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Life-orchard

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this was the name given to any of the specialized growing environments required for producing life-crystals. In order to be viable, a life-orchard must perfectly mimic the Rafa System's ecology, specifically the environment on Rafa IV, or the life-crystals won't grow. Smaller life-orchards existed on all of the planet in the Rafa System, but could only produce small life-crystals. The maintenance and harvesting of life-orchards was a tricky business, and was unsuitable for using droids because it required a deft touch and gentle handling of the crystals after they were picked. Thus, manual labor was employed, which ostensibly accounted for their high cost on other worlds. In reality, the controllers of the Rafa System used the prisoners of the system's penal colony as their labor, thereby getting the crystals harvested almost for free. Each orchard contained some 500 trees, each identical in size. The life-crystal trees were unusual in that their bark and wood seemed to have been made from a glassy fiber that contained a small amount of pigment. The roots of these trees were not fibrous like most trees, but were fine filaments that covered the underside of a wide disk that seemed to support the tree. This disk was formed from the same glassy fibers of the trunk, and spread about two meters across at the base of the trunk. This made the trees appear to be sitting on the ground, but the roots on the underside of the disk provided sustenance for the tree and kept it anchored to the ground.