Pluto

"On Pluto, Lannister Chron, a former Summacum banished by Queen Tian, is tasked with collecting detectors she placed to find evidence of imaginary Pluto inhabitants."
-- Booklet 099, The Eco-Shock

Pluto is the outermost major body of the Sol System and the site of a military garrison, distribution station, and penal outpost maintained by the Council of Corporations and later the Second Reich of Humanity. Located at the empire's extreme frontier, Pluto serves throughout Die Terranauten as a place of strategic retreat, military infrastructure, exile, and -- in the saga's final act -- unexpected transformation. Its orbit (the Plutobahn) marks the effective boundary between the Terran star empire's inner domain and interstellar space, making the Pluto region a critical chokepoint for surveillance, communications relay, and defense against external threats.

Pluto's significance lies not in its habitability -- it is a barren, frozen world described as a desolate wilderness (Pluto-Wildnis) -- but in its position. Beyond the Plutobahn, the empire maintains distribution stations, relay satellites, and COSMODROM installations that project power into interstellar space. It is here, at the edge of the Sol System, that humanity's ambitions collide with the cosmos: alien Executors strike at Pluto-orbit installations, fleeing dictators shelter beyond its reach, and the Cosmic Spores that end the saga find even this frozen outpost.

Physical Description

Pluto is the ninth planet (by the saga's classification) of the Sol System -- a frigid, airless dwarf planet on the far edge of human-controlled space. The surface is described as the Pluto Wilderness (Pluto-Wildnis): a desolate, barren landscape inhospitable to unprotected human life. Transportation on the surface requires specialized vehicles such as Hover Ferries (Schwebfahren).

Despite its hostility, Pluto hosts several human installations:

• Base Pluto / Pluto Base (Basis Pluto / Plutobasis) -- The primary military garrison, staffed first by Gray Guards (including Gray Drivers) and later by Kaiser Guard forces under Kaiserqueen Tian.
• Pluto II -- A secondary facility or base on Pluto, likely a subordinate installation.
• Gardenstation -- A Gray Guard station on Pluto, part of the garrison infrastructure.
• Pluto Distribution Station (Pluto-Verteilerstation) -- A distribution and communications relay station, part of the network of interstellar relay infrastructure extending beyond the Plutobahn.

Beyond Pluto's orbit, additional installations float in interstellar space:

• COSMODROM Station -- A major base used as an interstellar relay point beyond the Plutobahn. Frost later presents evidence that the Executor Tscherta was responsible for its elimination.
• BS-6-33-A -- A satellite with the designation BS-6-33-A, floating two million kilometers beyond the Plutobahn in interstellar space.
• Verteiler- und Empfangsstation -- A distribution and receiving station beyond the Plutobahn, part of the same relay network.

Strategic Significance

Pluto's importance in the saga derives from three overlapping roles:

1. The Empire's Frontier

The Plutobahn (Pluto Orbit) marks the effective boundary of the Terran star empire's inner domain. Beyond it lies interstellar space -- and the jurisdiction of forces far more powerful than humanity. The orbit serves as a staging area for the Delta Fleet and as the outermost line of military infrastructure, including distribution stations that relay communications and radiate Kaiser Force-related emissions across interstellar distances.

This frontier status makes the Pluto region the first point of contact when external threats approach the Sol System. When Kormolan Jilith (the false identity of the alien Gorthaur) emerges from Space II in his spacecraft, he appears "near Pluto," and the Systemuberwachung (System Monitoring) organization detects his arrival (Booklet 050). The Pluto region thus functions as an early-warning perimeter for the entire Sol System.

2. Refuge for the Powerful

Pluto's remoteness makes it an ideal refuge for those who wish to observe catastrophe from a safe distance. During the Oxyd crisis of 2500-2501, Max von Valdec -- Chairman of the Council of Corporations and Lord Colonel -- evacuates his personal ship and loyalists beyond the Plutobahn, positioning himself "beyond the reach of Oxyd's energies" while spreading propaganda blaming the alien Cantos for the crisis (Booklets 020, 021). From this vantage point, Valdec maintains a facade of control through computer-projected images while the inner planets face destruction.

3. Military Outpost and Place of Exile

Under the Second Reich of Humanity, Pluto becomes both a garrison and a penal outpost. Kaiserqueen Tian commands the Pluto base, running it as a personal fiefdom characterized by cruelty and possible insanity. Political undesirables and demoted personnel are banished there -- most notably Lannister Chron, a former Summacum and Kaiser Force expert who is exiled to the frozen world by Tian herself (Booklet 099). The remoteness that makes Pluto strategically valuable also makes it an effective prison: there is nowhere to flee on a world of ice and vacuum.

History

The Oxyd Crisis: Valdec's Retreat (2500-2501)

Pluto first enters the saga's narrative during the Oxyd crisis. When the asteroid Oxyd -- charged with dangerous Space II energies from a failed Kaiser Force experiment by Summacum Homan -- hurtles toward Earth, Max von Valdec abandons the planet. He positions his ship and loyalists in the space near Pluto, beyond the reach of Oxyd's destructive energies. From this safe vantage point, Valdec spreads propaganda through a computer-projected image, blaming the alien Cantos for the catastrophe while secretly intending to observe the impending destruction of Earth from a comfortable distance.

Valdec's second-in-command, Soster, is dispatched from the Pluto region via a small yacht equipped with Kaiser Force to deliver a computer program maintaining Valdec's projected presence on Earth. The Pluto region thus functions as Valdec's shadow capital during the crisis -- the place from which the empire's most powerful man pulls strings while his subjects face annihilation.

"Max von Valdec, Chairman of the Council of Corporations, has secretly positioned himself and his loyalists beyond the Pluto orbit, intending to observe the impending catastrophe from a safe distance."
-- Booklet 020, Comet of Oblivion

The Alien Arrival (December 2501)

When the alien Kormolan Jilith (actually Gorthaur, an astronaut from the destroyed planet Xaxon, controlled by an alien power) emerges from Space II, his spacecraft is detected near Pluto by the System Monitoring organization. This arrival triggers a chain of events leading to the alien attack on Berlin -- one of the saga's most dramatic set-pieces. Pluto's position as the Sol System's outermost sentinel means it is the first to register threats arriving from beyond human space.

The Entropy War: Destruction of the Distribution Station (c. 2590)

In the far future timeline of Booklet 090, the conflict between humanity's Kaiser Force technology and the galactic Entities reaches the Pluto region. Tscherta, an Executor dispatched by the Entities, destroys a human distribution station near the Pluto Orbit -- a relay facility responsible for radiating entropy-accelerating emissions caused by Kaiser Force. Tscherta then targets a larger COSMODROM base beyond the Plutobahn but is himself overwhelmed by the entropy acceleration and dies before completing his mission.

This event demonstrates that the Pluto region's infrastructure is not merely a passive relay network but an active component of the Kaiser Force apparatus -- and therefore a legitimate target for the Entities' campaign to halt humanity's entropy-accelerating technology.

The Second Reich: Garrison and Exile (2504)

Under Max von Valdec's Second Reich of Humanity, Pluto is garrisoned by Kaiser Guard forces. The base is commanded by Kaiserqueen Tian, described as "cruel and possibly insane." Tian runs the Pluto garrison as a personal domain, banishing personnel who displease her to menial tasks in the Pluto Wilderness.

The Eco-Shock: Transformation (2504)

In the saga's final booklet, even Pluto is touched by the events that transform Earth. While collecting Tian's detectors in the Pluto Wilderness, Lannister Chron discovers a green leaf on one of the devices -- a sign of impossible plant life on a world of ice and vacuum. This green leaf is a harbinger of the Cosmic Spores released by David terGorden's plan to ecologically transform Earth.

Chron learns that the spores contain The Jin -- tiny organisms that neutralize Lab-21 and restore the suppressed humanity of the Kaiser Guards. This means that Tian, the cruel Kaiserqueen he loves, will have her humanity restored. The scene on Pluto -- a man finding a single green leaf on a frozen world, learning that the woman he loves will be freed from the conditioning that made her monstrous -- provides one of the saga's most poignant emotional counterpoints to the large-scale transformation occurring on Earth.

"Chron learns that the spores are part of a plan to neutralize the Kaiser Guards by restoring their humanity. Tian is among those transformed."
-- Booklet 099, The Eco-Shock

Notable Inhabitants and Visitors

Sub-Locations

Appearances

Themes

The Edge of Empire

Pluto embodies the limits of human power. It is the outermost point of the Terran star empire's effective control -- the place where infrastructure thins, authority frays, and the cosmos begins. When Valdec retreats beyond Pluto during the Oxyd crisis, he is literally placing himself beyond the reach of the consequences of his own technology. When the Entities' Executor destroys a distribution station at Pluto orbit, the attack strikes at the empire's most exposed nerve endings. Pluto is where the empire ends and where its vulnerabilities are most apparent.

Exile and Desolation

Pluto serves as the saga's premier place of banishment. Lannister Chron's exile there recalls the classical tradition of sending the disgraced to the empire's farthest frontiers. The Pluto Wilderness -- barren, airless, and freezing -- is a physical manifestation of institutional cruelty. That even this desolate place is touched by the Cosmic Spores in the saga's finale suggests that transformation and hope can reach anywhere, no matter how remote or forsaken.

The Green Leaf

The discovery of a green leaf on Pluto -- a world where no plant life should exist -- is one of the saga's most symbolically charged images. It signals that the ecological transformation sweeping across Earth has consequences that extend to the farthest reaches of the Sol System. The green leaf on Pluto is the antithesis of everything the Second Reich of Humanity represents: life where there should be none, nature reclaiming what technology has abandoned, hope on the frozen edge of the world.

See Also

• TERRA -- Earth, the homeworld of humanity and center of the Sol System
• Lunaport -- The Gray Guard / Kaiser Guard base on Earth's Moon
• Luna -- Earth's Moon, containing the Moon Dungeons and Lunaport
• Gray Guards -- The military force that originally garrisoned Pluto
• Kaiser Guard -- The reconstituted military force that occupies Pluto under the Second Reich
• Max von Valdec -- Lord Colonel who sheltered beyond Pluto orbit during the Oxyd crisis
• Queen Tian -- Kaiserqueen and commander of the Pluto garrison
• Lannister Chron -- Former Summacum banished to Pluto
• Pluto inhabitants -- Imaginary native inhabitants of Pluto, believed in by Queen Tian
• Cosmic Spores -- The biological agents that transform Earth and reach Pluto
• The Jin -- Organisms within the spores that restore the Kaiser Guards' humanity
• Entities -- Galactic supercivilizations whose Executors strike at Pluto-orbit installations
• Tscherta -- Executor who destroyed the distribution station near Pluto
• Kaiser Force -- The technology whose emissions are relayed through Pluto-orbit infrastructure
• Oxyd -- The asteroid crisis that drove Valdec to shelter beyond Pluto
• COSMODROM Station -- Interstellar relay base beyond the Plutobahn
• Pluto Orbit -- The Plutobahn; staging area and boundary of the inner Sol System
• Second Reich of Humanity -- The political entity that garrisons Pluto in its final phase

Pluto appears as a setting or is significantly referenced in 5 booklets of Die Terranauten. It is the outermost military outpost of the Terran star empire -- a frozen frontier where power retreats, exiles are banished, alien Executors strike, and a single green leaf signals the end of an era.