THE ELUSIVE HAYDEE HOMESTAR
There are as many interesting places to visit within the former Chelok Empire as within the borderlands of the Dominion, let's take a look at some info about one of such places.
Once known as HD 117207, Lltlot is the parent star of the Haydee homeworld Ertha, the capital of their expanse, lying right here within 105 light-years from the Earth. Once visited by the Goll Unity somewhere around the 12.000~13.000s, the ancient Chelok judged the system not of any importance or threat to their existence, though just curious enough to be included in the records. One such early note paints Ertha as a place unworthy of further study.
"Ertha from above is a beautiful and violent world, storms covering the totality of its barren surface, allowing but the thinnest beams of sunlight to touch its tiny miserable islands. The oceans however teem with life as it has never been seen before, though within such a dark world, it seems unlikely anything of higher value can be extracted, or sprout from here."
STARS
spectral type ID'd through temperature, luminosity might differ from real-world stars with the same type
LLTLOT / ???
G7V yellow-white star
Temperature 5750 K
(in solar units)
Mass 1.05
Luminosity 1.16
Radius 1.07
Metallicity Z* ~1.55 [Fe/H]
Abs. Magnitude +4.67
PLANETARY SYSTEM
Lltlot system possesses only four planets.
b) Unnamed rocky world
A scarred and cratered airless planet, this unremarkable rock has 0.02 Earth masses and orbits at 0.4 AU.
c) ERTHA, ???
An oceanic terran world, similar to Earth in mass and size, it has no moons, and the lack of any significant continents or mountains at all sums to the planet's fast rotational period of just about 20 hours accounts for a rather permanent storm system. Its oceans are comparable to that of Earth in terms of depth and overall composition but are at least an order of magnitude richer in biodiversity due to their advanced age. Though Chelok explorers never gave much attention to its very depths, Ertha is the current home planet of an aquatic spacefaring species, believe it or not.
d) A lesser gas giant
A typical light and ringed gas giant, with many icy moons, oblate and low density. Its moons served as fuel outposts within the ancient Chelok empire. Legend has it that derelict technologies left behind from these and countless other expeditions ended up uplifting what would have been an otherwise stay-at-home civilization.
e) A jovian gas giant
With twice the mass of Jupiter, this short-period gas giant orbits at around 3.79 AU from its star, when seen from Ertha it appears more than twice as bright as Jupiter on Earth's skies. There once were many derelict probes from Chelok, Arrene, and Unknown origin many thousands of years ago, those were long scrapped by the Haydee.
b) Unknown object
Arrene observations have sort of identified a point of interest between 37 and 40 astronomical units from Lltlot, radiation signatures point to what could be either an artificial gateway out of the system from where Haydee ships and their allies (if any) have to pass through to get in and out of the system, a literal landfill structure dedicated to discarded nuclear fuel and other technologies, another yet unidentified planet at a highly inclined orbit which is being used as all of the above. Getting better angular resolution and funding for finding out what it is has been the subject of raised eyebrows for the Dominion authorities.
TRIVIA & LOCATIONS
Ertha's upper layers of the atmosphere are made mainly of escaping hydrogen, helium, and ozone, all byproducts of photolysis. The middle and lower atmospheres are predominantly composed of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, water, and ammonia vapors, the immense surface pressure makes it very thick to move through, and some of the aquatic fauna of this planet have taken this to their advantage, taking short flights out of the water and nesting on the islands.
Although the Haydees breathe the same gases as humans do, they need them in radically different proportions to one another, which makes each other's atmosphere strongly toxic to one another. The same is true for the typical operating pressure, whereas Haydees would just explode naked on the surface of the Earth, humans would be crushed into sausage filling at the bottom of Ertha's oceans.
If Ertha had clear weather like Earth does, it would be possible to see the huge cities across the shallow oceans during the day and see them glow at night.
Haydees, alike most lifeforms in Ertha, are completely colorblind to red and yellow tones. Their vision consists almost exclusively of medium and shortwave light. This is why all of their technology focuses on exhibiting vibrant green, blue, and violet colors wherever needed.
The reason Haydee starships look like airships is that they really are airships, but they work best in worlds with thick atmospheres such as their own.
The reason Haydees refuse to communicate with other spacefaring species is a mystery, some say that their scientists have literally no clue as to how to communicate with them. Haydee speech only works underwater and under immense pressure, working in what most would describe as a cacophony of clicks and whistles, yet the Haydee have a sort of written language, which can be seen as inscriptions in the lower decks of their ships, some believe that Haydee written language can shine a light on how to communicate with them, but intercepting those comms is risky and very hard. One frowned-upon theory suggests that the Haydee may have been much friendlier in the past, but some catastrophic encounters lead them to the aggressive posture they have today, conspiracy theorists across the Dominion speculate that these harassers were the Chelok, and a great war was the cause of the fall of the ancient chelok empire.
Due to obvious difficulties in accessing the past and present of Ertha, many speculate that the Haydees were either intentionally or accidentally uplifted by the Chelok researchers - it is indeed hard to believe that a whole civilization living underwater has managed to find ways to dominate metallurgy and rise to the skies and space in such a "short" amount of time between the height of the Ancient Chelok Empire and the rise of the Arrene, and it is still unclear how they do it.
MORE COMING SOMEDAY!
- M. O. Valent, 08/02/2023
- M. O. Valent, 21/07/2023
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