Tauron

Introduction
Tauron, officially the Federal Republic of Tauron, is a federal parliamentary republic consisting of 16 states, and its capital and largest city is Hypatia. The planet has a largely temperate seasonal climate and supports a population of 2.5-billion inhabitants. It is one of the major political blocs of the Colonies industrial powers and a technological leader in many fields.

Planetary Geography and Climate
Tauron is a barren, arid planet that is well-known for its high winds and cragged mountains. The reason for this is Tauron is orbited by incredibly close by its moon of Minos. This close, ringed astronomical body can even be seen as a large celestial object on the Tauron sky, which create immense tectonic stress on the planet, making Tauron the most volcanically active world in the Cyrannus Sector.

Mountains dominate Tauron, primarily the equator spanning Rhakotis Mountains, which highest point is Mount Ulysis, a long-dormant shield volcano and single tallest peak in the Helios Alpha-system. The forested uplands of central Tauron and the lowlands of northern Tauron are traversed by such major rivers as the Ptolemaic River, Tyre River and Carthago River.

Glaciers are found in the northern Axor Polar Region, but are experiencing de-glaciation as Tauron's industrial base increases. Significant natural resources are iron ore, coal, potash, timber, lignite, uranium, copper, natural gas, salt and nickel.

Tauron is among the most distant colony from the Helios Alpha and as such their winters are incredibly long and bitter. However because of this plants on Tauron mature much quicker, bear larger amounts of produce and function better in high alkaline soil then anywhere else in the Colonies. This means Tauron spends only a third of its time cultivating food in comparison to a world like Aerilon but produce almost five times the base amounts. However attempts to export Tauron crops off-world have been met with limited success, as they do not grow well under continuous light exposure and most forms of fertilizers are toxic to them.

Biology
Because of its rocky nature Tauron is most known for its lack any kind of flowers. However, within the Colonies, it is still a agricultural world.

History
Tauron was founded by the followers of Ares from the Taura Galleon around 149 CE.

The Taurons are extremely proud of their standing as the second world settled after Caprica and only to do so under their own power with no outside assistance.

In the early days, they flaunted that position and took credit for much of the Colonies' early successes. The Taurons' superiority eventually wore thin, and when they challenged the Gemenese interpretation of the Sacred Scrolls fighting started immediately after. Despite instigating much of the tension in the early years, the Taurons eventually withdrew, preferring to further the technology aboard the orbiting Taura Galleon, the only surviving one as the others had been scrapped or lost to time.

This however ended when Gemenon fundamentalists detonated a nuclear warhead aboard the ship, destroying it completely. As Tauron had only been colonized for agriculture and most industry, technology and health care centred around the Taura Galleon. The lose of their entire technological and industrial based plunged Tauron into a veritable dark age, an isolation of the Colony from the rest of the system for over half a millennium.

As they started to recover 800 years ago, Tauron was conquered by rival colonies Virgon and Leonis. After a long, hard struggle, the people of Tauron liberated themselves, and this is celebrated as the Our Day holiday.

93-years prior to modern times, the Tauron Civil War occurred, causing the displacement of many of its people to Caprica. Most migrated back afterwards but several large enclaves remain on Caprica, Gemenon and Picon.

During this period Tauron's government began to establish liberal business laws, allowing for massive mega-corporations to be founded in her space. Non-resistrive technological development, open strip-mining of its resources and highly competitive practices made Tauron a powerful world among its fellow worlds and its industrial greed caused this planet to use a substantial number of Cylons as workers as compared to the other colonies.

In the Cylon War, Tauron was unfortunately a heavily fought over strategic battlefield. Many industrial cities like Hephaestion were occupied by the Cylons to produce ships, weapons, and more sinisterly, their own Cylon army. Tauron was liberated and conquered no less then four times in the twelve year war, resulting in Tauron suffering the greatest loss of life then any other Colony. Over a fifth of the native population was wiped out and numerous cultural treasures lost forever.

In the final days of the Cylon War, Tauron was left under-defended, as they committed almost their entire fleet to Operation Raptor Talon. While Caprica and Leonis promised to provide reserve units to counter this lose, they failed to arrive in time and Tauron was attacked by Cylon ships and ground forces, causing many civilian causalities in areas such as the city of Hypatia, formerly Tauron's largest metropolis that was massacred and depopulated of its 11-million residents in a matter of two-days.

After the War, Tauron obtained the reputation for being a troublesome Colony within the federal system, often disobeying directives decided by the Colonies and pushing their luck with the admiralty. This was due in part to long-standing animosity among Taurons towards Caprica and Leonis, who they believed intentionally left their Colony open for invasion during the Fourth Battle of Tauron. Until this day the reason for the reserve fleet's delay still has not been explained. Yet due in part to their still relaxed laws towards industrial and technological development, the world is counted among the wealthiest of the Twelve Colonies.

To recover after the war, Tauron developed huge industrial complexes across its two main continents of Eurynome and Thetis. Tauron's industrial dominance is mainly due to its massive civilian shipyards which have produced a vast majority of the FTL-capable civilian ships in the Colonies and which re-established trading routes formerly decimated or discontinued during the Cylon War, giving them a jump on inter-colonial trade and shipping.

Ground-based shipyards have been built up yet again and now surpass the Scorpia Fleet Shipyard in their size. Chalcolithic Scrapyard and Cretan Scapyard are the largest wrecking yard in the Colonies and is well-known for housing over 200 derelicts at any time, most waiting for final scrapping or mothballed for rapid use in case of war. Dendera Station is where most inter-planetary cruise liners are built.

Society and Culture
Tauron is a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic republic. The Tauron political system operates under a framework laid out in the constitutional document following the Second Tauron Civil War. Amendments generally require a two-thirds majority of both chambers of parliament; the fundamental principles of the constitution, as expressed in the articles guaranteeing human dignity, the separation of powers, the federal structure, and the rule of law are valid in perpetuity.

It has the fourth largest economy by nominal GDP and the fifth largest by purchasing power parity. Tauron is the second largest exporter and third largest importer of goods. The Colony has developed a very high standard of living and a comprehensive system of social security. Tauron has been the home of many influential philosophers, music composers, scientists and inventors, and is known for its cultural and political history.

Because Tauron is a harsh, frigid world, its people reflect this. They're born of brawny stock and tend to be tall and muscular, thick in body and mind. They're often called stubborn and sometimes insubordinate. They can argue just to argue and rarely give up, even when they're wrong. Taurons traditionally speak a different language than most of the Colonies and as a culture, Taurons are noted to be a stoic people. Many Taurons are known for their elaborate use of tattoos, noting their various accomplishments and failures, roles in society, and other social attributes. In essence, each tattoo has its own story and significance.

A common belief among the Colonies is that Taurons are low-lives, a common derogatory term for them is 'dirt eater' and are treated as second-class citizens on other Colonies, notably Caprica.

Tauron children are known to play with bones from chicken's feet, as one would play with a rubber ball and metal jacks. Further, a Tauron male is considered a man at thirteen years of age, girls at fourteen and as such can marry, raise families, make their own decisions and be tried under Tauron law. Though the age of adulthood officially among the Colonial government is 18, this practice is allowed to continue on the basis that Tauron has the lowest crime rate of any of the Colonies, due in part to their enforcement of such laws.

When in mourning, they wear black gloves as a possible way to distance themselves from the world. Tauron services include family gatherings, songs, tattoos and aim at the people left behind to let their loved ones go. It is also traditional for the deaths of family members to be avenged. This may be due to the Tauron belief that no one truly dies until their death is avenged, as their soul is believed to be caught in between life and death.

The majority of Taurons claim patronage to Ares, belonging to the Ares Orthodox Temple. According to the Colonial census, 94.0% of ethnic Taurons on Tauron identified themselves as Ares Orthodox. However, it must be noted that the actual rate of temple attendance is significantly lower, and that many Taurons are only nominally believers.

Tauron Orthodox are present on Caprica, and parts of Picon, yet increasing numbers belonging to both the liberal Temples of Athena and the conservative Zeus Temple. A small percentage of Taurons are worshippers of Apollo, neo-Kobolian Lord Worshippers (2.8%), or agnostic (15%).

There is no official date for the adoption of Ares as the patron god by the Taurons. Based on linguistic and archaeological findings, historians suggest that the Taurons' ancestors acquired their religion on Kobol and brought it with them during the Exodus to Tauron.

Provinces and Cities

 * Hypatia: Capital of Tauron and formerly Tauron's largest metropolis that was massacred and depopulated of its 11-million residents in a matter of two-days.
 * Hephaestion: A major industrial city, used by the Cylons in the First Cylon War to build much of their first military units. After the war it became the site of the largest civilian shipyard in the entire Colonies.