Kadis

Kadis (pronounced /ˈkeɪdɪs/) is a planet of the Dupliverse which has been heavily mined, more lately for radioactive materials but earlier for other materials as well, leaving it riddled with tunnels and underground chambers. In recent years, Kadis has become something of a safe haven for criminals of various sorts, who find its subterranean locations ideal hideaways, and it is now infamous as a headquarters for several major criminal organizations. Despite this, it still serves as something of a tourist mecca, in addition to hosting continued mining operations.

Physical Features

One of Kadis's most notable features is the abundance of radioactive isotopes in its crust and mantle. Kadis is somewhat farther from its sun than Earth is, but the decrease in solar warming is countered by the increased warmth from its internal radioactivity. Like Earth, Kadis is a geologically active planet. In fact, the process of continental drift is somewhat faster on Kadis than it is on Earth, though whether this is due to the increased presence of radioactive isotopes remains controversial.

In any case, most of Kadis's land surface belongs to a single "supercontinent", which is actually composed of four different colliding continental plates. (The sea in the continent's middle, however, does not mark the edge of one of the plates, but rather the middle of one of the plates that has buckled downward into a depression.) Aside from the supercontinent, Kadis bears two other continents, one connected to the supercontinent to the east and another that lies off by itself in the southern hemisphere.

Life

Kadis does support native multicellular life of many varieties. One of the most widespread of the planet's native organisms is cruft, a lichenlike life form that thrives on radiation and grows on seemingly any surface. There are thousands of named species of cruft, varying widely in appearance and texture. Kadis even has one native species, the cuke, that some biologists believe to be ellogous.

While efforts are made to conserve Kadis's native ecosystems, however, the foreign presence on the planet is now quite large. Besides the significant human presence there, and the other species with which humans often coexist, Kadis has also been colonized by the nelder, who predate its human population but have now relatively few representatives on the planet, having moved on to other worlds. It is the nelder who are apparently responsible for most of the pre-human construction and excavation on the planet, though some believe that the cukes may also have been partly responsible.

Both the humans and the nelder have used many seins in their projects, many of which have left their creators' control and forge independent existences for themselves. At this point, the seins of Kadis must be considered another major type of life form on their own.

Industry

Kadis still exports some radioactive material, but as the means of extracting solar energy and storing it over long periods become more efficient, radioactive material is becoming less and less in demand. This loss of revenue from this export, however, has been more than made up for by the income Kadis now makes in tourism. Kadis is full of pleasure palaces and resorts catering both to the extremely rich and to the adventurous everyman, including such famous sites as the Fairy Cave and Ti-Yü. Much of the attraction of these locations consists of the lure of gambling and prostitution and other such vices, but the frequent railing against the evils of these destinations has done nothing to decrease their popularity—if anything, just the opposite.

Still, as popular as Kadis's resorts are, perhaps Kadis's main source of income is ultimately from illegal activity. (Not that the two are necessarily unrelated—there is considerable evidence that most of Kadis's resorts are owned and/or operated by various criminal groups.) Kadis is a hotbed for criminal organizations; at least four such organizations are known to make their headquarters there, and many others, while headquartered elsewhere, have a significant presence on the planet. These organizations engage in everything from extortion to the creating of illegal duplicates, and while they don't operate entirely in the open, they impact nearly every aspect of Kadisian life.

Government

While nominally there are a number of different nations on and in Kadis, most of them are unified under the aegis of Kadis United, an international body that includes representatives from nearly every nation of Kadis and that has the power to pass and enforce laws that are binding on the planet as a whole. In keeping, perhaps, with the planet's fame for its subterranean passages, the headquarters of Kadis United is literally at the center of the planet, in a high-tech pressure-resistant structure accessible only through its duplicators.

The most significant state not falling under the umbrella of Kadis United is Nos, a nation founded and still governed and primarily populated by the seins that used to labor for the planet's organic inhabitants. Nos is one of very few sein-dominated states in the Dupliverse, and is of tremendous interest to sociologists, though naturally many of its inhabitants somewhat resent being the subject of such study.

Law

Despite the strong criminal presence, Kadis is by no means a lawless place. The government isn't corrupt so much as it is too weak to squash all the illegal activity that goes on within its territory—or at least, the overall government in the form of Kadis United isn't corrupt; the same can't necessarily be said for all local governing bodies. The Palladium and other interplanetary law enforcement bodies also pay considerable attention to Kadis, both to try to contain its criminal activity and minimize its spread to other planets and because various interests pay them to do so. In any case, even if the actual criminal organizations usually manage to evade the law through one means or another, the extra vigilance of both planetary and interplanetary law enforcement means that other lawbreakers are likely to have a rather hard time of it.

The government's inability to put a stop to Kadis's criminal activity has also led to the founding of a group of home-grown vigilantes who try to take matters into their own hands—some with the aid of disguises and code names, some more openly. Both the public and the official government reaction to these vigilantes varies among different locations on the planet, and in fact this is one of the biggest legal inconsistencies among Kadis's different nations—in some places such vigilantism is thoroughly illegal, and captured vigilantes are prosecuted as harshly as other criminals, while in others their activities are officially condoned and even aided by the government.