Space is full of many things, as empty as it is, and at times those things are destined to cross paths. This was the case with
Stromata and
Huagang. The planetoid
Huagang followed an eccentric and unstable orbit toward the outer edges of the local system, and the steady degradation of it's path pulled it into
Stromata's gravitational well.
Huagang began to break apart as it was pulled ever closer to
Stromata, raining rock and metal from the skies and into
Stromata's various upper gas layers. The consistent firestorm of materials burning up in the atmosphere went on for a number of years as
Huagang spiraled closer and closer to
Stromata until the dwarf planet could no longer maintain it's own path through the cosmos.
Huagang's entry into the Outer Planet was cataclysmic on it's own. The planet broke apart into a series of massive chunks, shotgunning the Outer Planet's drifting continents with debris, shattering the weaker ones and knocking the stronger continents off their stabilized courses. Increasing gravity and atmospheric pressure broke these large chunks into smaller, but still enormous, chunks as
Huagang fell even deeper into
Stromata. The large pieces of the dwarf planet were too dense and traveling too quickly to be caught by the Outer Planet, and so a dozen
Shards of Huagang drove into and through the Water Membrane. As with any other breach, Ionic Storms from the Inner Planet leaked out into the Outer Planet, but due to the intensity and the number of breaches these storms thrust outwards as far as the outermost Hydrogen Layer.
While the Outer Planet suffered intense Ionic Storms and damage to it's continental platforms, the Inner Planet was facing an issue it had yet to come across: materials that could not be blasted into small chunks or pulverized by gravity, they were so dense. Instead, the Ionic Storms superheat the
Shards of Huagang. The cooler
Shards of Huagang drift downward through the Inner Planet, and Ionic Storm-heated
Shards rise closer to the Water Membrane. While it is an extremely rare event (though perhaps not so rare on a cosmological time scale), some
Shards are struck by intense storms frequently enough that they can be lifted back through the Water Membrane. These breaching events can last for a while as Ionic Storms leaking out of the Inner Planet can stabilize the
Shard as it's cooled by the Water Membrane and Outer Planet. The violent reactions between Inner and Outer Planetary layers is present throughout the breaching events, but does little more than chip away at the
Shards themselves.
While certainly not a planet at peace with itself,
Stromata's existence managed to become stable once more (or at least it wasn't purely chaotic). That is, until a freak event changed
Stromata from your typical gas giant into something far beyond just a ball of gas hurtling through space: the emergence of life. Many, many, many millennia after the Great Splash the first single-celled life emerged within the planet.
You are now responsible for creating the most basic form of life that will, barring a mass extinction that sees you decide to uplift a totally new form of life, affect every type of lifeform that develops from this point onward. You can get as specific as you want, but you should include the following: where in the planet did they emerge and how (for example, spontaneous abiogenesis in the Outer Planet, a breaching event at the Water Membrane, and so on)? How do the single-celled organisms reproduce (generally mitosis vs meiosis)? What do they sustain themselves with (light, chemicals in the atmosphere, etc.)? Anything extra that isn't specified or expanded upon in some way will generally default to how we as humans understand life evolved.
A gas giant with a 50000km radius, the fifth of six planets and the largest in the system, with neatly divided gas layers. The Outer Planet is made up of Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen, and Methane layers that experience relatively temperate seasons, followed by a dense steam Water Membrane that separates it from the Inner Planet's extremely turbulent Chlorine, Neon, and metal gas layers. The Inner Planet suffers from intense plasma storms, and they can occasionally "leak" if the Water Membrane is penetrated by a powerful-enough impact. The impacts result in violent reactions that disrupt the Outer Planet's atmosphere. The Inner Planet only knows Ionic Storms. Both the Inner and Outer Planet contain captured materials floating in massive "continents" in each layer of the Outer Planet, or kilometers-wide parcels in the Inner Planet interspersed with massive Shards of Huagang. The planet experiences 25-hour days and 600-day years.
Noosphere Breach: An event where an unprecedently severe ionic storm opened up a rift into the Dream Dimension. The alien realm sealed itself off with a sort of dense crystalline lattice. Once the breach was sealed, the crystalline scab exploded apart, sending Noosphere Crystals throughout the planet.
Noosphere Crystals: Scattered throughout the planet of Stromata are small crystalline stones that contain magical essence courtesy of the Dream Dimension. It is found in surface "deposits" embedded in various continents, floating in the gas layers or along the Water Membrane. Crystals found within the Inner Planet are supercharged due to the Ionic Storms. [magic]
The Great Splash: An event in Stromata's formative years that saw the Huagang planetoid enter and break up within Stromata, resulting in massive shards of the dwarf planet floating in the Inner Planet and occasionally causing a breach event at the Water Membrane.
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Topic: Nonsilenti Universi - Enlighteners Thread, Abiogenesis (Read 2589 times)