Shinno

On the outskirts of Free Space lies the dangerous and unpredictable world of Shinno. It has been a long time since Shinno was habitable. It was home to one of the most advanced cloning facilities before the silence. While technically controlled by the Republican Remnant , travel and security here is mostly hard to enforce, as the local nebula storms in the system make travel to this planet incredibly dangerous.

The active celestial weather has made maintaining a localized space station near impossible. Thus the only permanent occupants are those brave enough to hide in the caves and underground facilities on the planet's actual surface. They are almost entirely reliant on supply shipments from nearby systems to survive.

A lesson in humility

The history of Shinno is completely tied to the Folium Corporation that built advanced cloning facilities there. Under an old republic charter, in conjunction with several other corporate interests, Shinno would be become a premiere research facility. Out from the more stringent corporate rules that controlled other parts of the Mid Rim, Shinno began to experiement with a variety of different types of clones. Flash clones, ones aged up quickly to a "working" age, was the Folium Corporation's speciality.

Many a scholar argued that the cries of "liberty" and "freedom" of the United Republic of Free Systems was in part the freedom to continue their experiments on Shinno away from the Empire, who began to tightly regulate cloning after several clone uprisings during the outer rim insurgencies.

The Union of Socialist Systems in particular had many disagreements with Republican leadership over the facilities on Shinno. Many in the Union called the facilities inhumane, and Folium accused the Union of planting instigators and spies within their research stations. None of this was ever proven. What was proven, was the use of flash clones within the ranks of rebel militias from Free Space. Officially, the URFS says these soldiers were fighting for their freedom. Many historians, even within the republic, claim the reality was much more complicated.

The silence cut off Shinno from the rest of Free Space. What's left of Shinno's history is mostly lost. However, there are records of a cruel feudal system developing in the void of power left by the silence. This cruel structure would eventually implode on itself, and bring the whole planet down with it. Some republican conspiracy theorists have claimed to have found proof of Union meddling causing the downfall of Shinno. They sight early Union records of re-discovery post silence as proof. Union scientist teams have pointed out that Shinno had collapsed nearly two hundred years before the Union rediscovered the system.