NEW EARTH (OMEGA V)
Year of Discovery: 2142
Year of Colonisation: 2157
Colonised by: United Nations
Population (approximate): 10 billion
Primary Orbit: Omega
Important Locations: New Phoenix, Landfall, Velouria, Christabel Mountains, Encatan Peninsula, Mount Trifad
Unusually for the First Great Colonisation Rush, New Earth's first city was not named after its colony ship, the Intrepid. Instead, after landing at dawn the captain called the sunrise over the
highest peak of Christabel mountain 'a phoenix', and thus the first town became known as New Phoenix. Notable families in this initial wave of colonisation were members of the Mendes Syndicate, the
Shetland family, and a collective of African Nationalists. Many of the early colony ships contained vastly wealthy families or individuals, especially entrepreneurs who wanted to take their chances
on a new world; as such New Earth (as one of the few surviving original colonies) became a planet filled with the super-rich, assisted by the eventual worldwide depression back on what became Old
Earth. In the wake of that depression and subsequent communications blackout, New Earth reached out to the other newly formed colonies and the few who reached back joined with it to form what is
now the Alliance of ExtraSolar Unions. In the years after the construction of New Phoenix, a small town grew up around the remnants of the Intrepid some fifty kilometers from New Phoenix that would
eventually name itself Landfall.
Notable Life:
Omega V has a rich variety of life, though recent events have changed some elements of this.
The velourian sparklehawk (a bird-like creature native to the forest regions on the coast of the Velourian sea), the phoenician boar (a rodent/boar creature about a meter long native to the plains
surrounding New Phoenix), and the pellis mermaid (a predatory pseudosimian that hid in the shallows of rivers and ponds much like a crocodile or the predecessors of whales and dolphins), are now
considered extinct in the wild after the accidental introduction to the New Earth ecosystem of the xenological superpredator known as felo.
The carnivorous plants known as nepenthes mobilis or the mobile pitcher plant are endemic to Mt. Trifad and the surrounding jungles; usually easily avoided due to their vibrant colouration but
dangerous to the unwary who see the pretty flowers and take a closer look - their projectile hooked stings can paralyse in seconds and slowly drag even a human into their large urn-like pitchers,
while the vast quantities of digestive enzymes within said pitchers cause third degree burns within minutes. They are capable of locomotion up to 4 kilometers per hour, but if they find no prey they
must regularly root themselves to absorb nutrients from soil.
The encatan megahornet is a large venomous insect that can grow up to a foot long, originally discovered on the Encatan peninsula but variants are known to exist across most of the temperate regions
of the planet. While highly dangerous, megahornets tend to avoid building nests near to human settlements.
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TELEX
Year of Discovery: 2144
Year of Colonisation: 2159
Colonised by: United Nations
Population (approximate): 8 billion
Primary Orbit: Omega
Important Locations: New Roanoke, Providence, Nature Preserve, The Heartwood Forests
Telex was colonised by the colony ship Roanoke, with the town of New Roanoke being formed after it was dismantled. Primarily American colonists were on board the Roanoke, and they took to the new
world by looking back in history - to the wild west. Much of the early settlers, with the aid of advanced technology, treated Telex as if it were the frontier of the old west back on Old Earth.
With the discovery of the gargantuan heartwood trees a divide began between those who wanted to remain close to their roots (no pun intended) and those who felt that they could use the heartwoods as
the basis for canopy colonies, the first of which became Providence.
Notable Life:
The Heartwood is a massive tree, dwarfing even the giant redwoods from Old Earth and its forests cover much of the southern hemisphere. Entire unique ecosystems exist within their roots, their
branches and even within the heartwood trunks themselves. After the creation of the canopy town of Providence, the human colonists began to create their own habitation within the great trees.
One of the reasons that the 'wild west' attitude became such a common element for Telexans was the discovery of the auroch. Named after the ancient forebear of the cow, the auroch is a pseudobovine
native to the Telexan plains. Standing two meters tall on average but incredibly docile, the aurochs travel in vast herds of thousands, but were quickly domesticated and corralled to farm them by
the first settlers. After careful examination to prove their meat and milk were not harmful, the auroch became a staple of the Telexan diet since even a single auroch could feed a family for a
week. Today, aurochs can be found in many meat-farms across the Union, but millions of herds still roam free across the plains of Telex.
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ZION
Year of Discovery: 2144
Year of Colonisation: 2159
Colonised by: United Nations
Population (approximate): 1 billion
Primary Orbit: Omega IV
Important Locations: Zion Sublunar Habitation Network, Zion Publishing HQ
Zion is in actuality a small moon orbiting the gas giant Omega IV as opposed to an actual planet. The Roanoke's sister ship Zion landed on what was at the time known only as Omega IVa and the moon
was named for the colony ship. With the surface uninhabitable, the colonists attempted an experiment - an entirely subterranean existence. The colony itself is not multiple towns or cities, but a
single massive cave and tunnel network that weaves paths kilometers below the crust. Its atmosphere is entirely generated by massive machines at the core of the moon.
Notable Life:
Being an airless moon, Zion has no native life. All life forms in the Zion sublunar habitat caverns are Earth-stock, but many have begun to evolve to adapt to their new environs.
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HYPERION
Year of Discovery: 2147
Year of Colonisation: 2162
Colonised by: United Nations
Population (approximate): 8 billion
Primary Orbit: Cheyanne's Star
Important Locations: Avalon, The Sea of Grass, Jacktown, The Felo Sanctuary
The colony ship Avalon was sent to Cheyanne's Star as part of the first Great Colonisation Rush along with its sister ships the Iram and Shangri-La. As with the other successful colonies the
starship was dismantled on Hyperion to create the first city at its landing site. Shortly after the creation of the town of Avalon a group of survivalists and wilderness experts led by one Jack
McIntyre headed out into the untamed lands to forge their own path, creating Jacktown in honour of their leader. This spirit of adventure led to the primary spaceport of Hyperion being constructed
just outside Jacktown while Avalon, lying a few dozen kilometers away, remains starship-free to this day.
Notable Life:
Of the life on Hyperion, two species enjoy widespread notoriety.
First is the black rautine, a pseudoavian species popularized by stories of their rare attacks on humans, similar to how the great white shark was known to pre-Diaspora humans despite the vast
unlikelihood of ever being harmed by one. A single rautine is an unassuming beast: a small four-winged birdlike creature, though with a razor-sharp beak. However, rautines exist in vast swarms and
make their homes in very large communal nests assembled from blades of grass. They may earn their name partly from the fact that particularly large flocks of them have been known to darken the sun.
A black rautine on its own quickly dies; they act as a social organism not unlike ants and bees, divided into castes of scouts, hunters, nest-tenders, and breeders. Rautines are insatiable omnivores
and can quickly strip an area of all edible material whether vegetable, animal, or in rare cases, human. Despite being voracious eaters, however, they avoid the unfamiliar and usually steer clear of
humans and their settlements, but an unlucky person who accidentally disturbs a black rautine nest is in for a harrowing, if not deadly, experience.
The other well-known species of Hyperion is rather more prosaic though, in practical terms, far more deadly. Hyperion seagrass is not found in water; rather, the grass itself is said to form a sea.
The blue-green blades of grass cover thousands upon thousands of square miles and are easily seen from space. The "depth" of the Sea of Grass ranges from the height of a man to perhaps twice or
thrice that in the middle of Hyperion's many vast rolling plains. Within the Sea of Grass, everything is obscured save for the sun when directly overhead, making finding one's way without assistance
nearly impossible. The animals that live in the Sea of Grass are believed to be attuned to Hyperion's magnetic field for the purposes of navigation. Predators are especially able to take advantage
of the obscuring grass, and can pounce upon the unwary with no warning whatsoever. However, most who become lost in the Sea of Grass simply wander until exposure or dehydration claim them.
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ENDYMION
Year of Discovery: 2147
Year of Colonisation: 2162
Colonised by: United Nations
Population (approximate): 6 billion
Primary Orbit: Cheyanne's Star
Important Locations: Iram, Lut-Kavir, Margo Kara, Taklama, Northern Ryn
The colony ship Iram reached Cheyanne's Star with its sister ships the Avalon and Shangri-La during the first Great Colonisation Rush. Iram landed on Endymion, discovering an arid, desert world with
thin temperate regions near the poles. While the colony ship was dismantled at one of these regions to form the first city, the colonists spread outward and worked hard to find oases in the deep
desert that covered most of the world.
Notable Life:
While a desert world, Endymion does possess native life.
The neo-thylacine is a lithe nocturnal pseudomammal that stays near an oasis in their territory and hunts for smaller prey when they approach to drink. In the deep continental deserts, spotting a
neo-thylacine is often seen as a sign of good luck, as it shows you are near to an oasis or source of water and life.
A harmless animal that nonetheless has an undeserved reputation for danger and terrifying people is the jba fofi, known colloquially as the nightmare spider. Possessing ten spindly limbs that can be
up to a meter long and a body that can be just as wide, the jba fofi is a sandy-coloured pseudoarachnid that hides in the desert sands to wait for small creatures to pass by close enough to snatch,
akin to the sand spiders of Old Earth. However, jba fofi avoid larger creatures and when disturbed by something such as a human it will leap out of the sand in an attempt to escape, but doing so can
often be surprising for the wayward human as the two-meter large alien spider appears from nowhere.
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AENEA
Year of Discovery: 2147
Year of Colonisation: 2162
Colonised by: United Nations
Population (approximate): 5 billion
Primary Orbit: Cheyanne's Star
Important Locations: Shangri-La Habitat, Personal Envirodomes
The Shangri-La was the third of the trio of colony ships travelling to Cheyanne's Star alongide its sister ships the Avalon and Iram. Discovering Aenea was an airless world, the colonists within the
ship saw this as a challenge - creating self-sufficient environment domes and habitats that would allow them to enjoy the majesty of this unique world without having to terraform it and lose its
natural charm. Vast landscapes of blue-grey rocks and silver skies create a beautiful, if deadly, environment.
Notable Life:
Aenea is naturally lifeless; the only living creatures are Earth-stock brought by the colonists and living in their farm and hydroponics domes.
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BIKURA
Year of Discovery: 2143
Year of Colonisation: 2158
Colonised by: United Nations
Population (approximate): 6 billion
Primary Orbit: Riverway C
Important Locations: Samsara, Moksha, Kashi, Canyon Village
The colony ship Samsara was the ship that arrived at Bikura, a hot rocky world. The colonists dismantled the ship and created the town of Samsara in the northern temperate regions, but eventually a
larger city that became known as Moksha became the capital in the rocky desert. The primary spaceport was constructed a few kilometers outside the city of Moksha, where Canyon Village slowly formed
around it.
Notable Life:
Bikura is not home to much life, but such native life that is well-known tend to be reptilian.
The greater desert basilisk is a half-meter long pseudoreptile that can spit venom up to thirty meters in order to stun its prey, and able to run at almost 30 kilometers an hour for short distances.
On the other side of the spectrum is the sunrock salamander, a three meter long behemoth of a pseudoreptile that has a body temperature of almost eighty degrees Celsius which it can raise higher for
short periods in order to burn an attacker that attempts to grasp its scales, and also possesses glands that allow it to produce a gelling agent which, when combined with its blood, form sticky
globules that burst into flame upon contact with something solid. Luckily, these creatures reside only in the hottest and brightest regions of the rocky desert and flee from human activity.
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HOYT
Year of Discovery: 2143
Year of Colonisation: N/A
Colonised by: N/A
Population (approximate): 5
Primary Orbit: Bikura
Important Locations: Hoyt Spaceport, Hoyt Repair & Rearm
An airless, lifeless, dead world. Hoyt is not a colony, but an industrial moon where there is little in the way of habitation.
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DURE
Year of Discovery: 2143
Year of Colonisation: N/A
Colonised by: N/A
Population (approximate): 23
Primary Orbit: Bikura
Important Locations: Corbin Memorial Prison
An airless, lifeless, dead world. Dure is not a colony; instead being used by the Union (and the other alliances) as a prison planet for civilian pilots and others.
