A recent comment on Perseverance got me thinking about how we describe the genre — especially the use of the term space western. It was an incredibly thoughtful read (thanks again if you're reading this!), and it raised a great point: much of what I've shown so far points toward a planetary western more than a true space western. The commenter even noted that Perseverance feels more grounded than Firefly — and I think they’re right.

So what kind of western is Perseverance, really? Let's dig into that.

What Do We Mean by “Space Western”?

When I first described Perseverance as a space western, I had the big picture in mind: the Commonwealth, starfaring vessels, interstellar corporations, distant federations, and all that high-concept galactic stuff. But for the characters — and for the players — that vast tapestry is mostly background.

The stories we tell here are about dust trails, outlaw hideouts, heat-rippled canyons, and rust-bitten mining gear. They're about cattle drives, makeshift justice, long grudges, and quiet revolutions. From that perspective, Perseverance is absolutely a planetary western — a world defined by what it takes to survive in its dirt.

Still, the stars matter. The Commonwealth matters. The sense of a wider, unreachable cosmos hanging just overhead gives weight to the struggle down here. Perseverance is a planetary western set in a space western universe — and that distinction shapes everything.

"We don't reach the stars — we serve them, dream of them, and curse their silence." — Janek Rhone, orbital station mechanic

The Sky Above: Ports, Ships, and Starfaring Tech

Perseverance orbits a geostationary transfer port — the Commonwealth's foothold in the sky. Most interstellar ships never touch atmosphere. Instead, they dock with the orbital station, which handles cargo transfer, fuel exchange, and bureaucratic oversight.

Suborbital shuttles — expensive, finicky, and often in need of parts — connect the port to Fallpoint, the capital city built into the shell of the original generation ship. While technically under Commonwealth control, the port is mostly staffed by tech crews and troubleshooters. Some stay for months, even years, but true long-term habitation is rare: the radiation, cramped quarters, and unreliable gravity tech make it inhospitable.

What about space travel? The specifics are left open — intentionally so — but I lean toward a gate-based system (think Babylon 5 jump gates or the Fading Suns nexus). This allows travel between systems without handwaving physics too far or flooding the setting with ships. Travel is possible — but costly, time-gated, and tightly controlled.

"You don’t dig Perseverance for wealth. You dig it to survive what it remembers." — Eliza Harrow, retired pit boss

The Dust Below: Mining a World That Fights Back

One critique I found especially useful was around the term "Perseverance Metals." The commenter noted (correctly) that planetary mining in a starfaring civilization needs a good reason to exist. You don’t mine iron when you have access to asteroid belts.

So what is Perseverance digging up?

• Rare earth elements, especially lithium and phosphorus, concentrated in vast salt flats and inland sea beds.
• Crystalline fossils, created by long-dead native lifeforms — organic silicates, phosphorescent shells, even opal-like algae formations.
• Fossil-tech, remnants of ancient or early-colonial technology buried in shale or reclaimed by the land.

Perseverance once had abundant water. Now, much of it lies trapped in polar caps, dried up at the equator, or pooled in shrinking inland seas. The planet’s geology supports rare concentrations of trace minerals — but extracting and refining them takes effort, clean water, and moral compromise.

That’s what makes it profitable.

"An ironhorn don’t care how fast your skimmer runs. If it decides you're done, you’re dust." — Hector Vale, plains hunter

Ironhorns, Butchery, and Moving Meat

Let’s talk cattle. Ironhorns are Perseverance’s signature megafauna — huge, temperamental, and engineered to survive in the plains and plateaus. They’re a blend of imported Terran stock and adapted local creatures.

Most meat doesn’t move far. Butchery towns have sprung up along rivers, where herds are slaughtered and processed before export. River barges, caravan trains, and low-altitude skimmers do the heavy lifting. Moving live cattle across the equatorial zone? Not common. Genetic material moves by air. Herds don’t.

Some meat is preserved the old-fashioned way: salt, smoke, pressure. The rest goes through industrial processors, usually under corporate control. If you’re a drifter looking for work? That meat doesn’t move itself.

Planetary Life and the People Who Survive It

Perseverance isn’t just home to settlers — it’s shaped them. Life here means adaptation. Generations born on the frontier have developed subtle physiological changes: lungs built for thin air, eyes adapted to dim twilight, skin calloused against wind and UV exposure. The planet changes those who stay.

Communities have developed regionally distinct survival traits. Mountain families, for instance, are known for deep-lung endurance and the ability to function in high-altitude cold. In the equatorial belt, the Vasquez and Rake families have tough, UV-resistant skin and eyes that contract nearly shut in the blinding salt flats. These adaptations are more than flavor — they’re cultural, biological, and practical.

Socially, these changes matter. “Pioneer-born” isn’t just a badge of pride — it’s a political identity. In some towns, off-worlders are distrusted on sight. Others wear their mutations like tribal marks, signifying status or affiliation. And then there are the dust drifters, born under no name, surviving off instinct and sheer grit.

Transport on Perseverance reflects that same tough-minded realism. In the plains and foothills, animal-powered travel remains widespread. Rugged packbeasts bred for endurance and heat resistance haul wagons, supplies, and riders across open country — and in many places, they’re more reliable than machines. These animals are as much a part of daily life as the dust in your boots.

In the frozen north and south, ice runners use reinforced sleds, hover skates, and modified crawler rigs to cross dangerous, icy terrain. These vehicles are often salvaged from Commonwealth military stock or constructed from scavenged parts, resulting in a wildly eclectic mix of craft — many held together with grit, prayer, and duct tape.

The Commonwealth Guard patrols with sleek antigrav assault bikes and drop skiffs — fast, powerful, and rarely seen outside official use. One of these machines in the hands of a private crew is either a prize... or a death sentence.

And then there are the skimmers: the versatile workhorses of Perseverance. Traders, bounty hunters, smugglers, and messengers all rely on them. From nimble single-riders to heavily modified hovercraft like the Dust Runner, skimmers are fast, adaptable, and fiercely temperamental. Antigrav lift doesn’t come cheap — they guzzle fuel, require constant upkeep, and are patched together with a mix of desperation and ingenuity. But for many, they’re freedom incarnate. Even in its technology, Perseverance reminds you that survival here is hard-earned.

Biology and Ecology: What Lives Here?

The commenter asked some great questions about native lifeforms — and yes, Perseverance has them.

• Salt lake grazers with iridescent plumage that filter-feed on algae (imagine flamingos crossed with prehistoric lizards).
• Delta tunnelers, blind burrowers that crawl through slurry flats.
• Arctic leviathans, slow-blooded giants hunted for coolant-rich fat in the polar wastes.

And predators? Think outside the vertebrate box. Exoskeletal apex creatures with hollow bone analogs. Photosynthetic scavengers. Six-limbed ambush hunters with mirror-shine shells.

As for settlers — many are adapted too. Over generations, families have developed high-altitude lungs, night vision, or skin hardened by sun and wind. Ironhorns themselves may be part-native, part-modified. This isn’t Earth 2.0 — it’s a new biology, shaped by survival.

"Some things buried in this world ain’t meant to stay asleep." — Dr. Adrienne Kovač, Orion Geotech

Secrets Beneath the Dust

If you’ve been reading closely, you’ve probably noticed the hints — scattered, subtle, sometimes buried like a prospector’s dream. Perseverance is a frontier world, yes, but it’s not just the terrain that’s dangerous. This planet has secrets.

The crystalline fossils in the shale? Some say they’re not just organic remnants — but the residue of an ancient biotechnological civilization. The fossil-tech unearthed by Orion Geotech? Not all of it fits known Commonwealth templates. Entire mines have vanished overnight, sealed by landslides no one can explain — or reopened years later with new machinery already humming in the dark. Orion Geotech has officially denied any connection to these disappearances, but their silence speaks louder than words.

Among the scientific enclave's more daring voices, there are whispers of a pre-Commonwealth species — not just native, but intelligent — that encoded data into the fossil record, or that altered planetary biology as a form of infrastructure. Some believe Orion Geotech is close to decoding something that wasn’t meant to be found.

In the arctic zones, hunters speak of leviathans that bleed coolant, their organs laced with superconductive tissue. Traders tell stories of entire crews disappearing near the deep Rift Lakes, only for their skiffs to return weeks later, automated and silent.

And then there are the rumors whispered in outlaw camps and fringe research circles alike: buried machines still listening for signals, derelict ships that predate the Commonwealth, strange glyphs etched into canyon walls that only show up in ultraviolet light. Some even claim the glyphs move.

Perseverance is old — older than the settlers know. Something came before. Something left marks. And something might still be watching. Whether it’s waiting, remembering, or dreaming — no one agrees. But no one dismisses it out of hand.

"You come to Perseverance either to vanish — or to matter in a way you never did back home." — Caleb Dorn, ex-Commonwealth preacher

Culture, Faith, and Exile

Why come to Perseverance? For many, it's not a choice.

The Commonwealth has used the planet as an outlet for trouble: penal colonists, ideological exiles, fringe religions. Others come to disappear — or to start over.

There are no dominant religions, but many localized traditions: ancestor cults, technospiritual communes, radical utopian settlements. Some embrace hardship as virtue. Others reject all things Commonwealth. Some just want to be left alone.

The settlers may be fragmented, but they share one thing: they didn’t come here for comfort.

Power, Energy, and Illicit Tech

Perseverance has no unified power grid. Instead, it relies on:

• Hydro dams along major rivers.
• Solar collectors in the salt flats.
• Geothermal vents in tectonically active zones.
• Microwave beaming from orbital stations — when the Commonwealth is feeling generous.

Explosives and weapons run the full spectrum:

• Black powder and dynamite.
• Smart ammo and high-temperature thermite.
• Off-world relics: railguns, grav-hammers, antimatter charges. Rare. Illegal. Valuable.

Weaponized drones, guided crossbow bolts, heat-seeking knives? They exist. And they're worth killing for.

So… What Kind of Western Is Perseverance?

It’s both.

Planetary western: That’s what the characters live. Dust, heat, skimmers, cattle rustlers, crooked lawmen, outlaw towns.

Space western: That’s the larger context. The Commonwealth, the orbital gate, the corporate arms race. It’s always overhead — not always in reach.

That’s the mood I want:

The stars still shine — but the dust gets in your lungs first.

What’s Next?

In upcoming posts, I’ll be diving into:

• A closer look at Fallpoint and the orbital Transfer Port.
• More creature and biome design.
• A working regional map of Perseverance’s main trade corridors and wild zones.
• Cultural spotlights: immigrants, exiles, and belief systems.

Thanks again to the commenter who inspired this post. Keep the questions coming. The frontier’s still wide open.