Hello, Ric here pining for a vacation. With the recent videos looking into the recreational
side of Star Trek, it would no doubt be a bit of an oversight to not touch on the jewel
of holiday destination spots, the primary pleasure planet, the home of Jamaharon, Risa.
This video is focused on the planet and its functions as a resort world, more so than
the culture of its people. I’ll save that for an index episode if there’s enough there.
First up, the planet itself is located in the same space Sector as Starbase 12, which
is just over 90 lightyears from Sol. The system, often just called the Risa system, is the
Epsilon Ceti binary star system. The planet Risa is the second in the system and it has
two moons (although other stories mention it as having three). By the 23rd century,
this was deep within Federation territory and a UFP member world.
In real life, the Epsilon Ceti system is 98 lightyears away from us and actually is a
binary star system. The two suns are of different types as far as we can tell from this range.
One, the primary, is definitely an F-type main sequence star, about 1.4 times the size
of our own Sun, and the second a little harder to verify, but appears to be a G type the
same size as Sol. This combination makes a habitable zone possible, so with luck there’s
a perfectly temperate and beautiful lush tropical planet over there that we can visit with our
soon to be built faster-than-light drive. No? Too optimistic? Never mind then.
The planet itself has a gravity of somewhere between 0.9 and 1 Earth standard, and very
a very temperate M-class atmosphere with a lot of vegetation and expansive oceans. The
majority of the landmasses are broken up into island chains and the oceans are generally
shallower than Earth’s. There are also extensive cave systems and dormant volcanos that dot
its peninsulas and islands. The climate has very little variation, being
tropical all year round and in both hemispheres and averaged at 28 degrees Celsius. However,
this is all a fabrication, well mostly a fabrication. I mentioned that Risa itself is covered in
island chains, caverns and dormant volcanos and this is because it was, or rather should
be, a very tectonically unstable planet. It is naturally a generally tropical climate;
however, it is far from calm. Rather, in its natural state, it is very temperamental. A
wide and complex network of both weather control grids and seismic stabilisers maintain the
controlled environment. Risa in its past had frequent tropical storms,
heavy rainfall powerful winds. It also had frequent and violent earthquakes from its
high levels of tectonic activity. Which also explains the network of underground caves
and volcanos. Given the large oceans, is also likely that the earthquakes would have resulted
in frequent tidal waves. It’s also worth mentioning that with two moons, one looking
to be larger than our Luna, the tides would also be more powerful.
Despite all this volatile activity, life flourished on the world amid its rainforests, including
the native species, the Risans which look pretty much identical to humans. Because Star
Trek. They follow a philosophy of giving, celebration and recreation and have an entire
culture centred around those sorts of principles. This extended to visitors to their world too,
not simply their own populous. Eventually the Risans achieved a level of
technological advancement to implement a weather control grid and create their seismic stabilisers
that tamed the capricious crust. Over the generations, the Risans continued to expand
their control of the planet itself and word spread of this tropical planet and its benevolent
locals. It was not long before others began to frequent the planet for relaxation, which
was just fine with the Risans as it brought in trade and prosperity from other worlds.
The governing body of Risa was called the Risa Hedony and maintained control of its
grids.
This was all in place prior to the early 22nd century as documented by pre-Federation Vulcan
archives. Humans first officially visited the planet in 2152 when the Enterprise NX-01
pulled up in orbit, the furthest any human vessel had been from home in the early days
of Starfleet. At this time, the weather control grid was not as all-encompassing as it is
by the 24th century. Elements of the planet’s violent tectonic
events of course remain, the expansive cave networks are now often found filled with luminous
flora, natural saunas of steam pools are still fuelled by underground activity and the calderas
of Volcanos now sport fields of lush flowers. In 2249, Risa joined the United Federation
of Planets, which would have been a massive bonus for other Federation member worlds,
because the UFP did not use money, so I guess as long as you book in advance, shore leave
on Risa is free! Obviously, Risa did not close itself off to other powers outside the UFP,
as it still had frequent dealings with most others on the quadrant. Including the Orion
syndicate which attempted to get its hooks into the planet for a substantial amount of
time between it joining the UFP and 2317. In this year, the criminal elements of the
Orion syndicate were removed from the planet, although that would hardly be the end of the
nefarious deals conducted on the resort world. Although the strongest layer of security was
simply that no weapons were permitted on the planet surface. Alongside the extensive resorts
and relaxation facilities, there are of course still facilities for the locals to actually
live in, shop at and run their civilization on. The planet was even often selected to
host events, conventions, lectures and so on, although that probably has something to
do with all the spas and easy access to Jamaharon. Some features of Risa included the Lohlunat
festival, called the “Festival of the Moons”, which was taken during the summer months on
an annual basis. Galartha was a cliff face that actually shifted when it was climbed,
leading for a greater challenge, Temtibi Lagoon was one of many such idyllical spots as well
as the less natural water parks and amusements. They even operated their own interplanetary
cruise ships called the Risa Express which was a cruise star-liner that took people to
Risa as its destination. Of course, there was also the Jamaharon rite, which is not
directly described, but it is a rite that can occur at any time there are willing participants
and the signal for those looking to “engage” was to openly display the horga’hn. This
little statue was the Risan idol of sexuality, I’m sure you can figure the rest out for
yourself, but unfortunately Youtube is too pure an innocent for me to describe it further.
Yeah. By the mid-2300s, the planet was populated
by just under 3 billion Risians, with over 1 million guests visiting at any one time
and the weather grid had near complete control over the biomes of the planet. The level of
manipulation they have over the planet’s climate does raise some questions however.
Surely a planet of hurricanes, storms and earthquakes would evolve an ecosystem to adapt
to this and although seizing control of the elements was good for the Risans, how did
the environment fare? Unless they also kept an eye on their fellow native flora and fauna
and maintained it with gradual adaptation or something. I can only assume that they
manipulate the environment in a way to allow storms where necessary and bring rainfall
where it was needed to avoid drought. It actually gives me a weird vibe, the notion that this
paradise of a planet is in fact merely a controlled illusion in the hands of a people who now
have complete control of their environment from the skies to deep within the mantle.
They literally shaped their world and I can only hope that the Risans did so with a cautions
hand and that that benevolence they extend to those who bring in tourism, was also extended
to the ecosystem. There was a similar mindset from a party called
the New Essentialists Movement, however their acts escalated from disabling the weather
grid, to attempting to disable the seismic stabilisers which would have spelled disaster
for all the planet’s inhabitants and guests in 2373. Fortunately, they did not complete
their latter action, but they did succeed in damaging the planet’s reputation a bit
when they took down the weather grid, resulting in a reassertion of the planet’s natural
rainfall levels, torrential downpour. In essence though, that is the planet Risa.
A world renowned for its fun activities, resorts and stunning natural beauty which is in fact
artificially maintained like a photoshoped image. What is your opinion on Risa? I kind
of think the planet in the 24th century has gone a little far with its climate-controlled
biome, but who knows in truth, we only ever see the barest glimpses into the planet.
Thanks for watching this summary of Risa, it’s a world I’ve wanted to talk on for
a while because although Earth has a climate control grid, Risa has this weird commercialised
paradise vibe to it that I can’t shake. I’ll see you next time for another lore
video and until then, I’ve been Ric, thank you and goodbye!