New Worlds
If humans learned one thing from destroying the Earth, it was how to screw up an atmosphere. And the most important process of terraforming alien worlds? Screwing up its atmosphere. We can’t cool a world down, but we can certainly warm it up.
Earth is gone, uninhabitable. A dried up world with poison for air, so hot that most exosuits won’t keep a traveler alive for long. Humanity had to move, had to adapt, and options were limited. Over the centuries, mankind has taken to these new worlds:
Space Itself, in the form of space stations and orbital satellites (most prominently Terra Nova, which orbits the Earth).
Terra Nova is the most famous orbital station, though large stations just like it orbit that of Jupiter and Saturn. A greater population lives in Terra Nova than any other orbital station, if only for the nostalgic value of being so close to mankind’s ruined homeworld. The being said, Terra Nova is actually the worst laid out orbital station. Not only is it the first to have been built, but the addition of more and more people have lead to more and more sectors being added to the station--which, in turn, makes it more and more difficult to navigate. Still, people are drawn to the haunting view of Earth’s gray-blue haze.
Orbital stations are roughly the size of old super-cities, half of which--the residential sections, mainly--rotate quickly to simulate gravity. Large spaceports tend to hang between residential and commercial districts. Jupiter and Saturn’s orbital stations actually put more emphasis on their spaceports than residential qualities, as they see more income generated from shipping and receiving to their moons than anything else.
Mars. Martian history is strange. You see, in the 21st century, humans started placing structures on Mars. Mars One, the first manned “mission” to Mars, was a publicity stunt, the new frontier of reality television. A handful of strangers sent off to live in a compound on Mars, knowing full well they will never come back to Earth. Mars One picked up steam, and elevated the red planet to a strange celebrity status. Within a century, it became fashionable to own Martian property, and once travel to and from Mars became cheaper and easier, high profile celebrities started fronting the bills to live in their own personal Martian compounds.
Today, a terraformed Mars is the system’s closest approximation to a pre-industrial Earth. Only 30% of its surface is water, however, so only a small fragment of the world is lived in. That which is contrasts the reddish soil and rocky outcrops with vibrant greenery, colorful buildings, and turquoise waters. Martian society is aristocratic and celebrity. To this day, it is far too expensive for the majority of humans to own land on Mars.
The greatest threat to Martian communities are the storms, which carry all the power of a hurricane, with only rock and sand to throw around. As such, Martian homes are incredibly sturdy, resembling forts and castles in their construction.
The Asteroid Belt, set between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, was never sought after for permanent colonization. While rumors of a hollowed out asteroid containing some lost city and untold riches are unquellable, no formal authority will ever admit such a thing exists.
Resource mining facilities are largely the only source of human presence in the asteroid belt. There are actually more abandoned facilities than active ones, as asteroid belt mining has been a regular source of income for a myriad of corporations since the late twenty-first century. Most of the time, these facilities are manned by robots and a few humans (or human offshoots) to ensure upkeep and repairs.
Frequent collisions make the prospect of a permanent asteroid colony unlikely. Even Ceres, a minor planet within the asteroid belt, remains untouched. That said, there are still a few corporations left with vested interests in overturning Ceres. The atmospheric and soil contents of Ceres make it a theoretically viable world for habitation. Its atmosphere can easily be thickened, and the world’s soft, malleable soil is the result of long concealed ground water, introduced into the planet’s
Enceladus (Saturn), a tiny moon of Saturn with an icy crust, under which is a warm, bustling ocean. Underwater “storms,” or violent, turbulent tides, are caused by frequent surface geysers that burst from the ocean’s pressure. The geysers erupt into space, adding to the frozen ice of Saturn’s rings. Because of its lack of sustainable atmosphere, ice from the planet’s rings collect upon the surface, drifts down into the warm ocean, melts, and repeats. Only the ocean of Enceladus is livable. Any surface structures are closed off from the vacuum of space.
Enceladites refer to humans who moved to the moon well before the Earth became unlivable, and adapted to the environment. Through a mixture of medical breakthroughs and guided evolution, this offshoot of humanity have long, thin bodies covered in thick, rough skin, and slitted gills along the sides of their ribcage.
Titan (Saturn), a larger moon of Saturn with a caustic atmosphere. Contrary to 20th century thought, Titan was incredibly difficult to terraform. Already having a dense atmosphere--one that reflects light, rather than contains it--long term, heavy industrialization was necessary to bring the world’s surface temperature up to acceptable levels. Because the world reflects too much light, it is constantly dark, excepting only summers, which are no more luminous than Earth’s twilight. Oxygen producing plants are given artificial soil, artificial light, and dominate the center of every human community. Paradoxically, the caustic air doesn’t do them much harm.
Titan’s atmosphere is covered in a thick, choking smog caused by human terraforming and its native methane oceans. It always smells unpleasant, and breathing the air can be poisonous after just a couple of hours. Most citizens wear rebreathers when stepping outside. The surface is primarily methane oceans and dark, pillowy soft soil--even softer, and less dense, than Earthen beach sand.
This world was the first attempt at rapid terraforming once Earth officially became lethal. While the Martian aristocracy brought in the wealthy and influential, Titan took on Earth’s lower and middle classes.
Much like Enceladus, Titan also hosts a vast underground ocean. This, however, has gone mostly unexplored, even centuries into Titan’s habitability. There is life down below--not intelligent life, but extremely hostile life. Things in the sea: predators, all of them. Monsters capable of tearing through solid armor, of devouring expeditions whole. This life existed long before mankind’s arrival, and it will continue to exist long after mankind leaves the moon.
Io (Jupiter), Jupiter’s fifth moon, was once considered for terraforming. The project was scrapped shortly before its onset, however. Io’s surface is so covered in sulfur that no amount of effort could make the moon habitable. Conversely, it is one of the most metal rich worlds in the solar system, making it a prime target for mining colonies. Even now, a dozen different mining companies have their people in closed off communities. Exosuits are required for work outside.
Because it was never terraformed, Io remains in its natural state: a planet of fire and ice. Frequent volcanic eruptions set portions of the world ablaze, while the rest of the world is covered by its unique orange-and-yellow sulfuric snow . . . snow that is, incidentally, flammable.
Europa (Jupiter), is mankind’s second fully terraformed world. It was much more successful than Titan. Those who can make it off Titan usually wind up on Europa. Here, Jupiter takes up a third of the sky at all times . . . But only for half the planet. Europa is tidally locked with Jupiter, so the “back” half of Europa never, ever sees its host gas giant. That being said, it still sees night and day based solely on Jupiter’s rotations.
This world was initially considered a lost cause for habitation, as it has abysmally low gravity, but its underground ocean--one vaguely similar, albeit colder and more shallow, to Enceladus--more than made up for it. Mankind, first dispatched in closed off colonies, drilled deep to allow for natural water vapor to intermix with oxygen and carbon emissions in order to form an atmosphere as close to Earth as possible. Mineral content keeps the soil an orange and yellow, and the grainy water--in the form of deep, fracturing rivers spanning the entire moon--is a bluish gray, but the air is pure and easy to breath, making Europa a much sought after destination for settling down.
Europan architecture is incredibly unique, mostly for its accommodations for gravity. The moon’s gravity is one ninth that of Earth’s, which has made building up a greater priority than building out.
