Star Citizen: Loremaker's Guide to the Galaxy - Banshee System

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] What the hell? Hi. Uh, my name is Adam Weezer and I am associate writer here at Cloud Imperium Games and uh, welcome to another installment of Lore Makaker's Guide to the Galaxy. Uh for those who aren't familiar with the show, this is a chance for a member of the lore team to sit down and give you a personal tour of one

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   of the systems you'll be exploring in uh the game and in Star Citizen and possibly Squadron 42. Um on this uh installment we are going to be looking at a a very special system in the UEE because at the center of it is a very unique at least it's a a unique star for us to be have habitation or have habitable planets around. Uh and this week we are going to be going and looking at the system of Banshee. So, let's uh we're starting off here as always uh at Earth and using our handy little star map, we'll type in Banshee and we will head on out to the system. And as we fly on down, Banshee is a fourplanet system that is in the uh that

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   is officially a UEE system. And at the heart here, as we zoom on in is uh what is makes us so special and that's that's a pulsar. Now you can see it kind of g here in the star map representation pulsing a little bit bigger and smaller and that's not technically what uh what a pulsar would would would be in in real life. It would actually be spinning very very fast and having highly mag uh be highly magnetized and have these beams of electromatic radiation uh coming out of both sides of the pole. So it almost becomes like a lighthouse a effect where these these beams kind of spin around. Now this makes them very easy to see from a distance because you can actually time the rotations and and see where they are of these these beams of

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   radiation. But it also makes it very difficult to live around because that radiation is deadly to two uh living species and two ships. Now uh these pulsars are basically uh uh very interesting because they are they were formerly massive stars that went through a supernova like a giant explosion and then suffered gravitational collapse where all the mass that was being held together together all a sudden just kind of comes and gets pulled into tighter and tighter um and denser and more compact uh form of matter. Somehow in this process uh and we we still in this day and age don't know exactly how it happens. uh all these elements uh end up kind of like spinning and uh bringing and shooting these uh beams of electromagnetic uh radiation out from

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   the uh magnetic poles of the of the actual star, not the actual kind of like north south. They're slightly offc center which makes them uh a little bit easier to see for us. Now uh in in Star Citizen uh Banshee is the only star system currently that has a pulsar at the center and has jump points connecting to it. This uh has led some scientists to theorize that maybe the pulsars being at the center of the system actually leads to unstable jump points or doesn't have uh doesn't really aid in their formation. But somehow in some way we have discovered this jump point into Banshee and have uh uh decided to inhabit this system for reasons you'll uh you'll see in a little bit. Now as we we back out you will see that Banshee here has uh is connected to

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   four planets. Um most of them it's it's kind of out in the the edges here. Um you've got Lear which is unclaimed. You've got Garin which is developing. Tamza which has a black hole at the center so you you won't be able to visit it uh currently as the UEE uh discovers it and the uh forest system. Uh this was where the system was initially discovered for uh back in 2317. Um in 2317 there were a lot of terraforming workers that were in the forest system and a bunch of them decided to band together and create something called the IMRAMM association. Now, this was a group of uh uh amateur explorers that when they weren't helping terraform uh uh planets and fora were out searching looking for jump points uh

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   just because it uh it was still very early in human uh expansion and exploration of space and this was something a lot of them were very interested in. Uh now Iram um in a reference to Banshee which uh has Irish origins, Imram is actually a an ancient Irish uh kind of folktale that involves um a hero going on a quest and normally in a boat and normally journeying to another world. So uh decided to call the uh the group that found the system the Imram Association um as a nice little uh uh reflection back to uh uh to Ireland and and the name that's involved here. So uh it was actually one Adelaz Diane who found the initial jump into the Banshee system from Fora and while she

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   uh found it before she she went through it she sent the coordinates to all the other members of the association. They rushed out to that part of the the system to see what she had found, only discovered not only her that that she wasn't there anymore, and they weren't quite sure what was what was in that area. Um, they did pick up um they did pick up some weird anomalies, some some radiation in there, and they grew concerned that uh that uh uh something dangerous or deadly could have happened to to Diane. So at the time the other members of the Imram association actually contacted the the the humanities government. This is 2317. It's pree it's pre up. It's pre UNE. There was no formalized uh center um of government for all of humanity at that

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   time. So they they tried to contact the powers that be just to let them know that there was something funky going on in this area which brought out um which brought out the the government military pathfinders to come and search this section of space. As they went and they they scanned these coordinates she gave them. They were able to discover the jump point and the military went in behind. And as they came in behind that's when they realized that this deadly pulsar was at the the center of the of the system. Now, no one knows exactly the fate of Adelaide's Diane uh once she went through the through the jump point. Uh most uh suspect that she came through and her uh her ship basically got a little bit too close to the pulsar uh succumb to radiation and just continued to drift off uh into

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    space forever. Um, that said, as a as a way to honor her uh and her discovery of the system, the members of the Imram Association decided to name the system Banshee after um Adelaz's uh nickname on the in the SATAL arena. She uh she was she was called Banshee. So she thought that that it would be a perfect way to kind of honor her while at the same time uh warning others of the dangers of venturing into the system with all the radiation spilling out of this pulsar. Now once the government or the the form of government that was around at that time realized that there was a lot of dangerous stuff in the system, they decided to do something which was not tell people it was here. this uh just made a lot of sense because you don't want people wandering off into danger

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    and going to visit this thing uh if if if they don't have to if there's no reason to be there because at the time there there was you know it didn't make any sense there wasn't any habitable places to go. So um this happened for about two to three centuries where where there were rumors that the UEI that the the human government had found another system but weren't letting people actually uh go to visit it. It was in the 26th century when um this kind of all came to a head. Uh overpopulation of earth meant that humanity was searching desperately for new places for humanity to populate. And this this rumor that there was this possible other system out there uh gained some traction and eventually led to a very famous court case called Mento versus the UPE. The UPE was the the formal government at

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    that time. And it was in this debated court case that uh it was finally decided that uh humanity's government could not hide um jump points into various systems from the general population. This was seen as as a thing to do to make sure that um the government wasn't maybe discovering system where there were lots of resources or other things like that and then keeping them from private industries or other people and just just to make sure that if the government knew something, they had to be accountable. They had to let the rest of the population know that this was okay. Um, this is also the reason why uh as you'll look on the star map and as you'll experience in the game, you're going to know where the jump points in the van duel space are because uh it it did in the in the in the future obviously come

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    back to bite him in the butt a little bit. But um that was the initial thingy behind it is that the UE that is that the the government cannot hide jump points from people. So uh people uh eventually got access to this system in the uh 26th century to find out that yeah with this fourlanet system here and a very small you can see here green habitable zone it's not really great for much of anything especially with all the radiation spewing out of it. Um then of course like many other times in human history uh war came along and changed the dynamics and changed uh changed technology and that led to some advancements here that actually allowed this system to be habitable. So it was during the first uh tvaran war that researchers at the uh upupark um the secret government kind of lab were

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    working on some kind of system as a way that could possibly weaponize solar electromagnetic radiation. Um supposedly this never really took off and never really worked. But what they were able to do were is what they were able to build giant things that could capture this electromagnetic radiation and at least turn it into some form of energy. Now these are very prominently featured on uh the one habitable planet in the system with the which is Lorna over here and uh they are now they do the landscape of that planet these and I'm sure you'll see the picture that we have as the the header for this that are in the ground and they're almost look like big um kind of like solar panels that can sit there and um soak up the the

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    radiation coming from the pulsar and then be used to power everything that's uh that's around it. Once this happened, um obviously corporations started to to come on in and use them to run autonomous drilling rigs, uh in particular on this third planet of Lorna, um to be able to get some of the value valuable resources out of the system. And that's how human habitation began in this completely inhospitable part of the galaxy. So, if we go in for a little closer view, we're going to go into Danshee 1, which is really close to the uh to the pulsar at the center here. Now, this is a rocky dwarf planet, and it it it scans have revealed that it does have uh small pockets of valuable minerals, but its location so close to the pulsar makes it completely

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    inhospitable to humanity or to even going, you know, sending something there to to pull that um from the planet. So that is Banshee 1. If we go out to Banshee 2, uh excuse me. There we go. This is a terrestrial iron planet. Um so it has a iron core. The entire planet surface has been uh heavily uh irdiated because of the pulsar at the at the center. But there's a little bit of a mystery wrapped up in this planet because after the historical truth act of 2941, it was revealed that during the Messor era, uh, specific swasts of this planet were cut out and taken away and transported for nobody knows quite what reason. What would the MESA government want to do with these heavily er uh

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    irradiated uh pieces of this planet of these iron chunks of this planet? So, that's one of those historical mysteries that that people to this day are still trying to figure out what in the world the messes were thinking with uh doing with these specific parts of Banshee 2. Went out a little too far there. Let's go back in. And now, let's talk about the the one place that uh you can visit in this system and actually spend some time. And this is uh Laurona, which is the the third planet. It's a terrestrial planet and it has vast resources which is why a lot of those um giant panels collecting the energy from from the star were were put here first so that miners could pull everything out. Now being on the surface of this planet is still deadly to humans. So that is why all the all the all the landing zones and all

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    the human population are actually underground um on in the the parlance of the planet. um to to to go there is to go below the line because that's where actual human uh habitation occurs there. Um most of this uh most of the population is minors. Um and because of the the amount of resources and the money coming from this planet, even though everything is underground, there is an element of uh you know a rich uh lifestyle on this planet. There's good restaurants. Um there's some high-end shopping because a lot of high-end mining executives do do work here. Um that said, the majority of the population are uh kind of subsistent miners that are there working for these mega corporations

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    um that are basically as they cut into this planet and hollow it out and move the resources out, these people that are working for the mining companies end up kind of coming in after them. and the places that the mining equipment has kind of swept through and left behind, they end up building their own shacks, their own little their own little settlements. Um, which makes uh which makes it a very interesting um kind of like place to go, but one that if you're not a resident of Lurona, it's not recommended that you wander through these tunnels alone. Um, just because certain encampments are, let's say, not so nice to uh to people not from the planet. Um, and it's also very easy to get lost down there. Uh one of the uh one of the things that uh uh kind of the planet is also known for is a bump which is a a sweet or savory puff pastry which

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    can be bought from various stalls um that are lined up all throughout the the tunnels of this uh of uh of Laurona. A lot of the miners grab them on the on the way to work along with their their warm beverage, their drink and stuff in the morning. Uh, and a fun little like one little story side note based on Laurona uh Dean Keller who did the infamous Keller's run um a few hundred years later uh was a very notorious uh outlaw of the early uh 30th century in in the UEE. The first uh nobody knows where Dean Keller ever came from, but his first uh kind of like ping in the history of the UEE was when he was a arrested for the first time at 12 years old. He had snuck into a hanger and basically tied up the attendant that was

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    working there had climbed into the ship that was there and was trying to figure out how to fire the ship's missiles at the uh basically doors the hanger door so that he could escape the uh the planet. Uh that was the first time uh the first of many times Dean Keller was ever arrested. Um nobody knows if he was actually born on Lona, but uh that's the first time he ever made an impression. um one of many that he would do u throughout his life. Finally, we're going to spin around and visit the planet form the system which is Banshee. And this is a uh a typical ice giant way out on the the fringes of the system. In the uh 27th century, uh this uh company called the Cenote Concern had this idea that they could use the ice of this planet uh for an uh an industrial source

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    of heavy water in in the mining operations that were going on Laurona and other places in the uh around the empire. This plan failed. their ability to to to rip off huge chunks of ice, take it elsewhere to to use as industrial as industrial heavy water failed and actually uh bankrupt the company um being so expensive uh in in their failure. So that is a quick visit to the uh system of Banshee which has been around for hundreds of years was uh completely unknown to most of the general human population for for many many years and now harbors Laurona the one place where you can go and visit the system and go underground. It is recommended that if you do go visit the system, you do make sure to do all repairs and refueling before

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    entering. Um because if your ship does break down, getting out of your ship to to to do repairs or have anything done to it, um can be a a deadly task for you. So, uh thank you for uh exploring the Banshee system with me. Um make sure to tune in. We do one of these every two weeks, one of these lore makers. We offset every other week with Bug Smashers. So, uh, thank you once again for watching and, uh, we'll see you soon. Thank you for watching. So, if you want to keep up with the latest and greatest in Star Citizen and Squadron 42's development, please follow us on our social media channels. See you soon.