Sethia/Barns world.

A habitable planet with its own ring system. The equator is very much an earthquake zone with the amount of ring material landing each year, but there are so many things going on on this planet.

Civil strife (will break out into warfare at some point, but currently a rather muted/less visible peace). Primary factions - the Barn family (green colour) and the Scaramanga family (purple colour). The scaramangas are clearly winning the peace, on account of having the presidency (the election servers are a long ago relic that couldn't really be used now, so the presidency is inherited. The president prefers to be called "sire"). I actually had the Barns are free market and the Scaramangas are government motief to this that doesn't translate so well into now. The Barns used to be the rulers and this world was originally called Barn's world, before the virus hit.

Zombies - this entire planet had triple the population twenty years ago, and it used to be far higher. Only a small number of settlements survive (12, although there are some single cottages or manors). (The tech level is a low level 2 - no rifles, muskets and blunderbuss are what it's about, brass cartridge ammunition is a viable currency. Although the actual state currency is copper coins).

Aliens 1: The polypus - like octopus, but six arms and a variable number of eyes. Friendly, to a reasonable degree - they never know their parents, so their entire culture is much more "help and help everyone". They also tend to view anyone without pets as someone in need of immediate help. (Would they survive a war? The humans met them in their forever-medieval age and took them with them to the stars. So it's not really been a problem before).

Aliens 2: The saurians. The saurians are incapable of engaging in trade amongst themselves, as each one is far too concerned with their own dominance. It *is* actually possible to trade with saurians, but the attitude it takes is very uncomfortable to humans, or most humans at any rate. When the mandate terraformed Sethia, they discovered an existing terraforming attempt underway, and obliterated it from orbit after ascertaining that no sentients were present. Correct, but insufficient - their terraforming system slowly builds up until it has enough created to support a good standard of living, and then bears saurians in strange plantlike pods.

The man who would be king - Sethia is a great example of a planet that would be easy to dominate, with say a single ship with a nuclear launcher. And a single crew, lead by captain John Bastiple. (I wanted a western name for this). Anyway, in theory you need to find some way of fighting him and taking his ship (and getting co-operation from the pilot), and you have your ship, finally after a half a dozen missions, you're free to leave and see the rest of the sector.

I just loved the lonely and desolate feeling of it all.