyn first disseminates the wentals. He is then infused with wental energy as a life-saving measure after the hydrogues destroy his ship over the planet. The wentals build him a starship from ocean materials. Later, Cesca Peroni is also infused with wental energy on Charybdis after being mortally wounded on Jonah 12.
• Dularix - Uninhabited forested world that is attacked by the hydrogues in their search for the remnants of the verdani.
• Eldora - Colony world to which Branson Roberts travels in The Ashes of Worlds (2008).
• Iawa - Long before the events of the series, the Ildirans had transported the human colonists from the generation ship Kanaka here. However, after becoming accustomed to a different way of life on board the Kanaka and their crops suffering from a blight, the colonists had left Iawa to reunite with the community that had settled at Rendezvous.
• Okiah - Floating city in space introduced in The Dark Between the Stars (2014), built and once inhabited by the alien Onthos race. In the form of five spokes of varying lengths radiating out from a central hub, the city is discovered and newly colonized by the Roamer Clan Reeves. They name it Okiah after Jhy Okiah, famed former Speaker of the Roamers. The Roamers and their green priest Shelud soon discover that the city's previous occupants, the Onthos, had died from a plague centuries or even millennia before, and soon the human colony is overcome and extinguished themselves.^[2]
• Pergamus - Introduced in The Dark Between the Stars (2014), Pergamus is a research planetoid wholly owned by the wealthy Zoe Alakis. Heavily defended, Zoe's facility is a series of independent stations which study diseases and find cures, but all for her own collection rather than helping mankind.^[2]
• Vaconda - Jungle planet on which Zoe Alakis' parents, Adam and Evelyn, had spent years studying the local botany and resources for useful and valuable extracts prior to the events of The Dark Between the Stars (2014). Evelyn dies after a vehicle accident when Zoe is a child, and Adam later perishes after contracting the then-incurable Heidegger's Syndrome. Destroying the Alakis laboratory station in preparation for leaving the planet for good, Zoe and her minion Tom Rom discover a vein of precious prisdiamonds, which makes her fabulously wealthy.^[2]

References