Kashti is a farirly populous world, around a billion people, by most estimates. The population is concentrated on a equitorial contentant, providing a temperate climate. Kashti is isolationist theocracy, with little interest in the outside world.

It would be an uremarkable system, a back-water system, in a back-water sector, except that it's not able to maintain its technology without trade. It importes computing equipment from Daydion, and provides Binf with raw materials. It's also on a fairly direct route between Daydio and Binf, so it sees a fair amount of transient traffic, and supplies that with services and reaction mass.

Control is managed through a variety of techniques. Outsiders are restricted to small station near its single wormhole. Outsiders rarely complain, as all the common spacer vices can be serviced, for quite reasonable fees. Normal citizens speak a synthetic langauge, which is designed to be difficult to learn; only Officer-Priests are allowed to learn English. The few Kashtian-flagged ships have a handful of these officers to run the ship, with most of the crew being lower-ranked natives.

This lack of contact with outsiders has led to lots of speculation about their religion. It seems unlikely that they're baby-eating canibals, as is sometimes reported in the tabloid press.