-Planets: Ice Spirit Home World (T1-A36-52C)-
The Ice Spirit home world is, effectively, a snowball in space. It isn't a part of any solar system, but is rather a roaming planet, occasionally catching the orbit of a system before swinging back out of it; the solar system it was assigned to is one of the few that continuously keeps catching the planet, partly thanks to the number of gas giants circling the yellow dwarf star.
Ice Spirits have a number of names describing the state of day, both for being in a solar system and when out of one, plunged in temporary darkness. Due to the sporadic occurrence of daylight, they've learned both not to rely on it and to be tolerant of the constant stream scientists who visit regularly. It's still a curiosity how life on the planet developed with such excessively-long periods of no sun or heat as it drifted between systems, not to mention the fact that no sun is exactly the same and has created some interesting complications in flora development. Since the planet is not anchored to any one orbit, it receives spectacular vistas of the night skies almost every day, something its inhabitants nearly take for granted, and during certain times of the year the celestial anomaly known as "Yawning Beast" is seen especially well from the planet's surface. |
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Topography
The Ice Spirit home world has extreme height changes. It has lots of small tectonic plates, all of which are constantly butting up against one another, forming ravines and mountain ranges both impossibly deep and tall; curiously enough though, not much volcanic activity occurs on the surface. The most common volcanic activity occurs underground in the form of hot springs and rivers, where the boiling water cuts through cold rock and ice, forming magnificent caverns and tunnels. In the lowlands between mountains, many of these tunnels will erupt from the ice and flood the area, forming lukewarm lakes that rapidly cool with exposure to the cold air. Only a few of these lakes won't freeze over on the surface; such lakes are close enough to their sources to maintain a warm temperature to fight off the cold, and yet at night they emit billowing clouds of fog and steam due to the sheer temperature difference. One particular hot spring has a reputation for glazing the nearby forest with frozen droplets and icicles from the amount of water vapor it produces.
The peaks of the mountains are nothing but sheer rock and snow, and hold no life. The midsection of the mountains are more hospitable but still don't hold much vegetation; instead it is more like a tundra to the few species that dare to live there. The bases of the mountains hold the most life on the surface of the planet, as here it is warm enough for hardy plants to thrive in the partially-frozen snow, attracting wildlife. In crevasses and ravines the wildlife again dissipates, though life still exists in the forms of clinging plants, and water deeper in the crust is warmer, hosting a variety of microorganisms. Some caves are also warm enough for subterranean life, though it's not exactly impressive compared to the subterranean ecosystems of other planets.
The peaks of the mountains are nothing but sheer rock and snow, and hold no life. The midsection of the mountains are more hospitable but still don't hold much vegetation; instead it is more like a tundra to the few species that dare to live there. The bases of the mountains hold the most life on the surface of the planet, as here it is warm enough for hardy plants to thrive in the partially-frozen snow, attracting wildlife. In crevasses and ravines the wildlife again dissipates, though life still exists in the forms of clinging plants, and water deeper in the crust is warmer, hosting a variety of microorganisms. Some caves are also warm enough for subterranean life, though it's not exactly impressive compared to the subterranean ecosystems of other planets.
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