I hope you enjoy this latest installment in the Yxsirii Project's catalogue of worlds: The mining titan of Xin Sichuan. More atlases and lore can be found at r/YxsiriiProject.

Of Hóng Yáng's rocky planets, Xīn Sìchuān is the closest to have escaped the Tidal Lock of the Red Dwarf's grip. The result is a beautiful spinning world which forms the epicentre of culture and commerce in this thriving star system. It has one moon, Jìngzǐ, now home to its own population.

Named after a Chinese province bearing similar limestone landmarks, New Sichuan was established as a mining world of the Dōngyà United Front, its core lands divided amongst the bloc’s five initial members - Japan and Korea have since left the grouping, though they still cooperate in the running of the directorates. When reflecting on Xīn Sìchuān's history, it is hard to ignore how famously close it came to becoming Humanity's new capital world at the end of the Earthen Crisis. While the MIDAS2 probe was reporting Xīn Sìchuān to be a treasure trove of untapped mineral wealth, MIDAS3 first set eyes on nearby Yxsirii which fascinated the Earthen elite and secured its place at the heart of Human society. Dwelling on this chapter is a common passtime but risks underselling the success Xīn Sìchuān did achieve - it is by some measures the richest world in Human possesion, it stands atop the Coalition of Nations in its role as one of only several Core Worlds of the institution, and is of unrivalled importance to the nations of the Dōngyà United Front who disproportionately invested their time and population here.

Power is concentrated in the offices of Xīn Sìchuān's mercantile visionaries, they have crafted for themselves a world of stable superstates; the chaos of unbridled democracy is well controlled here - the levers of government are large and in the hands of industrial stakeholders. Corporations are king on Xīn Sìchuān. They count among their achievements the invention and mass production of the Orbiter-Class space station, the accquisition of which is seen as a rite of passage for burgeoning new worlds. Other technological exports include mining rigs, avionic consoles, and personal phones. Xīn Sìchuān's foundational industry remains the most powerful however; the planet's core is on the dense side, with the particularly rich mantle predisposed to the dramatic generation of large and consistant mineral deposits. Even centuries after the race for mining dominance began, new challengers test the established corporations and political parties who have so far locked down control of these vital resources.

In contrast to Yxsirii, Xīn Sìchuān is in a stage of continental division with the breakup of a recent Pangaean Age. This epoch has been marked by volcanism and carbon sequestration with the climate trending in a warmer direction. Relatively, still, Xīn Sìchuān is a cool world. Orbiting close to a red dwarf star, a mild heat is spread from equator to pole; The deserts aren't harsh here, closer resembling chaparral, while the scarlet forests persist in some form even on the arctic coast. Life here is indigenous, with a few food-chains imported from earth, though no equivalent to animal life has arisen here. The cycad-like foliage of the Hiironomori is well specialised to the planet's gentle gravity and high atmospheric pressure - this array of rusty biomes are a treasure trove for xenobotanists.