Polytinaris System
 | |
| Age | 6.02 billion years |
|---|---|
| Location |
Polytinaris Spur, Far 3 kpc arm |
| Nearest star | Lanaia (3.19 ly) |
| Nearest known planetary system | Lanaia System (3.19 ly) |
| Planetary system | |
| Semi-major axis of outer known planet |
Kalagors: 13.32 AU (Urson-Blair) Tinaria: 28.71 AU (Naros) Genenia: 10.43 AU (Dornk) |
Populations | |
| Known stars | 3 (Kalagors, Tinaria, Genenia) |
| Known planets |
Kalagors: 12 (6 terrestrial planets, 6 gas giants) Tinaria: 13 (6 terrestrial planets, 7 gas giants) Genenia: 18 (8 terrestrial planets, 10 gas giants) 43 total |
| Star-related properties | |
| Spectral type | G9V+K2V+M6.5V |
| Variable type | Flare star (Genenia) |
The Polytinaris System is a triple star system located within the Far 3 kpc arm of the Milky Way. It is home to three different intelligent spacefaring species - the squid-like Rorks, the humanoid Aerlons, and the crab-like Gesmians, in addition to hosting the lesser-advanced Iphilian species, which inhabit the Kalagors System. The system was also home to the mysterious Palaeroni species over two billion years ago, who established a considerable interstellar (and possibly even galactic) presence before disappearing as a result of the catastrophic Ipolyka.
Polytinaris contains three separate solar systems within it: those of the G9V-type yellow dwarf Kalagors, the K2V orange dwarf Tinaria, and the small M6.5V red dwarf star Genenia. Kalagors possesses a complex system of 12 major planets including an even number of six terrestrial planets and six gas giants. Tinaria holds 13 planets under its grasp, mostly including large gas giant planets. Genenia holds an extremely large system of 18 planets, one of the largest known, comprising eight tightly packed inner rocky worlds and an impressive ten outer giant planets, almost all of which are in orbital resonance with one another.
The four modern races inhabiting the Polytinaris System first emerged roughly 1 million years ago via archaeological evidence found on several inhabited planets. Technological civilization has existed for at least 5,000 years and contact between the rorks and aerlons was first established in the 7th century: at that time the two systems of Kalagors and Tinaria were ruled under two separate nations, the Kalagors United States and the Tinaria-Genenia Union. The two nations unified to form the Polytinaris Commonwealth in the year 1329, ushering in a very long era oFf unprecedented stability and cooperation between the three systems.
The Commonwealth reached its peak during the 1500s, after which it began a steady decline hastened by the Ixmerian rebellion and increasing unrest and political divisions between its component species. This weakening union was strained to the breaking point after the discovery of the Palaeroni in the year 1995, setting off a chain of events leading to a revolution in 1998 which formed the authoritarian socialist Tessian Hegemony, a very aerlon supremacist nation and later an interstellar great power that would control dozens of other solar systems during the 21st century. The Hegemony met its demise in 2122, and was replaced with the Stellar Commonwealth, a similar yet more centralized union based on the old Commonwealth that rules the region known as the Polytinaris Spur to the present day.
System structure and evolutionary history
Kalagors System
Of the three component subsystems within Polytinaris, the Kalagors System's structure is most unlike that of our own. The system has a total of six terrestrial planets (although Hyparspynar is hypothesized to have formed as a small ice giant), three gas giants, and three ice giants. There is no specific ordering of Kalagors's planets, with all of its large giant planets being concentrated in the inner system close to the star. Multiple bodies also occupy co-orbital positions (Oveno and Teagan sharing their orbit with Niran, Mirora and Salexa being co-orbital with Moreus, and Omest leading in front of Urson & Blair). Additionally, the outer system is unusually sparse, with only the Urson-Blair binary ice giant system and the terrestrial world Omest orbiting beyond the Kalagors frost line of around 3.5 AU.
The exact method as to how such an unusual planetary configuration formed within the Kalagors System is not completely understood. The most commonly accepted theory is that the three gas giants (Jularis, Niran, and Moreus) in addition to Hyparspynar all formed at much greater distances from Kalagors and subsequently migrated inwards on a short timescale (no more than one or two million years, at most). During this migration, the massive planets all destabilized Kalagors's initial inner terrestrial planets - they either collided with each other, with the gas giants, or with Kalagors itself, or were ejected from the solar system. This event, known as the Great Destabilization, created a secondary disk of rocky debris that later coalesced into the current inner planets of Oveno, Teagan, and Salexa. Moorna and Omest are outliers to this - Moorna is theorized to have been thrusted far inwards by Jularis's migration, while Omest was thrown much farther out and eventually settled into its present-day orbit through interaction with Urson & Blair. In the midst of this, one of these rocky planets collided with Hyparspynar and created its extremely fast rotation & unusual atmosphere disk, as its gaseous envelope was thrown into a wide orbit around the planet.
Tinaria System
The Tinaria System's configuration is also quite unusual, like that of Kalagors, but is mostly dominated by gas giant planets. A huge Jupiter-sized gas giant named Palemarma is located in the habitable zone, accompanied by a trojan terrestrial planet named Saneya. Furthermore, several other planets (and even some of the dwarf planets) also trojan gas giants, such as Ruby/Svorda and Bronze/Altein. Lastly, the Tinaria System also sports a significantly larger number of planets than the Solar System, hosting six terrestrial planets, four gas giants, and three ice giants.
Unlike Kalagors, there is no indication that the inner migration of Palemarma created a catastrophic destabilization within its inner system - it is commonly believed to have moved to its present position very early in the system's formation, allowing the terrestrial planets of Tinaria to simply form around the planet. The great abundance of jovian planets in the Tinaria System suggests that the star's protoplanetary disk was likely very gas-rich; a similar situation also occurred within Genenia, although to a greater degree.
Genenia System
Genenia's planetary layout bears the greatest extent to the Solar System of all the Polytinarian star systems, following a clearly defined organizational structure with rocky planets located close to the star and gas giants located further out. However, the Genenia System is much larger in its number of planets: eight terrestrial planets and a total of ten giants, five gas and five ice - over twice the Solar System. Although the Genenia System contains the second-highest number of gas giants known to the Polytinarians, all of them are quite small and have low masses: the largest and heaviest of them, Ghulius, is only a little larger than Saturn. The worlds of Genenia can be divided into three groups. The first group consists of the eight inner rocky planets, which are all very close to each other, exhibit orbital resonances, and tidally locked due to Genenia's red dwarf characteristics; three of them (Ragauno, Odelia, and Etezan) lie within the habitable zone of the star. The second group contains the first eight gas giants - most of them are also in orbital resonances but are not tidally locked as they are further out. The third and final group consists of the outermost two planets Muburu and Dornk. Both of them have eccentric and inclined orbits that suggest they may be captured bodies which did not originally form within the system.
The massive planetary system around it indicates that the formational conditions around Genenia were much different than those around Kalagors or Tinaria. Interactions between Genenia itself and the other two stars of the system may have "stretched" out its stellar disk, producing an environment which favored the formation of many smaller bodies instead of just a few large ones. A hydrogen-rich protoplanetary disk would have also permitted the formation of many gas giants. Some fringe theorists who oppose the idea of the outer two planets being captured bodies propose that Muburu & Dornk formed from the early Genenian disk but were later thrown out by interactions with the other two stars as well as with the later planets themselves.
Major bodies
Kalagors
Kalagors is the primary star of the Polytinaris System. It is a G-class star of spectrum G9V, also known as a Sun-like star. Kalagors is a little smaller and cooler than the Sun, having 91% of its mass and 93% of its radius as well as an effective surface temperature of roughly 5,420 degrees Kelvin. It is around two-thirds as luminous as the Sun.
Kalagors is an average-aged star that is in the middle of its lifespan of roughly twelve billion years. It formed roughly 6 billion years ago and is expected to keep fusing hydrogen for another 4 to 6 billion before evolving further into a red giant - at which point it will swell to over 100 times its current size, very likely destroying its innermost planets of Moorna & Jularis and possibly Niran/Oveno/Hyparspynar as well. All habitable bodies within the Kalagors System will become inhospitable at that point. Kalagors will go through two separate red giant stages separated by a brief helium-fusing clump giant stage, and at the conclusion of the second stage, it will shrivel up into a tiny white dwarf doomed to cool slowly over quadrillions of years.
Moorna
Moorna is the first planet of the Kalagors System. It is a large super-Earth terrestrial planet that is many times heavier and a great deal larger than Earth; excluding Hyparspynar, Moorna is the largest and most massive terrestrial planet within the Polytinaris System.
The most apparent physical feature of Moorna is the abundance of molten lava all across its surface - a result of its extreme proximity to Kalagors and very high temperatures of over a thousand degrees. This lava functions in a similar manner to water on a habitable terrestrial planet in a "lava cycle" of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation back down to the surface. In its atmosphere, rock vapor condenses into clouds and storms that rage all across its surface but are most concentrated towards its daytime side where there is more molten surface and where the temperature is higher. The most notable weather systems on Moorna are a pair of tidal cyclones facing in the direction of Kalagors itself. Because of Moorna’s extremely inhospitable environment, the planet is virtually uninhabited and has never been colonized by any nation controlling the Polytinaris System.
Jularis
Jularis is the second planet of Kalagors and is its first gaseous world. A large gas giant planet comparable in size to the Solar System's Jupiter. Jularis is much hotter than any of the gas giants in the Solar System and is a fairly standard example of a "Hot Jupiter"-type planet.
Jularis's temperature range makes it a borderline Class III-Class IV gas giant, commonly characterized by a strong blue coloration as a result of abundant hydrogen and some lower-level alkali metals in its cloud decks. However, due to its unusually high atmospheric quantity of carbon, Jularis is instead a deep brown. Due to the great heat, the planet's atmosphere is very turbulent and has extremely high winds and many oval-shaped storms and swirls. The two most notable are its twin anticyclones facing directly towards Kalagors itself, both of which have winds of over 500 mph and are about as large as the Earth. The great temperatures experienced on Jularis also grant the clouds on its dark side an ominous orange glow.
Niran
Niran is the third planet of the Kalagors System and is the second gas giant of the system. Niran’s radius and mass are roughly equivalent to that of the Solar System’s Saturn, and it also possesses a ring system similar to said planet. However, due to Niran's closer proximity to Kalagors, its rings are primarily made of rocky materials as opposed to ice chunks that make up those of Saturn.
Orbiting within the inner habitable zone of Kalagors, Niran is host to water ice clouds within its atmosphere and has a similar average temperature to Earth. In fact, the planet itself is even host to life in the form of photosynthetic bacteria within its atmosphere that give it its distinctive green-blue color. Niran’s atmosphere is calm compared to other gas giant planets, leading some to call it a “gentle giant”. Its only visually distinctive weather feature is a large seven-sided storm located at its northern pole, functioning not unlike Saturn’s hexagon.
Niran has a total of 11 moons, but they are vastly dominated by the two large habitable moons Kebo and Lielo along with a third body named Fieso that serves as a shepherd to its outer ring system. The other moons of Niran are small bodies which are either shepherds of its ring system or captured asteroids in far, eccentric orbits.
Kebo
Kebo is the largest moon of the gas giant Niran and is roughly equivalent in mass and radius to Earth. Possessing a warm, tropical climate, Kebo is covered in vast oceans of liquid water - a key ingredient for life, which is very abundant and widespread across all parts of the moon.
Most of Kebo’s landmass is fused together in a large supercontinent similar to Pangea, and the rest of its surface is a massive ocean dotted with volcanic islands. Kebo’s climate is somewhat dry, with much of its land being scorching deserts. The wetter regions of Kebo (which are typically those closer to the coast) are highly humid tropical rainforest. The very warm oceans are quite favorable for the formation and propagation of tropical cyclones; these are significant hazards to coastal settlements on Kebo. Plant life on Kebo is colored green similarly to Earth, as the moon receives a near identical amount of stellar energy and radiation exposure.
Kebo is the home of the Rorks, a species of sentient aliens bearing a resemblance to squids, but with more human characteristics such as arms and legs. They are one of the Polytinaris System’s three major spacefaring species, along with the Aerlons of the Tinaria System and the Gesmians of the Genenia System. The rorks are a heavily industrial species and have greatly urbanized the surface of Kebo at the expense of the moon’s natural environment; the rorks’ methods of development were for a long time relied heavily on fossil fuels and were not as clean as those of the aerlons or gesmians, making pollution a significant concern on the moon. Fortunately, in recent years alternative power solutions and the phasing out of non-renewable fuels have made excellent progress towards climatological and ecological restoration.
Lielo
Lielo is the smaller of the two inhabitable moons of Niran - its size falls roughly in between that of the planets Earth and Mars. Its climate is markedly cooler than Kebo's and is quite different: the moon itself is currently in an icehouse state, with large polar caps extending down to the midlatitudes.
Besides its massive polar caps, Lielo is also notable for its distinctive, red-colored seas, which are produced as a result of excessive iron deposits called banded iron formations within them. The moon is host to life, but it is nowhere near as complex as Kebo’s and is theorized to have just suffered a mass extinction event caused by the onset of an ice age. Lielo is inhabited (mostly by rorks) but due to its cool, rather harsh climate (with frequent blizzards and frontal snowstorms) its population is not as high as on other worlds such as its neighbor Kebo. Regardless, Lielo still hosts one of the largest population centers within the entire Polytinaris System - winter sports are very popular here and can be done year-round, outdoors, as opposed to on other worlds where they can only be done indoors or during the winter season.
Teagan
Teagan is the fourth planet of Kalagors and is one of the two trojan planets of Niran, accompanying the gas giant in its L4 Lagrange point 60 degrees in front of it. Teagan is virtually identical to the Earth in its mass, radius, general environment, and composition. It even has one large rocky moon which bears an uncanny resemblance to Earth's Moon.
Teagan is in all respects an archetypical habitable world, hosting a breathable oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and possessing large oceans on its surface. It undergoes seasonal variations very similar to those of Earth's, however its seasons are slightly shorter as a result of its shorter orbital period around Kalagors itself. There are two outward differences between Teagan and the Earth: firstly, photosynthesizing plants on the planet are of a medium turquoise as opposed to a deep green on Earth. Secondly, Teagan is warmer on average, and as such it lacks distinctive polar ice caps.
Oveno
Oveno is the fifth planet in the Kalagors System and is the trailing trojan of Niran - it resides within its L5 Lagrange point, occupying a stable orbital position 60 degrees behind it.
Oveno is a huge terrestrial planet: its radius is nearly twice that of Earth's and its mass is multiple times higher; it is slightly lighter than (but still substantially larger due to its lower density) its inner neighbor Moorna. Oveno is a "superoceanic" planet: its entire surface is covered in water, extending to a depth of many hundreds of kilometers below surface level - beyond that point it is theorized to transition into exotic ice. And unlike Earth, water makes up a large portion of Oveno's interior composition. Oveno's atmosphere is considerably thicker than Earth's and is quite noticeably warmer as well; this combined with the planet's oceanic, moist environment create constant swarms of hurricanes that rage ceaselessly across its oceans, some of which can pose a significant hazard to settlements located on it.
Oveno is one of the most notable examples of artificial engineering within the Polytinaris System: a series of four hexagonal megacities known as Xyzlexes coat its surface and are clearly visible even from space. The largest and most populated of the xyzlexes is the Dremaris Xyzlex centered on its equator and located along the planet's antimeridian; the other ones are the Belzis Xyzlex at its 90th meridian, the Lanaiel Xyzlex at its 270th meridian, and the Zamaelis Xyzlex at its prime meridian. Combined together, the four megacities have a population of over 30 billion - the highest of any celestial body in the entire Polytinaris System.
A medium-sized ring system encircles Oveno's equator and is prominently visible from the surface. It is thought to have been formed by a relatively recent impact event.
Hyparspynar
Hyparspynar is the sixth planet of the Kalagors System. Hyparspynar is a gargantuan terrestrial planet with a mass comparable to that of Neptune. It is also notable for its extremely rapid rotation: the planet takes just 22 minutes to complete one single rotation on its axis.
The extremely rapid rotation of Hyparspynar has pronounced impacts on the planet and its environment. The two most notable effects are its extreme polar flattening (the planet’s equatorial diameter is over twice that of its pole-to-pole width) and its broad atmosphere disk. Hyparspynar is theorized to have originally formed as a small gas dwarf planet, but a major impact event early in its history which spurred its fast spin caused the planet to lose mass and throw off its outer layers into orbit, forming the atmosphere disk that circles it today. This theory is supported not only by Hyparspynar’s anomalously large size compared to other terrestrial planets, but also by both its planetary atmosphere and its outer disk being rich in hydrogen.
Despite Hyparspynar’s highly unusual environment and its bizarre characteristics, it is in fact a habitable planet and is the home of the Iphilians, an exotic species with great malleability and shapeshifting abilities to adapt to their world’s environment. They can alter their body physiology into numerous different forms and sizes, but their most natural appearance is a spiral faintly resembling a cyclone or hurricane. Their society had advanced to around 20th-century Earth tech by the time of the Tessian Revolution in 1998 and was generally quite reclusive and not well-understood by outsiders.
Moreus
Moreus is the Kalagors System's seventh planet as well as its largest, boasting a mass nearly twice that of Jupiter's and a radius of almost 90,000 kilometers. This grants Moreus the title of the Polytinaris System's largest planet, although it is not its most massive and is actually less than half as heavy as the Tinaria System's largest planet Darhe.
A textbook example of a Sudarsky Class II gas giant, Moreus's atmosphere is predominantly composed of water ice clouds that give it its signature light bluish hue. Modest quantities of atmospheric methane gather in the planet's higher latitudes, tinting them a soft purple. Moreus's atmosphere is also quite turbulent and is home to massive, very long-lived storm systems: among these, the gas giant hosts the largest storm in the entire Polytinaris System, an anticyclone in its southern hemisphere which is almost three times wider than Earth.
Calaro
Calaro is the innermost and largest of the two habitable moons of Moreus. It is also the largest moon in the entire Polytinaris System by a considerable margin, being over 10,000 kilometers in radius and having a mass multiple times greater than Earth's. Its very high mass compared to Moreus's other moons (not including Delpelagus) has led to speculation that Calaro may be a captured object, though its orbital plane and shape are both inconsistent and unsupportive of this theory.
Calaro is colder than Earth and its environment is substantially different thanks to its thicker atmosphere and higher surface gravity. In some ways, it bears similarities to a world like Saturn's moon Titan or the Tinaria System's Nephilim, though much warmer and in a habitable zone setting. This has led to the moon fostering a significant population of scientists and geologists seeking to study the environments of Titan-like worlds without the need for specialized habitation units. Additionally, many scientists also take attention to Calaro to study the effects of its massive size (thick atmosphere & strong surface gravity) on evolution. Calaro has relatively little and primitive native life compared to other more habitable worlds, and its permanent population is nowhere near as high as its neighbor Delpelagus.
Delpelagus
Delpelagus is the second and smaller of the two major inhabitable moons of Moreus. It still however considerably exceeds the Earth in mass and radius and is the largest "traditiona" (i.e., Earth-like) habitable world within the system. Like its inner sibling Calaro, Delpelagus is speculated by some to be a captured object, though its orbital plane and location within the system cast doubts on this theory.
Like the Tinaria System’s Kalei, Delpelagus is a primarily oceanic world dotted with small island continents, though it takes this to an extreme: almost all of Delpelagus is covered in ocean, and the only islands tend to be very small. These islands, which are arranged into large chains several thousands of miles long by the moon’s high level of tectonic activity, nevertheless still have substantial usable land due to Delpelagus’s larger size overall. In addition, its climate is also markedly warmer than Earth's despite its distance from Kalagors: the vast oceans covering its surface are a major contributing factor to this.
The most bizarre & most visually distinguishing aspect of Delpelagus is not its large size nor its pelagic nature, but its ring system - one of the only known to exist around a natural satellite and easily one of the largest solely in its width. Delpelagus's rings are a consequence of Moreus's strong gravity; the gas giant pulls stray asteroids and other space debris, and said rocky material then ends up in orbit around Delpelagus, where it clumps together to form rings. The rings are both a site of intense scientific activity and a source of tourism from all over the Polytinaris System to the moon. The rings themselves are not especially bright or large, but are otherwise noteworthy for their orderly structure into two well-defined subsystems: one close to Delpelagus and the other further away. TBA
Mirora
Mirora is the eighth planet of the Kalagors System and is one of Moreus’s two orbital trojans - Mirora is located in its leading L4 Lagrange point, 60 degrees ahead of its larger neighbor. It is also the system’s first ice giant and an example of a mini-Neptune: it is a mostly gaseous world much larger and more massive than Earth but considerably lighter than the actual Neptune.
Mirora is quite similar to Hyparspynar in mass and size (although the latter is considerably wider than it), leading some scientists to speculate the two likely formed together but underwent vastly different evolutionary paths. Hyparspynar, after sustaining a gargantuan impact, had its rotation greatly shortened, resulting in the planet throwing off its outer layers into space, leaving the remaining rocky center as a highly oblate terrestrial world. Mirora meanwhile had no such event; as such, it remained a mostly gaseous Neptune-like world with an inaccessible central core. Therefore, Mirora is extensively studied and attracts special interest from those who want to know about Hyparspynar’s early history.
Generally speaking, there is nothing oddly apparent about Mirora; it is a normal ice giant planet possessing a hazy, soft-banded atmosphere rich in methane, ammonia, and water ices (as opposed to the hydrogen and helium-dominated atmospheres of true gas giants). This specific composition creates the planet’s distinct deep bluish hue. Lastly, Mirora’s most notable feature is its wide ring system, which shares the planet’s blue color from reflection of light off its surface.
Salexa
The trailing orbital trojan of Moreus, Salexa is the Kalagors System’s ninth planet as well as its smallest, being a small cold rock ball barely larger than the Solar System’s Mercury. It is a barren, heavily cratered world with little else to offer aside from rare subsurface minerals which are intensively extracted.
Urson & Blair
Urson and Blair are the dual tenth major planets of the Kalagors System and are the system’s two larger ice giants. Urson has a mass and radius considerably higher than Neptune’s, while Blair is roughly the same size as Neptune.
Urson and Blair are notable for being the Polytinaris System’s sole pair of binary planets, a rare and decidedly unusual configuration for objects as large as themselves. The exact causes of this are not clear, but they are a significant point of interest for Polytinarian researchers keen on uncovering the pair’s secrets. Their binary orbit is quite distant, but their combined gravities are still enough to lock Urson into a synchronous rotation with its companion Blair, and vice versa. Due to their very slow rotational periods, Urson & Blair’s atmospheres are both rather bland and lack the well-defined multicolored banding of the larger gas giants in the system. The pair also share a moon system consisting primarily of tiny icy rocks captured from the outer regions of their system.
Urson, the larger component of the binary, is a blue-and-white ice giant planet. Its banding is the most apparent, being mainly driven by its internal heating and its extremely high surface winds which frequently reach supersonic speeds.
Blair, the smaller component of the binary, is in contrast colored a light pinkish due to its atmosphere containing tholins - compounds otherwise commonly found on small, distant icy bodies such as dwarf planets. Blair’s weather is much calmer than Urson’s, giving the ice giant an appearance a little similar to the Solar System’s Uranus.
Omest
Omest is the final planet in the Kalagors System as well as the orbital companion of the Urson-Blair binary planet system, being located in a trailing Lagrangian orbit 60 degrees behind the binary pair.
Omest falls roughly in between the planets Mars and Earth in terms of mass, radius, and density. In its environment, Omest is not unlike Saturn’s moon Titan: the planet’s atmosphere is mostly composed of nitrogen and its surface is host to large seas hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane that experience eerily Earth-like processes, like a methane-based water cycle and liquid erosion. However, thanks to Omest’s considerably larger size, its atmosphere is much more reminiscent of Earth in its behavior, exhibiting intricate cloud formations, cyclonic storms, and other complicated weather phenomena that otherwise would not manifest on a smaller, Titan-sized world. Despite its uncanny resemblance to more habitable worlds, Omest is not extensively colonized due to its toxic atmosphere and freezing cold temperatures. Nevertheless there are still sizable dome colony complexes inhabited by geologists and other research experts who seek to understand the planet and its very bizarre environment.
Tinaria
Tinaria is the secondary star of the Polytinaris System and is an orange dwarf star of spectral class K2V. It is roughly 80% as massive and 77% as large as the Sun in terms of mass and radius and is a little over one-third as bright as it. It has a surface temperature of 5,060 degrees Kelvin. Tinaria and Kalagors orbit each other in an extremely wide binary taking several tens of thousands of years to orbit around each other; the two stars have a separation of around 700 astronomical units on average. This allows for both of the stars to maintain their own planetary systems, however as a consequence they also both have significantly fewer comets and asteroids than are present in the Solar System.
Tinaria, like Kalagors, is roughly 6 billion years old, but due to its lower mass it will remain on the main sequence for a longer period of time. It is thought that in around 10 billion years, Tinaria will exhaust its core hydrogen and expand into a large red giant - undergoing similar stages of late evolution to Kalagors - likely destroying its two innermost planets & possibly its innermost gas giant Palemarma as well. At the conclusion of its asymptotic giant branch Tinaria will shrink into a carbon-oxygen white dwarf and eventually succumb to the same fate as Kalagors.
Murmesa
Murmesa is the innermost and first planet of the Tinaria System. A small, barren rocky world covered in craters and lacking an atmosphere, Murmesa bears a striking resemblance to the planet Mercury not only in outward appearance & environment but also in mass, radius, and internal composition. It also has a similar rotation too: like Mercury, Murmesa is locked in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance with Tinaria, completing three rotations per every two orbits.
There are some reports of an extremely tenuous and invisible ring around Murmesa consisting of dust thrown up from meteor impacts, but these are disputed.
Dend
Dend is the second planet of Tinaria and the larger of its two inner terrestrial planets. Dend is one of several Tinarian planets that are all of similar size to each other & are all slightly smaller than (but still generally comparable to) Earth: besides itself, this group also includes Tertan and Svorda. But while the aforementioned two planets are both habitable worlds with abundant life and liquid water, Dend is a hot hellish wasteland very similar to Genenia’s Nihmel or the Solar System’s own Venus. A massively thick atmosphere composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide surrounds Dend, which is very effective at trapping heat and raises its surface temperature to levels far too hot for sustainable colonization.
Underneath a layer of highly reflective sulfur-rich clouds, Dend’s surface is host to copious amounts of volcanoes that erupt almost constantly, releasing ever greater amounts of greenhouse gases into its atmosphere. Like Nihmel, as a consequence of its inhospitable nature Dend is totally unpopulated and has been avoided by the Polytinaris System’s inhabitants.
A strange trait of Dend that is visible even from orbit is the planet’s magenta hue. Little is known of how this was created or of what it is caused by, but one well-known hypothesis attributes the color to sulfur-based extremophile organisms that float amongst its clouds and produce Dend’s signature color via photosynthesis and/or other similar processes. The planet’s surface is also slightly purplish tinged (likely for similar reasons as to the atmosphere) but naturally it bears a much more typical dull brownish color.
Palemarma
Palemarma is Tinaria’s third planet and its system’s first gas giant. It is also one of the Polytinaris System’s largest planets and holds a radius noticeably larger than Jupiter; alas, Palemarma is substantially less massive and only has about twice the mass of Saturn. Its large size is thought to be a byproduct of its lower density owing to a higher temperature.
Palemarma’s atmosphere resembles a toned down, color-muted version of Jupiter’s. While significant portions of it is fairly calm similar to Saturn’s, Palemarma also has more turbulent weather belts and a few anticyclonic oval storms located in both of its hemispheres. Notably, unlike similar planets located in other solar systems, Palemarma’s atmosphere hosts a stark yellowish complexion, a characteristic coming from the gas giant’s unusually hydrogen-deficient upper cloud decks in addition to the presence of sulfur compounds within it.
Palemarma hosts a medium-sized ring system composed of rocky material. Thanks to it orbiting within Tinaria’s habitable zone, it also harbors a habitable moon named Fera.
Fera
Not to be confused with Ferre.
Fera is the sole inhabitable moon of Palemarma and is also the largest of the gas giant’s moons, as well as being the only one to have reached hydrostatic equilibrium and compressed itself into a spheroidal shape. Fera is somewhat larger and heavier than the Earth and is comparable to Kebo in the Kalagors System.
Fera is host to large water oceans and a rich, thriving biosphere with extraordinary natural complexity: the moon is host to millions of species of plants and animals covering all parts of its surface. Because of its high biodiversity, Fera is sometimes called a superhabitable world as to better emphasize its unique native ecosystem. Plants on Fera are physically a cyan blue in order to most efficiently absorb the somewhat higher amounts of radiation it receives from Tinaria, but they exhibit light pinkish hues as an evolved protection mechanism similar to those possessed on several of Genenia’s habitable planets.
In terms of climate, Fera is warm, wet, and tropical. The average temperature is considerably warmer than Earth’s, both as a result of the moon’s closer location to its star and from tidal heating coming from Palemarma. Strong gravitational stresses generated by its gas giant parent mean that Fera is very tectonically active; multiple large volcanic complexes similar to the Martian Tharsis region cover large areas of the moon’s continents, hosting volcanoes that are substantially taller thanks to lower surface gravity. Tidal forces generated by Palemarma also spur a pair of extremely strong tidal hurricanes on Fera’s planet-facing side; to natives these two storms, which have winds of several hundred miles per hour, are known as the Viulum Borumis & Viulum Ossycria (“Northern Tempest” and “Southern Tempest” in aerlon language). Thankfully, neither of them pose hazards to settlers due to their distance from major inhabited landmasses.
Fera has no native sentient life; regardless, it is still one of the largest population centers of Polytinaris System and serves as a major hub for the Aerlons originating from the planet Tertan. Its balmy climate and rich endemic life makes it a popular vacation destination for travelers throughout the entire system - safaris, underwater tours, and other nature watching activities are popular among Feran tourists and residents alike. The government of the moon has been conscious to not let nature suffer from extensive urban development, and Fera has some of the most rigorous environmental protection regulations in the entire Polytinaris System.
Saneya
Saneya is the fourth planet of the Tinaria System. It is notable for being in a Lagrangian trojan orbit with the much larger Palemarma, occupying a trailing position behind it but otherwise having identical orbital characteristics.
Saneya is the largest of Tinaria’s terrestrial planets, having a radius of over 7,000 kilometers and being nearly twice as massive as Earth. Notably, it is also a very dense planet due to possessing a disproportionately large iron core for its size. As a consequence of its high density and greater mass, Saneya’s surface gravity is the highest of all the habitable worlds in the Polytinaris System (not counting Hyparspynar).
Climatologically speaking, Saneya is a very dry, arid planet that is hotter than Earth. Most of Saneya’s surface is covered in desert, with expansive stretches of sand dunes covering significant amounts of the planet’s surface. There is liquid water on Saneya, but of a lesser amount compared to more humid worlds. Diurnal temperatures vary by massive amounts as they do in some of the Earth’s largest desert regions - however, on Saneya, these differences are even more extreme due to the planet’s much slower rotation: in some regions the temperature can approach boiling during the day, only to get down to below freezing at night. Ocean-driven weather systems, such as tropical cyclones or tidal fog, tend to be sporadic and quite weak on Saneya due to the planet’s great aridity.
Although it has a breathable atmosphere and is host to native forms of life, Saneya is rather sparsely populated because of its harsh environment. Most settlements on the planet tend to be located along the coastlines of one of its small seas or near the poles where the climate is more mild. Surprisingly, Saneya is host to a substantial farming and plant-cultivating community. Potent and plentiful Saneyan sunlight combined with artificial irrigation is very effective at growing several types of Tinarian plants and crops. However, low nighttime temperatures are a common risk especially to younger plants.
Tertan
Fifth planet of Tinaria, Tertan is its third habitable world and is the original home planet of the Aerlons, one of the Polytinaris System’s three major intelligent races and undoubtedly the most technologically advanced of them. Strongly resembling the humans of a distant planet called Earth (albeit with some physiological differences, namely their possession of larger, more mammalian ears located on top of their heads), the aerlons are the dominant species across not just Tertan itself or the Tinaria system, but across many more star systems as well as a result of aggressive expansionism across the 21st century under the dictatorial Tessian Hegemony. An example of the aerlons' technological power can even be seen from space in the form of Tertan’s massive Ovzeria megacity, home to over 100 million people.
Tertan is a little smaller and less massive than Earth. It is in all respects a standard habitable planet, harboring water oceans, a breathable atmosphere, and diverse native lifeforms. Compared to Earth, Tertan is somewhat hotter and more humid; it does not have even sporadic ice caps located at either of its two poles. Like Kebo, most of its land is joined together into a single large supercontinent. Tertan does have more and larger island continents than Kebo, and its climate is not as dry either. Furthermore, Tertan has a greater biodiversity than Earth, but not to such a degree as to where it could be called a superhabitable world like Fera. Photosynthesizing plants on the planet also bear a deep scarlet red hue as a consequence of Tinaria’s warmer-toned light compared to Earth’s Sun.
Tertan’s most distinctive feature is its opposite direction of rotation compared to Tinaria’s other planets. This retrograde spin is thought to be the result of a massive impact the planet sustained in its early history; this impact is also postulated to have formed the two large moons that orbit around Tertan.
More information about Tertan can be found here.
Ruby
Ruby is the sixth planet of the Tinaria System and its next gas giant. In both size & mass, Ruby falls somewhere in between the planets Jupiter and Saturn of the Solar System. However, Ruby is much warmer than either gas giant; a consequence of it being located within Tinaria's habitable zone, near its outer edge.
Like Palemarma, Ruby exhibits atypical coloration for a habitable region gas giant. The planet is known for its striking pinkish-red hue (as opposed to the light blue that is usual for a gaseous planet of similar temperature) that derives itself from airborne bacterial life floating in its clouds - a trait also shared by Niran in the neighboring Kalagors System. Ruby's aerial life is of similar biology to that of Niran but is colored red as opposed to green due to the fainter, redder stellar radiation it receives from Tinaria. Furthermore, Ruby's atmosphere is also rich in iodine, a chemical that is thought to further contribute to the gas giant's distinctive hue.
Ruby's most visually distinguishing feature is its massive ring system, the widest in the entire Polytinaris System, which is several million kilometers in breadth and is roughly ten times larger than the rings of Saturn. The rings are notorious not only for their impressive size but also for their color: a bright magenta purple. The exact cause of this has been the subject of much debate and is unknown.
Kalei
The largest moon of Ruby as well as its sole habitable moon, Kalei is a fairly cool world mostly covered in an ocean dotted with small island continents primarily of volcanic origin. Size-wise and mass-wise, Kalei is a little larger and heavier than Mars.
Kalei is a primarily oceanic moon with a similar climate & environment to the planet Svorda, though more oceanic as its surface is covered in a larger proportion of water compared to said planet or Earth. WIP
Svorda
Svorda is the seventh planet of the Tinaria System and is the leading trojan planet of Ruby. Similar to its neighbors Dend and Tertan, Svorda is a little smaller than the Earth but is still considerably bigger than Mars.
Located near the outskirts of the Tinaria System's life-supporting habitable zone, Svorda is quite cold compared to the system's other three habitable worlds: its average temperature is slightly lower than Earth's. Similar to Saneya, Svorda's climate is generally arid, with most of the land being covered in desert (plant life is unusually absent). Unlike Saneya, Svorda is an oceanic world much more like Tertan or Fera; its rather dry climate stems primarily from its low temperature as opposed to lack of water. This greater amount of surface water (in addition to its possession of a breathable atmosphere & native life) makes Svorda much more suitable for large-scale colonization, and as such it is home to quite a large number of aerlons along with smaller populations of Polytinaris's other sentient species.
Svorda's soil is rich in iron oxide, giving it an orange color not different from the surface of Mars. Also like Mars, Svorda harbors large volcanoes that can grow larger than those on Earth. Due to the stronger gravity however, they are nowhere near as tall as those on Mars. Svorda's unique environmental combination with aspects of both a habitable Earth-like planet and an arid Mars-like world make the planet a hotspot for geological research. While the Polytinaris System contains no true Mars analogue, information gathered on Svorda has proved invaluable in analyzing the geologic pasts of now lifeless worlds in other star systems, providing a model as to what they may have looked like in the distant past.
Calgoier
Calgoier was one of Tinaria's two major dwarf planets, and it occupied a trailing Lagrangian trojan orbit of Ruby. Calgoier was a very small body compared to the Tinaria System's true planets or even some of its larger moons, but it was still large enough to keep itself in equilibrium and remain roughly a sphere. Among dwarf planets, it was more typically sized: Calgoier was about three-quarters the size of Pluto. Like most dwarf planets, Calgoier was too small to sustain any sort of atmosphere and it existed merely as a barren rock devoid of life.
Despite its diminutive size, Calgoier still holds a vastly important role in the history of the entire Polytinaris System and lays claim to being the only body of the system destroyed by an artificial superweapon. Prior to its destruction, Calgoier was home to the Polytinaris System's largest mining colony: at its maximum, it had a population of several million miners, with depots, pit mines, & base stations being spread across almost all of the planetoid's surface. Thanks to readily available construction materials as well as its strategic location close to the middle point between Tinaria's inner and outer planets & its anonymity compared to larger worlds, Calgoier was also a bustling base for the military of the Polytinaris Commonwealth, the Unified Joint Armed Forces (UJAF). During the Great Tessian Revolution of March-April 1998, Calgoier was utilized by the UJAF as a staging base, protected by robust orbital defense stations and a fleet of almost 100 warships intended to deter the incoming Tessian rebellion.
To the surprise and shock of not only the Commonwealth's military but also to tens of billions of civilians across the entire Polytinaris System, on March 15, 1998 Calgoier was struck by the planet-razing cannon of Teagonia Evelon Gretolia's Dezirius-class battle cruiser and shortly after exploded into a luminous fireball. The blast appeared brighter than any star in the sky as seen from neighboring planets and catastrophically destroyed the entire UJAF fleet surrounding the dwarf planet with hapless few survivors. The destruction of Calgoier was one of the deadliest disasters in Polytinarian history, killing an estimated 13.4 million. From the perspective of historians, the destruction of Calgoier was the first major victory for the revolution led by Tessia von Gretolia and it paved the way for the founding of the Hegemony just over a month later. Calgoier's destruction is also sometimes compared to the equally devastating Incineratas that occurred on the Kalagors System's Hyparspynar a few weeks later in early April 1998; above all else Calgoier was the first of numerous worlds the Tessian Hegemony destroyed or rendered otherwise uninhabitable during its history.
Due to the circumstances of the Tessian Hegemony's perception of the Commonwealth, the destruction of Calgoier received little public attention until the Hegemony's fall in 2122. After the collapse of the tyrannical Tessian regime, calls began for proper remembrance and recognition of the Calgoier disaster. In response, the now incumbent Stellar Commonwealth created a new public holiday known as Calgoier Remembrance Day out of solemn respect for the millions who were killed in the dwarf planet's destruction on March 15, 1998.
Bronze
Bronze, the Tinaria System's eighth planet, is another gas giant. Bronze is very similar to Ruby in mass, radius, & general composition: it too is larger than the Solar System's Saturn but is smaller than Jupiter. However, Bronze lacks a brightly colored ring system or atmospheric life and is in all aspects a more typical giant planet than Ruby.
Bronze is a standard cold gas giant analogous of Jupiter or Saturn. It has a turbulent, highly banded atmosphere that harbors many types of ammonia and water-based molecules and cloud decks. It also is host to significant storm activity, including a GRS-like anticyclone in its northern hemisphere which has been raging for several centuries. Furthermore, Bronze has several dozen moons and has a greater number of natural satellites than Ruby, although the vast majority of them are small kilometer-sized stray rocks captured from orbits around Tinaria.
Altein
Altein is the ninth planet of Tinaria. It is also the orbital trojan of Bronze, lying within its trailing L5 Lagrange point. Altein is a modestly sized terrestrial world and has roughly the same mass and radius as the Solar System's Mars.
Altein is a barren rocky planet with no atmosphere. Its very dark surface - Altein has the lowest albedo of any planet in the Polytinaris System, reflecting less than a tenth of the light it receives from its star - is heavily cratered and shows negligible evidence of recent geologic activity. Altein’s sole unique characteristic is its very thin ring system that is barely visible from orbit. The rings are likely very old and were formed long ago by an impact event; Altein probably had larger rings in the past, but steady orbital decay has greatly thinned them, with ring material accumulating on the surface in the form of a large equatorial ridge. Both the rings and the ridge possess a greenish tinge of unknown origin.
Darhe
Darhe is the tenth planet of the Tinaria System and by far its largest. A true planetary heavyweight and a very large super-Jupiter, Darhe has a mass approximately five times greater than that of Jupiter’s. This makes it the most massive planet not only around Tinaria but also in the entire Polytinaris System. However, Darhe is only about 20% larger than Jupiter due to also having a substantially higher density. Darhe’s massive bulk has profound effects on the other planets of the Tinaria System and its huge gravity is regarded as one of the greatest factors contributing to the existence of life in the inner Tinaria System - the planet captures stray asteroids that could otherwise strike the habitable worlds of the system.
Darhe’s weather systems are on a scale to match its size. The planet’s atmosphere harbors vivid colors of red, orange, and yellow manifesting from several different elemental compounds including ammonia crystals, hydrocarbons, water ice, and methane. Several turbulent storm bands cross different zones of the atmosphere, all hosting winds of several hundred miles per hour. Darhe also has a multitude of white ovals located primarily in its northern hemisphere, the very largest of which is nearly as big as the Earth. The gas giant is also encircled by an equally huge ring system consisted of ice chunks, dust, and rocky materials.
Darhe is notable also for its very high axial tilt that gives it a stance slightly similar to the Solar System’s Uranus. The reasoning for this is quite controversial for the planet’s extreme size: it is thought that a possible impactor would have had to have been almost as massive as Saturn in order to have disrupted Darhe into its current axial position. The planet’s rings and the majority of its inner moon system also orbit in a direction normal to its rotational axis.
Jahalle
Jahalle is the innermost of the three notable moons of Darhe. A planet-sized moon, Jahalle has a mass greater than that of the planet Mercury and is much larger than many other moons in the Tinaria System; in fact, Jahalle is nearly as big as the planet Altein.
Jahalle is an example of a rare carbon moon, a world composed of a significant proportion of carbon compounds - a trait that also gives the moon its very dark outward appearance - as opposed to either a silicate-iron makeup of other terrestrial bodies or a composition of ice like many other moons in the outer system. How Jahalle ended up with so much carbon is very much a mystery, although the moon is host to the Polytinaris System’s largest coal and oil deposits that were once highly valued throughout the system but have since disappeared due to the system’s inhabitants adopting cleaner renewable energy sources.
Nephilim
Nephilim is the second of Darhe’s three major moons and is its largest moon, exceeding the planet Mars in both mass and diameter. Nephilim is also the outermost terrestrial body in the Tinaria System known to possess a substantial atmosphere. Nephilim’s surface environment is very similar to Saturn’s moon Titan: the moon has lakes of methane hydrocarbons and has an atmosphere host to thick clouds and highly rich in nitrogen. However, both Nephilim’s surface and atmosphere bear an outwardly different turquoise hue as a consequence of the moon harboring noticeable levels of chlorine. Second, Nephilim is also generally wetter than Titan and a larger portion of its surface is covered in methane seas.
Nephilim is a world of high interest for exobiologists of the Polytinaris System. The moon’s possession of primitive organic compounds has in particular stemmed extensive research into its potential habitability for life. However, any organisms that evolved on Nephilim would certainly use methane as a solvent and be of significantly different biology compared to more conventional water-based lifeforms extant on other planets throughout the system. Despite this, Nephilim’s population numbers only a hapless few; although it has environmental systems and characteristics vaguely resembling those of a habitable world, its atmosphere is toxic and it is far too cold to allow for settlement outside of enclosed dome habitats.
Ajos
Ajos is the outermost of Darhe’s three major moons. It is also the smallest of the trio, being comparable in size to Earth’s Moon.
A frigid icy moon lacking an atmosphere, Ajos has much in common with Jupiter’s moon Europa. Its surface is quite young on a geologic timescale and is atypically deficient of impact craters, being instead covered in numerous rough grooves. Ajos is hypothesized to possess a subglacial ocean kept liquid by the huge gravitational pull of Darhe. Due to this ocean’s potential for hosting life, Ajos has like its neighbor Nephilim also attracted significant scientific attention from the inhabitants of the system.
Ajos is one of the most reflective objects in the Polytinaris System thanks to its bright bluish-gray color and generally icy surface.
Dek
Dek is Tinaria’s eleventh planet as well as the innermost of its three outer ice giants. Dek is rather large amongst ice giant planets and is both bigger & heavier than Uranus and Neptune; alas, it is still much smaller than a proper gas giant such as Jupiter or Saturn. From space, Dek appears as an uninteresting bluish sphere lacking visible banding features or storm spots similarly to Uranus. However, its atmosphere is still host to ferocious winds far faster than those of the strongest hurricanes on Earth.
The most notable visual component of Dek is a set of rings that extend quite far from the planet but are rather narrow, beginning quite close to their end point. They host a greenish color of unknown origin.
Tess
Tess is the twelfth planet of the Tinaria System and its second ice giant. Slightly larger in diameter than Uranus, Tess is in all aspects a classical ice giant and it shares many traits with the Solar System’s two outer planets. However, Tess’s atmosphere is more visibly defined, possessing several distinct bands of brown in addition to cyan tones more usual of an ice giant. Furthermore, it has a larger, brighter system of rings than either aforementioned planet.
Naros
The outermost planet of the Tinaria System, Naros is the system’s third ice giant. It is nearly equivalent to Neptune in mass, radius, and material composition, but has a darker and more pronounced blue color as a result of its atmosphere containing a higher proportion of methane. It also has a tenuous, clumpy ring system thought to be the byproduct of collisions between several of its inner moons.
Also similar to Neptune, Naros sometimes displays large dark spots that can last anywhere from weeks to several decades. The exact nature of these is poorly understood, but they are thought to be transient storms that form and disappear similar to the Great Dark Spot.
Iana
Iana is the largest notable dwarf planet of the Tinaria System. A small, cold icy body bearing a stark resemblance to Pluto, Iana is barren and devoid of settlement. Its orbit occasionally swings inside that of Naros’s, making it closer to Tinaria for roughly two decades at a time.
Genenia
Genenia is the third and smallest star of the Polytinaris trio, being a small, dim red dwarf of spectral class M6.5V. Genenia is much smaller than its two neighbors, being just 11% as massive and only 15% as large as it; in fact, the star is even smaller than some of the largest known gas giants in other star systems. It is also barely one-thousandth as luminous as the Sun, a result of its small size along with its low temperature of only 2,715 Kelvin.
Genenia is a very distant companion to the Kalagors-Tinaria binary system and has an average separation of over 10,000 AU from the two stars. Despite their great distance, the effect of the gravity of its adjacent stars is still apparent on the red dwarf and its system. It is thought that early in its lifespan, the three stars were much closer together, and that gravitational instabilities from Kalagors and Tinaria had an effect of "stretching out" Genenia's protoplanetary disk - thought to be one of the causes behind its impressively large system of 18 planets (the largest such known, tied with the star Iculium). Because of Genenia's red dwarf characteristics, which in turn leads to smaller distances between each of its planets, the planets in the Genenia System tend to have much fewer moons than those around Tinaria or Kalagors.
The exact fate of Genenia is not certain. It is not massive enough to begin helium fusion at its core and is expected to therefore not undergo a red giant stage unlike its two neighbors. The most commonly accepted theory as to how Genenia will ultimately "die" is that in several trillion years, when it exhausts its hydrogen, it will increase in temperature until it becomes a blue dwarf before finally petering out as a helium-rich white dwarf.
Genenia is known for producing significant stellar flare events on occasion that can prove hazardous to the inhabitants of its system. Although it is far from the most active red dwarf star, this has earned it the designation as a variable flare star.
Sturven
Sturven is the first planet of the Genenia System. A small rocky terrestrial planet with no atmosphere & a heavily cratered surface, Sturven bears many similarities to the Solar System's Mercury. It is however noticeably larger; in terms of mass and radius Sturven is more comparable to Mars. Sturven is desolate, barren, and devoid of all signs of life save for small mining outposts designed for the extraction of rare materials from the planet's surface.
Like all of the inner terrestrial planets in the Genenia System, Sturven is tidally locked and always faces the same direction toward its star. Some parts of its surface are covered in molten lava due to its closeness to Genenia itself and the resulting high temperatures.
Nihmel
Nihmel is the second planet of Genenia as well as its second-largest terrestrial planet, with a mass and radius both greatly exceeding Earth's. Nihmel is a little smaller than but still comparable to its neighbor Ragauno, which it is in fact actually slightly heavier than due to containing a larger proportion of iron in its composition. Alas, this comes at the cost of it being denser and therefore not as large as in actual size.
In many ways Nihmel is very much like the planet Venus: its surface, which is extremely hot and is host to temperatures high enough to melt lead, is shrouded in a bone-crushingly thick runaway greenhouse atmosphere oversaturated with carbon dioxide. The atmosphere is quite good at circulating heat around the planet, keeping temperatures even on its night side inhospitably high. Nihmel's day side is on average slightly warmer than its dark half, fueling intense temperature instabilities that fuel a huge tidal cyclone facing directly towards its star.
A surface dotted with numerous active shield volcanoes lies under the thick, blanketing sulfuric acid cloud deck that covers the entirety of Nihmel. These volcanoes can grow to immense sizes far larger than those on any other planet in the Polytinaris System, but they are not very tall as a result of the planet's strong surface gravity. Because of its exceptionally unfriendly environment, Nihmel has never been colonized by any of the sentient life within Polytinaris - the furthest such artificial ventures around it going as far as small robotic landers or orbital survey satellites which are unmanned and remotely controlled.
Taiko
Taiko is the third planet of Genenia and also its smallest, being smaller than even Mercury and not much bigger than Earth's Moon. It is similar to its neighbor Sturven in its environment, being a cratered terrestrial world without an atmosphere. Because of this, Taiko is sometimes jokingly referred to as the most boring planet in the Polytinaris System.
Ragauno
Ragauno, the Genenia System’s fourth planet and its largest terrestrial world, is also the first of its three habitable planets. Ragauno is about one and a half times larger and several times more massive than Earth, making it another super-Earth like its slightly smaller (but denser and heavier) neighbor Nihmel. Additionally, Ragauno is the only one of Genenia’s inner planets to possess a visibly prominent ring system. It is thought that its rings were created by a relatively recent asteroid impact event.
In general, Ragauno’s climate is warmer and wetter than that of Earth. Like Earth, the majority of Ragauno’s surface is covered in ocean, but most of the remaining solid land is host to densely forested jungles and boggy marshes & swampland. Although the planet is tidally locked, its vast seas and decently thick atmosphere keep temperatures across Ragauno’s surface fairly constant. This combined with its already hot, humid climate allow for the formation and propagation of tropical cyclones on both Ragauno’s day and night sides, but they tend to be much weaker on its day side as a result of outflow shear from its two semi-stationary tidal hypercanes that are a direct byproduct of its tidal locking to its star.
Plant life on Ragauno is colored red in order to better absorb Genenia’s much redder light. On its day side, the plants are more of a light salmon pink: a color resulting from their naturally evolved sun protection mechanisms that shield them against the significantly higher amounts of starlight that Ragauno receives compared to Earth. In darker regions where the light is not as strong, the plants can afford to stay their more natural colors of deep red (and a few variant shades of orange-brown and violet). This adaptation is also present in some forms of animal life, although to a lesser extent.
Ragauno’s balmy climate has made it a popular destination for Polytinarians in want of tropical beaches and abundant sunlight, driving a thriving tourist industry on the planet. In respect for its rich and unique natural ecosystems and environment, the successive governments of the planet have passed laws and legislation supporting environmental conservation of its native flora and fauna. Hunting for sport is still a popular Ragaunan pastime, and many local animals are considered fine delicacies amongst the world’s residents.
Odelia
Odelia is the fifth planet of the Genenia System and, along with its adjacent planets Ragauno and Etezan, is a habitable world. But unlike its two planetary siblings, and similarly to the Kalagors System’s own Oveno, Odelia is an ocean world completely covered in water with no solid landmasses whatsoever. Size-wise and mass-wise, Odelia falls somewhere in between the sizes of Mars and Earth.
Odelia is sometimes considered to be a smaller cousin of the ocean world Oveno in the neighboring Kalagors System. But Odelia is smaller, and its oceans do not make up a significant portion of its actual composition unlike Oveno - its sea does have a bottom of solid rock, but it is many times deeper than the oceans of Earth or those on similar planets and moons. The lack of land on the planet has a pronounced effect on Odelia’s weather systems, which produce cyclones that tend to last for multiple weeks or even months at a time. Storms on Odelia are not as strong as those on its neighbor Ragauno, however, due to its lower temperature, but they make up for this with their greatly higher frequency and quantity.
Because of its oceanic environment and lack of solid land to enable colonization and settlement, Odelia has a significantly lower population than neighboring terrestrial planets Ragauno and Etezan. The few permanent residents of the world reside on floating settlements on the sea’s surface; most other people living on it are temporary residents, or tourists keen on exploring Odelia’s rich and unique underwater life. Not surprisingly, this native life is predominantly marine, but a few species of flying animals do exist.
Like the other Genenian habitable worlds, the population of Odelia is primarily made up of members of the gesmian species. Emigrating engineers from the Kalagors System have pushed several proposals to construct massive floating megastructures on the planet’s surface which would be of a similar nature to the xyzlexes on Oveno, but these have been collectively rejected in the grounds of creating unnecessary environmental degradation.
Etezan
Etezan is the sixth planet of the Genenia System and is the home world of the sentient Gesmian species, a race of insect-like creatures which are one of the three major spacefaring races of the Polytinaris System along with the rorks of Kalagors and the aerlons of Tinaria. The gesmians have colonized the entirety of their star system & have greatly urbanized large portions of Etezan's surface, but they have long been the most environmentally conscious of the Polytinaris inhabitants, being oftentimes the earliest to embrace prospects such as renewable energy and mass recycling incentives. This has had the advantage of keeping the natural environments of the Genenia System's habitable worlds in better condition than those of Kalagors or Tinaria. In turn however, this also at times made technological progress amongst the gesmians somewhat slower than their neighbors.
Etezan is the third-largest terrestrial planet of the Genenia System, being a little larger and more massive than Earth. Like Earth, it has a habitable environment and is warm enough to support liquid water on its surface. Etezan is however significantly colder than Earth due to being near the outer edge of its star's habitable zone; therefore, its average stellar flux is more analogous to Mars in the Solar System. Snow and ice cover large portions of its surface, including the entirety of its dark side, which is covered in a massive semi-permanent ice cap.
The climate of Etezan is profoundly influenced by the planet's tidally locked state. Temperatures on its dark side, which nearly always stay below freezing, are barely high enough to allow for large-scale urban development. Even the warmest parts of Etezan's day side experience temperate climates, and all regions of the surface are frequently pummeled with powerful snowstorms and blizzards that can cause significant societal disruption. Plant life on Etezan, which naturally bears a magenta hue, is extremely hardy and built to withstand these intense conditions. Similarly, most species of Etezanian animals bear light coloration and have thick fur coats to help them survive in the planet's environment.
Gesmians who reside on Etezan are known for their strong natural ties and their unique culture which embraces the cold of their world in ingenious ways. The societies of Etezan and the moon Lielo in the Kalagors System are very similar: inhabitants of Lielo have incorporated many elements of Etezanian life into their own culture. Likewise, the reverse is true for Etezan: several pastimes and other aspects of the Lielans have made great strides within its population.
Yansh
Yansh is the seventh of Genenia's planets and the second-to-last of its terrestrial planets. It is similar in size and mass to Earth and is located near the outer edge of Genenia's habitable zone, but it has a much thinner atmosphere that produces a temperature and climate similar to Mars's. Additionally, Yansh also has a thin ring system.
Yansh has a very curious geology and history. It is thought that the planet may have once been a habitable world in its distant past, but over time eventually turned into an inhospitable frozen snowball as a result of its core solidifying (causing its magnetic field to shut down) because of its greater distance from Genenia, which caused it to cool at a faster rate than its inner cousins and eventually put it in a similar situation to Mars today. Yansh's surface still supports liquid, being covered in seas of an unusual chemical compound known as pentane. How these formed is not completely understood, but the leading consensus is that the material first formed out of residual hydrogen left by the loss of its oceans reacting with carbon stored under its surface. Over time, various processes like cryovolcanoes allowed those underground reservoirs to steadily make their way up to the surface.
Irma
The Genenia System's eighth planet, Irma is the most distant of its terrestrial worlds and a planet comparable in mass and radius to Mars. Like its neighbor Yansh, Irma possesses only a very thin atmosphere and is cold, arid, and devoid of native life. And also like the inner two planets Sturven and Taiko, it is near-totally uninhabited, with the only artificial settlements on its surface being small research stations and mining bases which are primarily automated and at most have only a few inhabitants.
Ghulius
Ghulius is the ninth planet of the Genenia System and its first gas giant. It is somewhat larger and heavier than the Solar System's Saturn but is still less than half as massive as Jupiter. Appearance-wise, Ghulius bears a marked resemblance to Jupiter: turbulent zones and belts crisscross all parts of its atmosphere, which is also host to a huge anticyclonic storm system in its southern hemisphere that greatly resembles the Great Red Spot. This storm, affectionately named the Great Brown Spot, has been observed for centuries by astronomers within the star system.
The primary visual difference between Ghulius & Jupiter is its deep reddish-brown coloration, a byproduct of its atmosphere containing a greater amount of tholins, ammonia crystals, hydrocarbons, and other materials.
Vonool
Vonool, Genenia's tenth planet and second gas giant, is also the first of five consecutive giant planets within the system that all possess planetary ring systems. Vonool is similar to its neighbor Ghulius in size, but is less massive (though its bulk is still somewhat larger than Saturn's)
Vonool's atmosphere is somewhat calmer and less intricate than Ghulius's, being in the middle between that of Jupiter's and that of Saturn's in storminess and outward band prominence. However, Vonool's atmosphere takes on a more greenish hue due to higher amounts of methane than either of the Solar System's two largest gas giants. Multiple oval-shaped anticyclones similar to the GRS are present in both of the planet's hemispheres, but none of them have a more pronounced coloration and therefore appear a similar greenish-yellow color as the rest of the planet.
The extensive system of rings surrounding Vonool is considerably wider than Saturn's, and in contrast also boasts a prominent light gray appearance. Like those around Saturn, they are thought to be the direct byproduct of Vonool itself shredding apart moons that drifted too close to it, within its planetary Roche limit.
Hellevenia
Hellevenia is the eleventh planet of the Genenia System. Another gas giant, Hellevenia is roughly the same size as the Solar System’s Saturn and is close enough to its neighbor Camallia in mass, radius, and physical properties to the point where some refer to them as sister planets.
In outward appearance however, Hellevenia could not be more different from its twin. Firstly, the planet’s atmosphere is notable for its striking, highly contrasting yellow and yellowish-brown colors that give it an appearance very slightly reminiscent of an Earth bumblebee. This atmosphere is host to some of the fastest winds in the entire Polytinaris System, regularly exceeding 700 miles per hour (1,126 km/h). Like its inner neighbor Vonool, Hellevenia’s atmosphere contains a higher proportion of methane than either Jupiter or Saturn’s (which explains its very intense yellow complexion), but its amount is not high enough to produce a chartreuse green as seen on Vonool.
As the second of the Genenia System’s chain of five ringed gas giants, Hellevenia sports a large ring system that is much wider than Saturn’s. The rings are particularly noteworthy not only for their size but also for their appearance: in stark difference to the planet itself, the rings bear a light cyan blue color for reasons unknown.
Camallia
Genenia’s twelfth planet, Camallia is the third of the system’s five consecutive ringed planets and is the outermost of its four inner gas giants. Sometimes considered a sister planet to the adjacent Hellevenia - which it is almost identical to in size & characteristics - Camallia is another Saturn-sized gas giant.
Camallia is comparable to Saturn in not only mass & radius but also in its appearance, material composition, its possession of hexagon-shaped storm systems at its poles, and even in its very similar and outwardly visible set of rings as well. Like Hellevenia’s, Camallia’s atmosphere is also host to very high winds, although its atmosphere is not as vivid and turbulent, instead containing several soft-colored bands of tan yellow & brown. Also like Saturn, Camallia’s higher latitudes turn a light bluish color during their winter seasons because of lower sunlight exposure caused by shadows created by its ring system.
Transsylvia
Transsylvia is the Genenia System’s thirteenth planet. The fifth of its outer giant planets, Transsylvia’s mass and diameter are somewhere in between those of Uranus and Saturn; likewise, its mass is also considerably greater than either Uranus or Neptune’s, but is much less than that of Saturn.
Astronomers have long debated on whether or not Transsylvia is a gas giant like its four inner siblings or an ice giant like its four outer cousins. In reality, it is actually somewhat of a gas giant-ice giant hybrid, possessing qualities and traits of both types of planet. Transsylvia is composed of roughly equal parts of hydrogen & helium gases and of heavier volatiles such as methane, ammonia, and water ice. This varied mixture of compounds within its atmosphere is thought to be a result of its colorful, almost rainbow appearance of which the planet is well-known for. The purples, blues, and greens of Transsylvia’s atmosphere come primarily from its ice giant compounds, whilst the reds and oranges are the result of its more gas giant-like components.
An unusual trait of Transsylvia is its retrograde rotation to the direction of its orbit (and to the rotation of all of the other Genenian planets). It is thought that early in its development, Transsylvia was struck by a large super-Earth sized object which reversed its direction of spin.
Transsylvia has an extensive system of rings that are somewhat larger in proportion to those of Saturn when compared with the planet itself. They possess a slightly purplish color that is similar to that of the planet’s higher latitudes.
Grevoran
Grevoran is the fourteenth Genenian planet and its first true ice giant. Grevoran is also the smallest of its outer giant planets, being somewhat smaller than Neptune - regardless, it is still much larger and several times more massive than the Earth.
Similarly to the Solar System's Uranus, Grevoran is tilted at a near vertical angle to the direction of its orbit. This is thought to have been caused by a massive impact that the planet sustained early in its history. In terms of outward appearance, Grevoran's atmosphere is quite like that of either Uranus or Neptune but bears a deep purple hue due to the presence of tholins similar to those found on a Jupiter-like gas giant, mixing with the methane in its atmosphere to produce its outward visual color.
Being the fifth and final member of the Genenia System's ringed planet chain, Grevoran has a modestly sized ring system around it that is similar in size to that of Uranus. However, its rings are different in two major ways: firstly, they are much more visible than those of Uranus, and secondly, they also boast a unique teal green color for reasons unknown but thought to be similar to those of Hellevenia's.
Jainder
Jainder is the fifteenth planet of the Genenia System and its next ice giant. In appearance and material composition, Jainder is a very Neptune-like planet, possessing a similar aquamarine hue stemming from methane crystals within its atmosphere. However, its size is considerably greater than that of Neptune or its neighbor Uranus. Aside from that, there is little else to note about Jainder.
Paisdel
Sixteenth planet of the Genenia System, Paisdel is another ice giant that is also larger and heavier than Uranus or Neptune but is noticeably smaller than its adjacent planet Jainder. It is the outermost planet of the system to have visible rings, which are quite wide and are divided into two outwardly visible sections, separated by a much more diffuse middle region. This is why some astronomers state that Paisdel has three ring systems, as they are not connected to each other.
Paisdel's atmosphere is similar to that of Jainder's in level of activity and general chemical makeup. However, a significant degree of tholins within said atmosphere (that mix with its naturally bluish-colored methane crystals) is responsible for producing the planet's recognizable hues of pink and magenta.
Muburu
Muburu is Genenia's seventeenth major planet and is the outermost of its four ice giants. Size-wise and mass-wise, Muburu is much more comparable to the Solar System's two ice giants than either Jainder or Paisdel. Muburu is known for its signature deep blue color, a byproduct of its upper cloud layers being substantially more methane-rich than Neptune's or Uranus's.
Being one of the Genenia System's outermost two planets, Muburu has an orbit that is greatly inclined to the plane of its star's rotation and that of the sixteen inner planets' orbits. The causes and reasoning behind this has been debated for decades, with several theories having been passed around to explain the unusual orbital characteristics of not only Muburu itself but also that of Dornk, the system's eighteenth planet. These range from interactions with the inner planets or having been pulled out of their prior orbits by Kalagors and Tinaria, to potentially being captured objects which did not form within the system and originated elsewhere.
Dornk
Dornk is the eighteenth and final planet of Genenia as well as its largest, holding a radius slightly larger than that of Jupiter. However, it is much less massive and less dense - a consequence that is thought to have resulted from its fast rotation.
Dornk's short rotational period of only 3 hours & 23 minutes is responsible for flattening it into a pronounced and outwardly visible oblate spheroid shape. To an extent, it is also thought this high rotational speed also caused its gases to expand out from its center, further reducing its already low density and allowing it to grow to a size larger than both Saturn or Jupiter. Dornk is sometimes compared to Hyparspynar in the Kalagors System, another fast-spinning world that was likely also a gas giant - however, Hyparspynar's spin being quicker than even Dornk's caused the aforementioned planet to completely lose hold of its lighter gases, flinging them into orbit and forming a ring-like atmosphere disk around the planet.
Dornk's name is sometimes ridiculed because it sounds similar to the word "dork".
Inhabitants
There are four sapient species inhabiting the Polytinaris System: the Rorks, Aerlons, Gesmians, and Iphilians. Each of the system’s three subsystems has one major spacefaring race, however the Kalagors System harbors two sentient species - the lesser advanced iphilians having not yet achieved spaceflight and being considerably less advanced than their neighbors the rorks.
Palaeroni
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The Palaeroni are the first and oldest civilization known to have existed within the Polytinaris System, dating to well over two billion years ago. Not much is known about the Palaeroni and the workings of their society and government, but it is known that they were unified in a monarchist state colloquially termed as the First Hegemony at the time of their extinction in the catastrophic Ipolyka about two billion years ago. The Palaeroni originated from the Tinaria System and possessed such a similar physiology to the currently extant aerlon species that the Palaeroni are widely believed to be their direct ancestors.
The Palaeroni were an extremely advanced society that probably had domain over the entirety of the Polytinaris Spur (a region several thousand light years in size) at their peak extent. However, solid evidence of Palaeroni presence has only been found in very few star systems outside of Polytinaris itself. The cause behind this absence of apparent settlement is unknown. Many pieces of their technology, such as a group of wormhole gates called Centria Coralia & plans of FTL-capable starship engines later adapted into the Ghorghosca Star Drives, have been utilized by their successors with varying levels of success.
Rorks of Kebo
Iphilians of Hyparspynar
Aerlons of Tertan
Gesmians of Etezan
WIP