Arbran IV is a fairly typical gas giant that orbits the system’s star at a distance of one point one billion kilometres. This orbit is so far from the sun that the system’s star appears barely larger than the other stars in the sky. As a cold gas world, Arbran IV has an average temperature of minus two hundred standard degrees near the equator and minus three hundred degrees near the poles. At night, the temperatures can drop another fifty degrees below that. The planet boasts a surprisingly short day of thirty standard hours but a solar year of ninety standard years – members of many sentient species can be born, live to old age, and die within a single solar year on Arbran IV. The planet’s atmosphere comprises approximately seventy percent hydrogen, with the rest comprising helium, carbon dioxide, sulphur, and oxygen. There are some traces of rarer elements, such as tibannagas and several hydrocarbons that are extracted for use in local industries.

Apart from the tibannagas extraction and processing industry, which is common to almost all gas giants in the galaxy, the planet is also well known as a hub for the production of civilian starships of all kinds, making it an important facilitator of interplanetary travel sector-wide and precision medical equipment, often manufactured in zero-G environments to ensure stable conditions to reduce any machining and processing errors. Life for the millions of factory workers in the floating cities is generally better than many worlds, though standards vary widely from city to city, with some having high expectations of business owners in terms of keeping workers happy and some cities only having minimum standards for worker health, benefits, and living conditions.

Feeding the teeming billions on the planet is no small matter and is accomplished by a combination of importing dried, freeze-dried, and other dehydrated foodstuffs, rehydrating them with imported water when needed, and growing edible fungi on a substrate comprised of imported soil and the treated waste of the planet’s population.