Day 6: Warhammer 40,000
Summer Palace
The orbital dance of the twin planets Apok and Rem and their system of natural and artificial moons is so complex and confusing that it is beyond Imperial adepts and sages to describe much less understand it fully. Whole armies and dynasties of astrologers are barely able to predict when the long summer day of Apok might dawn for the next time and how many Terran weeks or months or years it might then last, ere the planet again descends into nights and winters and rainy seasons that might last centuries at a time. The timely renovation and rebuilding of the Summer Palace of the Imperial Governors of Apok-Rem is a gargantuan task preoccupying entire ministries and legions of workers once a governor’s horoscope predicts a new summer approaching.
Notes:
There is just so much you could do with this one. For me, this encapsulates a lot of the “Imperial condition” as I see it and thus makes for a great backdrop for almost any Imperial story. For example the typical assassination plot or regime change playing out within the half rotting, half rebuilt, half forgotten, half enshrined palace thousand years of tradition demand to be occupied anew from one day to the next.