System: Tsukude

A world of mild seasons, with lush, tropical forests easily covering half of its thirteen major island-continent landmasses, Tsukude looks like a virtual paradise to the casual observer. However, the first colonists quickly realized that the planet's native splendor was more illusion than substance. The biochemistry of the local flora and fauna, which seems to draw energy more from the nitrogen-rich atmosphere than from a carbon dioxide-oxygen cycle, was found to be incompatible with human metabolism because of its dangerously high acidity. This forced the settlers to import a good deal of their basic foodstuffs and take drastic steps to develop even subsistence-level agricultural production.

Where Tsukude's farmers failed, however, those seeking to exploit the planet's hidden abundance of natural gas and mineral wealth found large amounts of both. By the time of the Star League, Tsukude had become a major local exporter of fossil fuels and precious metals, as well as home to several pharmaceutical companies. Ironically enough, Tsukude's biggest claim to fame during humanity's Golden Age was not its fuel or chemical exports, but its marine game industry. Though inedible, Tsukude's wild and exotic marine life became a favorite for trophy fishermen throughout the region, who flocked to the world every year in hopes of capturing at least one of the elusive, beautiful, and deadly Tsukude seacats.

In the wars that followed the Star League's fall, Tsukude found itself often targeted for raids by the Lyran Commonwealth or used as a staging ground for any Combine operations against the Lyrans, both of which factored into the planet's gradual decline in both tourism and industry.

Tsukude's capital, Ogawa City, is located on Ikadae, the largest of this world's northern island continents. Tomashita, a seaport city located on the western peninsula of the Soto island continent just southeast of Ikadae, boasts the largest of Tsukude's recreational fishing fleets, Green Sea Hunters. The other nine island landmasses of Tsukede, which together account for over forty percent of the planet's remaining surface, are Nakaru, Liam, and Domashimi in the northern hemisphere, and Opana, Yoshetsu, Weng-Li, Taris, Kyuna, and Shobenwa in the south. Small towns and seaports may be found on all of these continents, but by far the most populous are those on Ikadeae and Soto.

There are no functional factories located on this planet.