Denubius
---------

Denubius is a small world administered directly by Lord Trulane,
who, it is said, won title to the planet in a high-stakes poker
game with the Duchess. Some also say he would have been better
off had he lost. So far he's sunk much of his fortune into trying
to terraform the planet. This has involved the purchase of a wide
assortment of various lifeforms as well as the construction of a
plankton-breeding factory which has been in operation for the
last thirty years.

To help finance his operation, he has been charging vessels
passing through the system mandatory fueling and inspection fees.
Since the system has no gas giants, the local merchants have been
forced to cooperate.

Trulane's vision is to build a society of scientists where the
intellectual-elite are rewarded for their accomplishments via a
system of promotion and title. Everyone on Denubius holds a
specific rank, just like a military rank, except that all
promotions are based (in theory) on technical accomplishment.
Although the planetary population is still relatively small,
Trulane has succeeded in recruiting a fair number of researchers
who like his ideas, and the planetary capital, "Shelter One", has
a fairly good biogenetics lab (certainly of a higher tech level
than the rest of the planet). There they work primarily on
microbes and algae, exchanging data with institutes on other
worlds.

