Tamerlan

"A highly industrialized world in the Brahma System, rich in rare metals."
-- Booklet 034, The Renegade

"Tamerlan, the third world, had an average distance from the sun of around three hundred million kilometers, since Brahma was hotter than the Earth's sun."
-- Glossary entry

Tamerlan is a heavily industrialized colonial planet orbiting the star Brahma as the third world in the Brahma System. Rich in rare metals and home to powerful corporate interests, Tamerlan serves as one of the most economically significant worlds in the Outer Sector of the Star Empire of Humanity. Its liberation from Gray Guards control by Edison Tontor's Gravitron strike and the subsequent co-founding of the League of Free Worlds alongside Aqua make Tamerlan a pivotal location in the political history of Die Terranauten.

The planet also lends its name to the freighter TAMERLAN, a Driver vessel whose catastrophic encounter with Cosmic Spores in the Norvo System (Booklet 083) constitutes one of the saga's most dramatic episodes.

Physical Characteristics

Tamerlan orbits the star Brahma at an average distance of approximately three hundred million kilometers -- roughly twice Earth's distance from the Sun. This greater orbital radius compensates for the fact that Brahma is significantly hotter than Earth's sun, placing Tamerlan in a habitable zone despite its more distant orbit. The planet's surface supports human habitation without protective domes (unlike the water world Aqua, which requires Protop domes for its cities).

The planet's principal natural resource is its rich deposits of rare metals, which form the foundation of its industrial economy and its strategic importance to both the Council of Corporations and, later, the League of Free Worlds.

Cities

Three cities on Tamerlan are identified in the saga's records:

The planet also possesses at least one major spaceport and a Gray Guards headquarters, both of which are destroyed by Edison Tontor's Gravitron strike in Booklet 034.

Political Structure

Under the Council of Corporations

Before its liberation, Tamerlan is governed within the framework of the Council of Corporations, with corporate interests dominating its politics. The planet's power structure is administered through a committee of corporate representatives and military officials:

The committee's concerns include supply gaps causing popular discontent -- Oscar Szultz is recorded as wanting to continue discussions about the population's unrest resulting from these shortages.

The Gray Guard Garrison

Tamerlan hosts a military garrison of the Gray Guards, commanded by Cosmoral Hanka (also referred to as Queen Hanka). The Cosmorality maintains its authority through this garrison, which includes a headquarters facility and control of the planet's spaceport. The Gray Guards patrol the Brahma System, intercepting arriving vessels and maintaining Council authority over Tamerlan and its surrounding space.

Liberation and the League of Free Worlds

The political transformation of Tamerlan occurs in Booklet 034 - The Renegade, when Edison Tontor deploys the Gravitron -- a devastating gravity weapon developed by his chief scientist Einstein III at the Tamerlan test station -- to destroy the Gray Guards headquarters and the spaceport in a single, brutal strike. This act seizes control of the planet from the Council and eliminates the Gray Guard military presence.

In the aftermath, President Fedor Temudschin and Argan Pronk, Governor of Aqua, formally establish the League of Free Worlds -- a political alliance between Tamerlan and Aqua, open to any colonial world seeking independence from the Council of Corporations. Edison Tontor assumes the position of First Representative, while Argan Pronk serves as Second Representative.

Tamerlan's industrial capacity -- its rare metal deposits, corporate infrastructure, and manufacturing base -- provides the economic backbone of the nascent League, complementing Aqua's agricultural and aquatic resources.

Economy and Industry

Tamerlan's economy is dominated by heavy industry and the extraction of rare metals. The major corporate entities operating on the planet include:

The planet's industrial significance makes it a strategic prize in the conflict between the Council of Corporations and the emerging League of Free Worlds. Under the League, Tamerlan's resources support the alliance's military and economic independence.

Military Significance

The Gray Guard Presence

Before the Gravitron strike, Tamerlan serves as a significant Gray Guard outpost in the Outer Sector. Cosmoral Hanka commands the Council troops in the Brahma System, and the garrison maintains control over all traffic entering and leaving the system. When the TASCA arrives carrying Argan Pronk's delegation, it is immediately intercepted by Gray Guard patrol ships, which board the vessel, arrest its Drivers, and escort the delegation to Tamerlan under guard.

The Gravitron Strike (c. 2501)

League Military Forces

After the founding of the League, Tamerlan contributes military personnel to the alliance. The Armists (Bundarmisten) -- the League's military forces -- include Tamerlanian soldiers, among them Steka and Leng, both identified as "Tamerlanian Armists." The Kampfring (battle ring) of Tamerlan is described as having "dropped anchor in one of the hangars of the TASCA," indicating that Tamerlan maintains its own combat spacecraft within the League fleet.

Key Historical Events

Notable People of Tamerlan

Political Leaders

Corporate and Media Figures

Military Figures

Other Tamerlanians

The Freighter TAMERLAN

The planet shares its name with the TAMERLAN, a Driver freighter piloted by Yoron Errehan. In Booklet 083 - Chaos Over Sarym, the TAMERLAN carries supplies and 1,500 Silent Drivers in hibernation through the Norvo System. The ship encounters Cosmic Spores originating from the first planet's PSI-Aura, which rapidly infest the vessel, dissolving its hull and transforming its crew.

A rescue team led by Llewellyn 709 and Mandorla investigates the TAMERLAN and discovers the transformed bodies of the crew. Their own ship is subsequently attacked by spores, forcing them to eject in escape pods. The TAMERLAN crisis is a catalyst for the larger events of the booklet, including Aura Damona Mar's awakening of the Collector and the partial sealing-off of the Norvo System.

Role in the Saga

Political Significance

Tamerlan occupies a central position in the saga's political narrative. As the site where the League of Free Worlds is founded, it represents the moment when the colonial worlds' resistance to the Council of Corporations crystallizes from scattered rebellion into organized political opposition. The alliance between Tamerlan's industrial power and Aqua's agricultural resources creates an economically viable alternative to Council rule.

The contrast between Tamerlan's two principal political actors -- the cautious, institution-building Argan Pronk and the ruthless, vengeance-driven Edison Tontor -- plays out across the League's founding. Tamerlan provides Tontor with the corporate base, the scientific resources (Einstein III), and the industrial infrastructure to develop the Gravitron, the weapon that both liberates the planet and ultimately destroys its creator. The League's survival after Tontor's death in the Walhalla System owes more to Argan Pronk's pragmatic governance than to Tontor's spectacular violence.

As a Mirror of Colonial Politics

Tamerlan illustrates the saga's depiction of colonial politics under the Council of Corporations. The planet's committee structure -- with representatives from the Kaiser Corporation, United Minerals, Pure Human News, and Con-Ton sitting alongside the Gray Guard Cosmoral -- shows how corporate and military power jointly govern the colonial worlds. The population's discontent over supply gaps, which Oscar Szultz raises in committee, reflects the broader pattern of resource extraction and mismanagement that fuels rebellion across the Star Empire.

President Fedor Temudschin's secret sympathy for the Terranauts suggests that even the Council's appointed leaders recognize the injustice of the system they serve -- a theme that recurs throughout the saga, from Governor Saul Khoman's tyranny on Aqua to the Clone-Queens' revolution on Shondyke.

The Ship and the Planet

The naming of the freighter TAMERLAN after the planet creates an implicit connection between the two. The ship's fate -- overrun by Cosmic Spores, its crew transformed, its hull dissolved -- foreshadows the broader ecological transformation that will, in the saga's finale, consume the industrial civilization of the Second Reich of Humanity during the Eco-Shock. Just as the Cosmic Spores convert the TAMERLAN's manufactured structure into organic growth, the spores of Booklet 099 will transform the cities of Earth into jungle. Tamerlan's industrial character makes the freighter's name an apt vessel for this ecological parable: the planet of rare metals and heavy industry, reduced to organic matter by forces older than the cosmos.

Connections

• Brahma System -- The star system containing Tamerlan
• Brahma -- The star Tamerlan orbits; hotter than Earth's sun
• Aqua -- Co-founding world of the League of Free Worlds; counterpart to Tamerlan's industrial economy
• League of Free Worlds -- The interstellar alliance founded on Tamerlan by Argan Pronk and Fedor Temudschin
• Consolidated Tontor Corporation (Con-Ton) -- The dominant corporate entity on Tamerlan
• Gravitron -- The gravity weapon developed at the Tamerlan test station and used to liberate the planet
• Gray Guards -- The military force that controlled Tamerlan before the Gravitron strike
• Cosmorality -- The ideology governing the Gray Guards' garrison on Tamerlan, represented by Cosmoral Hanka
• TASCA -- The Driver ship that carries the Aquan delegation to Tamerlan
• TAMERLAN -- The freighter named after the planet; overrun by Cosmic Spores in the Norvo System
• Kampfring -- The battle ring of Tamerlan, carried aboard the TASCA
• GARIBA II -- A ship that departs for Tamerlan under the leadership of Asen-Ger
• LASSALLE -- A ship that departs for Tamerlan under the leadership of Asen-Ger
• Edison Tontor -- The industrialist who liberates and dominates Tamerlan before his death in the Walhalla System
• Fedor Temudschin -- President of Tamerlan and co-founder of the League
• Argan Pronk -- Governor of Aqua and co-founder of the League; leads the diplomatic delegation to Tamerlan
• Llewellyn 709 -- Terranaut leader who participates in the Tamerlan mission and later leads the rescue of the freighter TAMERLAN
• Mandorla -- Former Gray Guard Queen who poses as Centurio Anja Lidice to infiltrate Tamerlan
• Claude Farrell -- Terranaut Driver who fights the Cosmic Spores aboard the freighter TAMERLAN
• Kirju Haapala -- A Driver from Tamerlan whose body is later possessed by Edison Tontor's Id
• Cosmic Spores -- The organisms that overrun the freighter TAMERLAN and threaten the Norvo System
• Roglan Alessandr -- Terranaut with the gift of perceiving PSI emanations; accompanies Llewellyn 709 to Tamerlan
• Techno-Arbiter -- A technical position at the Tamerlan test station

Appearances

Tamerlan appears directly in 1 booklet of Die Terranauten (034) and is referenced through its namesake freighter in Booklet 083. As the industrial co-founder of the League of Free Worlds and the site of Edison Tontor's Gravitron strike, Tamerlan is one of the saga's most politically significant colonial worlds -- a planet where corporate power, military occupation, and revolutionary violence converge to reshape the galactic order.