New Horizon Lore

System: Epsilon Indrii

Planet: Quelya (Epsilon Indrii IIIb)

Type: Terrestrial

Stellar Radius: 1.31 AU from star (0.009 AU from planet)

Circumference: 17890 km

Surface Gravity: 0.81 G

Length of Day: 28 hours

Length of Year: 1092 days

Description:

Epsilon Indrii IIIb, is known to its natives as 'Quelya' (rough translation is 'Cradle'), is the second moon of the third planet in its star system. The only planetoid to sustain life in its system, it orbits a very large terrestrial reddish desert world (a non-habitable planet with a rust desert and very rich in ore under the surface). Epsilon Indrii IIIb has a barren sister moon devoid of atmosphere, called Vanir. Vanir had biosphere environment domes (very similar to Arcadia found on Epsilon Indrii IIIb), but besides that it's largely untouched.

The Epsilon Indri star system has a yellow dwarf star (sun) and is orbited by 5 planets. The star system itself was only reachable with the Icarus' unique star drive system which allowed for much faster transit than the speed of light would have allowed, but still it took over 35 years to reach.

Physical Characteristics:

Epsilon Indri III, which is known to the terran settlers as 'New Horizon' and to its sentient native life as 'Quelya', is about 4/3 the size of Luna. Quelya has a breathable atmosphere, a hydrosphere, a crust, a mantle and an inner core; much like Terra. Its biosphere is relatively young (the moon 'evolved' from a volcanic miasma to its current habitable state in only 15 000 years) but quite rich, sporting a solid, diversified ecosystem.

The moon requires 28 hours, 9 minutes and 32 seconds to rotate along its axis, the slower revolution giving it slightly less gravity than (80%) Terra. It has a particular orbit path, which is nearly a perfect match of the counter-clockwise orbit angle its mother planet has around the sun.

This phenomenon, along with a rather slow, counter-clockwise orbit path around its mother planet of nearly 3 earth years, makes it so that Quelya will be temporarily hidden from its sun, marking a 3 month long period of twilight, a nearly year long period of darkness and another period of twilight before returning to its normal day/night cycle for the rest of its orbit.

This of course favours creatures living by nighttime considerably and most of the fauna has long adapted to this cycle. In fact, that cycle is the most likely reason why vegetal life on New Horizon is strongly fungi-inclined and often luminescent. The only source of light while in these periods of darkness are these luminescent growths, the stars of the night sky and the light reflected from the greyish countenance of Quelya's sister moon Vanir (Epsilon Indrii IIIa).

Environment & Ecosystem:

Around 55% of the satellite's surface is covered with water and 45% is covered with land. It has two continental masses, the largest called Youzem being around the size of Australia and the other called Neo Titania that is roughly 70% the size of the larger one, with a chain of undersea mountains with network the two landmasses with an archipelago of islands. Each pole is covered with thick icecaps.

The planetoid's climate is relatively warmer than typical due to underwater volcanic activity. The warm oceanic currents so created happen to warm up most of the island chains along with the inner sides of the two continent (their closest opposing coast) - sub-tropical climate zones tends to be dominant, with temperate zones rounding up the rest except for the polar regions whom have a typical artic climate.

Quelyan weather tends to follow terran patterns of evaporation and rains, though rainfalls on Quelya tend to be more torrential. Of particular note, however, are the storms. The planet's lithosphere has a layer placement which keeps stored static and electromagnetic energy in, making for ominous, spectacular lightning arcs whom crisscross from cloud formation to cloud formation (somewhat looking like an electric themed aurora borealis), seldom striking the ground except when a certain threshold limit is reached (a ground lightning strike is quite deadly and can shatter several square meters of rock).

The larger continent has its southern half-choked with vegetation, river criss-crossing through it, with an inner sea just as the base of a long mountain range spanning its northern border. The rest are mostly fertile plains. The other continent has a large peninsula, which is cut off from the rest of its landmass by a small mountain range. The peninsula itself is rich in vegetation, but beyond the mountain range lays a large stretch of weather-ravaged badlands.

Due to its particular orbit, Quelyan fauna is primarily nocturnal. The leafy/coniferous vegetation is generally short lived, with sponge, mosses and other fungi becoming predominant. In fact, some forms of fungi have evolved into growing as tall, broccoli-like trunks with spore pod clusters dangling from their rubbery limbs alongside tall columns of slimy sponges and such.

The wildlife, as such, has also adapted for nocturnal activity over diurnal. Most of the creatures have keen night vision or sound based sonar's to direct them. The higher humidity of the biosphere favours chitin and scales over fur and the low gravity favours jumping and striding - many of the lifeforms are multilimbed (a six-legged panther-like creature with tentacle feelers coming out of each side of its mouth is but one example).

The fauna itself is slightly more primeval than Terra's, with creatures usually having stronger survivor traits than Terran life forms. There is a resurging tendency on carapaces, chitins and scales... and the silicon-based life forms, such as the dreaded Grim Stalkers, are sights to be feared with enough raw might in it's claws to sunder an hovertank's armour and hide seemingly impervious to all but the strongest weaponry. Some undersea silicon crustacean-like life forms are said even to dwarf starships... fortunately, little are usually seen of them... or more often mistaken for reefs and small islets.

Terrans have also brought with them a smattering of terran life forms that they have adapted to survive on New Horizon, from rats, simple blue jays, to dogs and oxen. Sadly, only a few of them can stand up to the native predators, so the terran life forms which flourish the most are either the vermin's (the terran rats get along surprisingly well with their scaly New Horizon counterparts, the Fueno) or those that live close to civilized areas.

NEW HORIZON © 2003-2007.