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"And touchdown. Welcome to tropical, balmy Prax. You unlucky sons of bitches. Ha!"

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The first thing everyone feels is the heat.

A scorching, desolate planet, PRX1130 ([un]affectionately nicknamed Prax by its inhabitants and whose real name is forgotten by all except the natives who roam the lands) boasts no reason for anyone to live here whatsoever. A horrific weapon used a mere centuries (or millennia?) ago left this place flooded with massive lakes of oil, which have the tendency to combust without warning.

It was these fiery lakes that first caught the attention of the Spacefarer's Intragalactic Commerce Guild (SICG), which was in desperate need of both a location to dump its commerce criminals (anyone from pirates and murderers to petty shoplifters and overly rowdy passengers on voyages) and capital. A hastily organized system of corporate labor prison-oil rigs and refineries were established, which soon expanded to include a variety of factories for oil-based products.

Dissent began to grow almost immediately. By concentrating criminals and disgruntled, unfairly arrested ordinary folks in a place not too far from literal Hell, the SICG was brewing a deadly concoction. After only a few decades of operation (and many failed uprisings), a coordinated revolution broke out among the prisoners sentenced here on a few key locations. These prisoners formed Revolutionary Unions, executed their guards and managers, and began attacking other facilities still under SICG control.

The cash-strapped SICG, hesitant to dedicate its few military forces to a sustained engagement on this horrific planet, opted to enforce a measly blockade, starving out the Revolutionary Unions (and leaving the guards still down there for dead). However, other nations, pirate groups, and megacorporations, realizing the massive financial potential on Prax, regularly run the weak blockade to buy oil and sell critical supplies to the workers.