POTW 20: Lowlands

It's been a while since I did a Planet of the Week, as I've been busy with work and a bit depressed. Anyways here is Planet of the Week number twenty. I'm not sure if I like how it came out, but I'm tired of tweaking it so I'm posting it as is.

This world has many names, almost all of them meaning "lowlands." Many millions of years ago the core of the world began to cool and die, slowly bringing plate tectonics to a halt and weakening the magnetic field protecting it from the solar winds of its parent star. The atmosphere began to be blown away by the solar radiation bit by bit, and as it was the oceans evaporated and in turn were lost to space as well. This is not to say the planet is barren and lifeless: in the basins that were once the bottom of these vast oceans the air pressure is still high enough to support life, albeit just barely. Many ponds, small lakes, and rivers can be found in the basins, though they are too small to be seen from space. They are supported by a limited hydrosphere in the thicker atmosphere of the basins, giving the planet a strange partially clouded look. The surface (that is to say, what would have once been considered sea level and above) is uninhabitable, but does continue to support some microbial life.

The planet was colonized in 4058 by the Earth Federation, with most of the original inhabitants coming from Central Asia and southern Russia. Later waves of immigrants would come from South America, Canada, Korea, Australia, and the Martian Interior, all of them bringing aspects of their own culture to contribute to the eventual rise of a new, unique culture. Despite the seemingly limited habitability of this planet it came to be populated by over two billion inhabitants by 4280 and rejected a plan for terraforming by the Earth Federal government in 4284, citing a loss of cultural identity as the reason for rejection (this was quite a setback for the Earth Federation, which had hoped to turn the planet into an agricultural base for further colonial ventures in the local star cluster). In 4409 a massive war erupted between the Earth Federation and the Coalition of Independent Worlds, which had become two of the dominant political entities in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way (often referred to as "the known galaxy"), and dragged many other stellar nations into the conflict. This ultimately resulted in the collapse of much of interstellar interaction until the late 5000's. During this time this planet was isolated and left to its own devices until the conquest of Earth by Martian Empress Sanghana Aafys reunified the Sol system in 5766. The Aafys Dynasty expanded the influence of the First Martian Empire throughout the former Earth Federation and CIW, eventually annexing this planet in 5921. After the fall of the Aafys Dynasty in 6003 the head of the Martian Imperial Navy, Aralhan Zawizya, declared himself Emperor and moved the capital to this planet, as it rested at the crossroads between two major star clusters (think Constantinople, but on a galactic scale). The Zawizya Dynasty ruled from this world until it was overthrown in 6141 and replaced with the Tighe Dynasty, though the planet would remain the capital of the First Martian Empire until its fall in 6508. From then on it was considered a bit of a backwater--a grandiose backwater, yes, but a backwater nevertheless--until it became the personal property of the Ajhun Dynasty of the Second Martian Empire in 8012 and served as a secondary capital and pleasure planet until it was destroyed by the Andromedans during their invasion of the Milky Way in 8444, permanently ending the era of Mars-centric human unity and making the planet totally uninhabitable forever more.

If you would like to learn more, please visit your local library and check out The Decline and Fall of the Martian Empire by the ancient Martian philospher Shofio Giib, as well as any interpretations of her work by modern historians.