“We're leaving again. Sun's got too far over the horizon, so we're heading East to get into the next citadel. Helen says that there looks to be some scratching on some of the original Gasbag designs in the old city ruins. So, if you get back here before we do I've attached maps for how to find them. Best of luck to you both, and wish Julio fortune on their implanting tests.”
— From Leane, Briarean archivist before the War.

• Briareos is a single blasted planet, even from before the War, that turns slowly on its axis. Nothing else in the system is inhabited, barring small stations.
• The people get by using bio-technology adapted to the toxic environment, and constantly move along the line between night and day.
• Even more destroyed in the War, and most of the population live on floating farms called Gasbags.
• Ruled under the thumb of Tyrant Maribelle Johns.

Briareos is no stranger to war; even before the conflict that desolated the Seven Systems, the planet was a harsh and barren place to live. Previous civil conflicts destroyed vast swathes of the planet and slowed the rotation of the planet to a crawl. The long days and nights, approaching the length of years of more reasonable planets, and the vast pollution left by the war, meant that agriculture became mostly unfeasible. Still, Briareos was able to rebuild, using bio-technology to provided much-needed stability. The most obvious example is the floating farm known colloquially as the Gasbag. By using reverse engineered plant matter, the people of Briareos could pilot a portable farm to areas of promising environment, while the very method of transport was growing and ripening. When ripe it can be eaten, or used as a framework for growing more meat-like calorie-dense foods. This quickly became the staple of Briarean diet and employment, and most inhabitants had worked as a farmer at one point in their lives. People also moved along the dusk-lines, between certain safe cities to prevent drying out in the day, or freezing at night.

Politically, Briareos had been a strict gerontocracy¹⁾ for as long as anyone could remember. The logistics involving itinerant populations, and the intricacies of a vast range of supporting biological machines, required a lot of experience and left no room for error. Thus it was necessary to follow those who had had the longest time to prepare. That was the official line, at least. At the time of The Ananke Conference, the oldest human in Briareos²⁾ was Oscar Letts. He led the delegation to the conference, hoping to use the vast supplies of food that Briareos created and exported as leverage to gain explicit promises of protection from the other systems.

The War was harsh indeed on Briareos: in the early days, they were able to sit behind the might of Selas, while supplying their allies with food. Their attacks mostly involved corrupted shipments of food; becoming living weapons where one expected rations. This changed when attacks on the supply chain, trying to starve out Briareos and its allies, escalated into full-scale planetary bombardment. Other planets had it worse, but this heralded a new level of ferocity in the war. The population fell to a tiny fraction of what it had been on the first day of the War. It was during this phase of bombardment that the old gerontocrats were literally cut down, and a woman calling herself Tyrant grasped the failing planet.

As the flames of war sputtered, Briareos came under the rule of Tyrant Maribelle Johns. She, and a core of die-hard supporters, executed nearly every gerontocrat, and most who spoke up against her in the first days of her rule. In order to “combat the instability of the food supply” she instigated a reform by whereby Briareans would be tied to a specific Gasbag, and required to farm it. These Gasbags would be owned by Managers, who took responsibility for ensuring food is gathered and passed up to higher Managers who owned fleets of Gasbags, all the way up to the Tyrant herself. This food has then been sold out to the other planets at ridiculously low prices, to eke out every drop of stability Johns can find for herself in ruling over her little fiefdom.

There is some resistance to Johns's rule, but those who have tried to escape the iron grip of Tyrant Johns are now stuck on the doubly desolated surface of the planet. The weapons levelled at the planet disrupted even further what little environmental balance had been found by the old-guard of Briareos. Almost all of the planet's surface is desert, either sweltering in the sun of the day, or freezing to ice under the night sky of a blasted atmosphere. The cities still cling on, old power keeping some machines ticking over. These are, however, the most dangerous parts of the planet, as it is exactly where the repressive forces of the Tyrant would expect to find those hiding from her rule. The choice between starving in the desert, dying to gunfire in the cities, or simply submitting to work a Gasbag is stark indeed.

The people who live on Briareos now can be split into two groups: those who submitted to the Tyrant and who now eke out a meagre existence aboard a Gasbag, and those who rebelled, and eke out a meagre and short existence upon the ground. Regardless of their current state, however, this is a new state for most Briareans, and the memory of their previous lives means that they all still share some traits. Briareans tend to be knowledgeable about technology, as even the youngest have some knowledge of how to produce and maintain it.

Those who live aboard a Gasbag have lives comparable to those of serfs under medieval feudalism. They are technically free to do whatever they want, so long as the food is grown and they do not leave the Gasbag; and if their manager decides to come up with brutal ways of ensuring the first two, what is going to stop them? People from all stripes of the Briareos that was work on one of these, so the expected talents of even a single farm are hugely variant.

Those who have rebelled and live on the ground move around in tight-knit units, trying to avoid the many threats to them both natural and human-made. Out of necessity these people have taken to wearing an increasing number of bio-technological implants and enhancements; this allows them to bring the tools of survival anywhere, on their person. The most notable of these are a series of nodules that look like miniature Gasbags - these can be eaten as a steady food supply, but also leaves the bearer without the need to eat to survive. It does not, however, remove hunger.