Extrasolar Systems

Source: The Entirely Unofficial Gatecrashing Wiki

The discovery and limited understanding of the pandora gates has ushered in a new era for transhumanity. A true diaspora for our species is underway as we spread out across the galaxy. The number of new worlds discovered via the gate network is nearly countless, and increasing constantly. While many if not most worlds accessed to date have been of limited utility, a number of exceptional locations have been discovered and colonized. What follows is a brief but not exhaustive overview of some of the most notable worlds.

Droplet

Gate Access: Pandora Gate

One of the first habitable worlds discovered via the original Pandora Gate, Droplet is an exotic and lethal Earth-like planet. Only 8 percent of its surface is comprised of dry land, with the remainder given over to unimaginably deep oceans. Droplet’s gravity and atmosphere are both somewhat higher than Earth’s but not dauntingly so.

Droplet is the focus of serious long-term colonization efforts despite its numerous, voracious, and often massive native lifeforms. Droplet’s waters are notoriously the home of enormous predators that are not at all averse to dining upon transhumans or even small vehicles. On land, a variety of arthropod-like shelled amphibians and triphibious creatures capable of swimming, flying, and walking all enjoy a rich ecology in which transhumans sometimes play a dietary role. Consequently, installations on Droplet are surrounded by barriers and heavy weaponry.

Approximately one million years ago, Droplet’s native life generated a sapient species that developed a technological civilization before vanishing completely. Referred to as the Amphibs, their ruins abound in coastal regions. Numerous artifacts give us a clear vision of these amphibious peoples, though the cause of their disappearance remains a mystery. Even more interesting, another alien species known as Iktomi also left ruins on Droplet, though much more recently. Both civilizations have left traces near an anomalous structure dubbed “the Toadstool” located in the shallow waters just offshore Davis Island. This bulbous, mushroom-shaped structure reaches a height of almost five hundred meters above the surface of the sea. It is believed to be over a billion years old and is maintained by poorly understood nanoswarms that keep it in a state of perfect repair. It predates the Amphibs by hundreds of millions of years but little else is understood or even guessed as to its nature.

Echo

Gate Access: Pandora Gate

The Echo system is named for its twin suns and contains two noteworthy exoplanets. Echo Beta is verdant and flourishing with trackless forests and impressive megafauna. Echo Alpha is reached via the Pandora Gate and is a barren, lifeless world home to the first Iktomi ruins discovered by transhumanity.

Echo Alpha’s atmosphere is toxic, its landscape is bleak, and it is littered with ruins. Over 7,000 transhumans are based out of the dome habitat of Alexander, approximately 1,500 kilometers from the Echo Gate, adjacent to one of the largest sets of Iktomi ruins ever found. This settlement was founded by Gatekeeper and Argonaut xenoarcheologists, who cooperate with a number of hypercorps and other collectives with interests in extraterrestrial studies. Much of what we know of the Iktomi comes from research on Echo Alpha, where the spider-like aliens left numerous artifacts. Their strange artwork — only comprehensible when viewed through compound eyes — is beginning to be understood, though their mysterious wind-powered musical structures are still a mystery. Disquietingly, what pictorial records remain suggest that the Iktomi had a great uneasiness towards the gates. Whatever wiped out the Iktomi and all other life on Echo Alpha left the Echo Gate untouched.

Echo Beta seems wholly undamaged by the catastrophe that blasted its sibling planet. This lush world has no gates and is reachable only by shuttle from Echo Alpha or via egocasting. A number of hypercorps maintain biogenetic and pharma research facilities here, well-guarded against the local wildlife. Interestingly, there is no evidence that the Iktomi ever inhabited this world despite its proximity.

Portal

Gate Access: Fissure Gate, Pandora Gate, Vulcanoid Gate

Portal is noteworthy for being a system that contains a nexus of gates, much like our own Solar System. Remarkably, unlike our own system where the gates are found on disparate planetary bodies, Portal possesses six gates within a one-kilometer radius.

The surface of Portal is frozen and hostile but the nexus of gates has made it home to one of the largest extrasolar settlements of transhumanity anywhere. The three-domed colony of Isra was founded by Muslim gatehoppers and is primarily populated by autonomists, brinkers, and independent gatecrashers. Hypercorp personnel are tolerated but closely monitored, as Isra’s inhabitants are fiercely independent. All six of Portal’s gates are contained within the separate dome of Mi’raj and segmented for security and quarantine purposes. The Gatecrasher’s Guild maintains the facility and controls access to the gates. The Guild is more permissive in its attitude towards gatecrashing than most other gate-controlling factions, making Portal a natural destination for individuals and groups with esoteric or even eccentric goals.

Though there are no signs of Iktomi presence on Portal, there is evidence that at least one other alien race has utilized the Portal gate nexus in the past. The wreckage of a single, very large wheeled vehicle, believed to be roughly 900,000 years old, was found on its side approximately 200 kilometers from Isra. A large container removed from the wreckage contained thousands of perfectly preserved devices dubbed “fixors.” The devices are small orange ovals that when activated remain fixed in place to the local gravitational field. Their functionality remains totally opaque to researchers and seems to act in violation of known laws of physics.

Sunrise

Gate Access: Vulcanoid Gate

Sunrise is a truly remarkable world, even by exoplanet standards. It is tidally locked in its orbit, leaving one hemisphere eternally shrouded in night and the other in perpetual daylight. It is also a nexus world where no less than seven gates have been found in a rough belt around the planet’s unique twilight equator.

Weather on Sunrise is extreme. At the hot pole, the planet’s star is always directly overhead and temperatures are continually 80 °C. In contrast, temperatures at the cold pole hover around −70 °C. The static dispersion of solar heat on the planet results in a heavy, near-continuous wind. Since hot air rises and cold air falls, the wind blows perpetually from the same direction, encircling the globe.

Little life is found on Sunrise’s nightside. The endless chill means that what life exists is clustered around hydrothermal vents, volcanic hot spots, or in the oceanic regions that are not fully frozen. The dayside of the exoplanet is much more hospitable, though its hot pole is a dry and barren desert and host to little life. The remainder of the dayside is populated by a fascinating kingdom of creatures dubbed “planimals” by Sunrise’s first settlers. The unique evolutionary pressures of a tidally locked world required plantlike creatures to become ambulatory in order to soak up sunlight from the dayside and gather nutrients from soil unbleached by the constant glare. Xenobiologists have only begun to account for the abundant varieties but some larger species have been observed moving in excess of ten kilometers per hour. While no planimals offer a direct threat to transhumans, many species have developed potentially lethal spines and toxins to ward off competing or predatory planimals. Uniquely, all multi-cellular life on Sunrise seems to be some species of planimal, and no other kingdom of life have been observed. This has made the exoplanet a focus of much xenobiological research.

Sunrise’s seven portals appear to have been much used by the Iktomi and other alien civilizations. Numerous Iktomi ruins and artifacts have been unearthed here, including a set of structures termed “windharps,” which have much in common with the mysterious instruments found on Echo Alpha.

Solarchive Search :: Exoplanets of Note

  • Ascension (Terrestrial/F8V/Martian): This Earth-like world is the shining jewel of the Planetary Consortium’s Pathfinder Colonization Initiative and the largest extrasolar colony to date.
  • Giza (Terrestrial/G2V/Discord): Alien artifacts placed near the gate on this nearly hospitable world offered the potential for alien communication, now set back by the destruction of the remote gate by unknown parties.
  • Luca (Terrestrial/G0V/Fissure and Vulcanoid): Luca’s location still hasn’t been pinpointed, but is believed to reside around the Cygnus Arm of the Galactic core, making this the furthest gate from Earth yet discovered. Though roughly as habitable as Mars, Luca is prone to catastrophic asteroid strikes, one of which appears to have wiped out a xeno-civilization over a million years ago. Despite this threat, TerraGenesis has established an ambitious terraforming program for the planet.
  • Moravec (Terrestrial/K0V/Pandora): Covered by large seas with little land, Moravec has a toxic atmosphere but is nominally habitable. Remnants of an extinct aquatic sapient species have been found as well as a poorly understood but still active global molecular computing system.
  • Olaf (Dyson Sphere/K2V/Martian): Originally marked as a habitable environment for transhumans, exploration revealed that not only is it host to an active and aggressive orbital defensive system but that the entire world is an artificial construct.
  • Sky Ark (Terrestrial/G6V/Vulcanoid): This world bears a biome similar to that of Earth’s own early evolutionary phase. Accordingly, TerraGenesis chose Sky Ark as the site of its project to resurrect and preserve extinct Earth lifeforms. It is a popular exotourist destination.