In one of our previous articles, we discussed the possibility of the Exodus Council pushing through reforms to the APEX system in an effort to clear brownfields and ghostplots from high-demand planets. After two major reforms, this has finally come to fruition, with the Exodus Council acquiescing to the demands of citizens and companies across the universe.

What is a brownfield or ghostplot?

For any ICR readers unfamiliar with the system, planetary plots are a restriction intended to limit the corporate world’s influence on individual planets.

APEX’s ghostplot policy formed part of its wider incubator program for up-and-coming companies. New companies participating in the APEX incubator scheme were granted land on highly sought-after planets that would typically have been unavailable for further development, allowing these companies to exceed a planet’s normal “plot limit.”

A brownfield is a plot that has experienced prolonged neglect and mismanagement. Many companies entering the APEX incubator program ultimately fail to break into the market and join the wider corporate world, leaving their ghostplots abandoned.

Over time, these abandoned plots become brownfields, choking high-demand planets with excessive development claims that are de facto unused, yet remain protected under outdated APEX policy. The result has been large swathes of valuable territory left unavailable for development by more productive companies.
What happened recently?

Two major reforms to the treatment of STEAM applicants within the APEX system were recently implemented, significantly reducing the number of existing brownfields while also halting their continued growth. Companies failing to meet the quotas of APEX’s incubator program will now face prompt liquidation and removal from the APEX system.

While the Exodus Council and APEX remain opaque regarding the finer details of their new internal ghostplot policy, known grounds for prompt removal now include signs of blatant mismanagement, such as failure to operate SCB ship assets loaned in perpetuity, as well as failure to invest in APEX-allotted plots.

What planets have open plots now?

The following figures compare planetary development on 25/6/2026, approximately one month prior to the clearances, with conditions on 30/7/2026.

25/6/2026 — Source: vallen27
30/7/2026 — Source: lilbit

NEO Charter Exploration

Moria — Montem

899/418 (-481)
558/418 (-140)

Moria — Vallis

1136/386 (-750)
720/386 (-334)

Gundabad — Danakil

435/494 (59)
306/494 (158)

Kallista — Prism

293/421 (128)
177/421 (244)

Gloria Carbonis Messiae — Verdant

548/519 (-29)
440/519 (79)

Castillo-Ito Mercantile

Benten — Katoa

1492/387 (-1105)
918/387 (-531)

Benten — Umbra

522/386 (-136)
350/386 (36)

Ebisu — Gibson

1032/394 (-638)
490/394 (-96)

Daikoku — Proxion

798/391 (-407)
469/391 (-78)

New Antares — Etherwind

443/418 (-25)
410/418 (8)

Neo Eden — Nemesis

390/368 (-22)
307/368 (61)

Insitor Cooperative

Hortus — Promitor

2142/422 (-1720)
1536/422 (-1114)

Hortus — Avalon

423/420 (-3)
415/420 (5)

Krupp — Berthier

239/395 (156)
185/395 (210)

Wet Water — Boucher

449/434 (-15)
419/434 (15)

BS-788 — Nova Honshu

283/376 (93)
199/376 (177)

Antares Initiative

Antares I — Phobos

818/379 (-439)
481/379 (-102)

Antares I — Hephaestus

220/404 (184)
238/404 (166)

Antares II — Deimos

1198/389 (-809)
766/389 (-377)

Antares III — Nike

182/373 (191)
182/373 (191)

Antares IV — Harmonia

812/399 (-413)
546/399 (-147)

Images taken just before the plot clearances — Source: molp

As the figures show, the clearances opened plots on a number of sought-after planets previously suffering from severe brownfield congestion. These include Verdant, Umbra, Etherwind, Nemesis, Avalon, and Boucher.

The effects have been particularly significant for Bentenites, with three Castillo-Ito planets gaining available plots. Pressure on the water extraction and agricultural industries has also eased following the opening of plots on Etherwind and Boucher, alongside Verdant and Nemesis.

Analysts further speculate that, under the new policies, many planets still blocked by brownfields could experience a gradual reduction in ghostplots, allowing a slow trickle of territory back onto the market. Montem, Gibson, Proxion, and Phobos are widely suspected to be among the next planets to reopen.
As plots became available, companies rushed to expand into newly accessible territory. Etherwind notably saw an influx of new companies during the first round of clearances, quickly filling its newly available plots before further territory opened during the second round.

Castillo-Ito Mercantile’s labour productivity index has since soared. Etherwind FIO HQ reported record water production figures, while the Government of Umbra reported a surge in GDP growth, finally pulling the planet out of its chronic stagnation.

Bad outcomes

The closure of so many ghostplots brought with it a foreseeable consequence: the defunct “zombie companies” occupying them still had large numbers of employees on their payrolls, subsidised by the Exodus Council and APEX.

When those companies were liquidated, their employees went with them.
Mass layoffs swept affected planets. Anticipating the disruption, governments expanded employment outside the APEX system by funding small-cap auxiliary businesses and increasing public-sector employment in vital infrastructure, COGC, warehouses, and shipyards.

Notably, the Deimos and Hephaestus shipyards have experienced a surge in activity from government contractors, as laid-off workers were offered short-duration employment contracts constructing additional autonomous ships for the overdue and over-budget Mars terraforming project back in the Solar System.
Governments within Arclight and Hubur also offered significant discounts for laid-off workers willing to enter cryonic storage and wake in a new world once Arclight and Hubur had been further developed. Sales figures, however, remain low amid widespread consumer scepticism.

And yet, none of it has been enough to fully address the unemployment crisis.
For now, governments struggle to remain in the black as workers leave the APEX system. On worlds where plots became available, the arrival of new APEX-integrated companies has brought steady employment back, easing the burden on local governments.

On worlds where plots did not open, there has been no such respite.
Ghostplots on Vallis, Katoa, and Deimos were cut roughly in half, while Promitor lost approximately one-third of its ghostplots—but all four planets remain substantially over capacity.

The mass layoffs caused by the liquidation of zombie companies have also led to a rapid uptick in violence. Despite employment figures remaining relatively healthy due to the expansion of public-sector jobs, workers complain of “terrible working conditions” and “insultingly low pay.”

On Promitor, the Communist Party of Insitor (播神国共产党) split following a heated internal debate, with its radical faction opting to launch a Maoist-style revolution across the planet.

Suspected membership of the Insitor Workers and Farmers Red Army (播神国工农红军) has surged tenfold over the last week. Xiaosichuan province was seized by revolutionaries and held for four days before government forces recaptured it.
The revolutionaries scattered and escaped north, regrouping near the town of Baosui, where they have continued battling the Promitor National Guard and corporate PMC operatives across a tributary of the Rio de la Sal.

The Red Army has vowed to continue fighting the Promitor government through a defensive guerrilla campaign. Likening their retreat to Mao’s Four Crossings of the Chishui River during the Long March, revolutionaries broadcast the poem 《四渡赤水出奇兵》:

敌人弃甲丢烟枪，我军乘胜赶路程。
调虎离山袭金沙，毛主席用兵真如神。

Vallis, meanwhile, has seen a massive uptick in violent crime.

Of particular concern are the Weldrunners: retired miners and metallurgists who use modified exoskeleton work suits as cybernetic enhancements alongside illicit VitaGel-derived drug formulations and banned neurostimulants smuggled from underground laboratories on Montem.

The Weldrunners wage gang wars while peddling neurostimulants and moonshined einsteinium-infused gin to the poor, who typically cannot access such luxuries due to APEX restrictions.

Many Weldrunners reportedly experience “exopsychosis,” a condition in which their desire to kill overrides their humanity.

ICR urges readers not to look up to such dangerous, self-sabotaging, emotionally dysregulated criminals, and instead to look up to our loyal drones in blue for defending the streets of Vallis from violent crime.

On Deimos, a strike involving 44,000 shipyard workers expanded into widespread rioting across the planet. Crowd Control Drones operated by the Antarean Armed Forces and supplied by DeepSpace Technologies were ordered to suppress the rioters.

The resulting battle for Deimos Shipyard caused an estimated ₳21 million in damages and 10,955 casualties.

Massive wildfires now grip Harmonia as Martian Medical contractors rush through land clearances. Flamethrowers have been employed to clear both brownfields and protestors, while defoliants have targeted farms occupied by revolutionary cells.

Former MP Roche stated in a televised documentary:

“Damn, this is almost like Nascent, look at all that Carbon!”

Copycat strikes on Katoa, inspired by the martyred Deimosians, quickly radicalised and developed into a small-scale urban guerrilla campaign targeting prominent civilians and government officials.

Long-time former Governor of Katoa and head of YellowFin, Penelope Clyde VII, publicly known as CptColeslaw, was attacked with an icepick in an assassination attempt. The resulting injuries required immediate surgery, forcing them to withdraw from campaigning.

MartianEngineer, political protégé and Dictator of Soteria, has since surged in the polls amid an outpouring of sympathy from loyalists, with KAWA-AHI now likely to maintain its supermajority in Parliament.

Political polarisation nevertheless remains high, with loyalists carrying out “retaliatory vigilante trials” against suspected revolutionaries.

For all the unrest that followed, however, the clearances have accomplished what they were intended to do. Brownfields that had strangled development for years are disappearing, productive companies are returning to previously inaccessible worlds, and planets once considered effectively closed are beginning to reopen.

But the ghostplots were never truly empty.

Behind every abandoned base stood an APEX-subsidised company, and behind many of those companies stood workers whose livelihoods had quietly become dependent on an economic system that no longer served its original purpose. By clearing away the accumulated failures of the incubator program, the Exodus Council has transferred the cost of those failures from APEX and planetary land markets to local governments and their citizens.

Whether that cost proves temporary remains to be seen. If newly available plots continue attracting productive companies, private employment may eventually replace the jobs lost in the clearances, leaving planets with stronger economies and healthier development in the long term. Until then, the brownfields may be disappearing, but their consequences are not.

Delissaious, Associate Editor
I-01 Industrial Developments | Benten Regional Dispatch
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