Moa

The innermost planet of Verda, Moa is a harsh, low-population planet partially covered in molten rock. Its strategic importance in the modern day is relatively limited, but its resources were key to constructing the initial starlifting array over Verda. From a habitation standpoint, its surface is largely unpopulated due to the inhospitable conditions across the planet, but some cities do exist near the polar regions such as its capital of Discenna.

Physical Characteristics

Moa is one of seven terrestrial planets orbiting Verda, making it a rocky body like Teralla. It is the second smallest planet in the system with a radius of just under 3,000 kilometers. Along with Praxis, it is also notably smaller than the largest of the system's non-captured natural satellites, Tarsis and Shirus. The planet consists of a roughly 50-50 split between metallic and silicate material. As the second smallest planet orbiting Verda, it exhibits very little geological activity and holds a heavily cratered and fractured surface.

Internal structure

Moa is composed of a solid silicate crust, a deeper liquid layer and a large iron core making up approximately half its mass. The iron-rich core itself is composed primarily of iron, but also holds fractions of nickel, silicon, sulfur, and carbon in addition to trace amounts of other elements. Moa notably also has the third highest density of any planet in the Verda System, only behind Teralla's compressed bulk and the pure iron of Praxis. Unlike Teralla, whose density primarily results from gravitational compression, Moa's density is caused by the presence of a large core rich in iron.

Based on advanced subsurface scanning methods, Moa's core is approximately 1,982 km in radius, meaning that it occupies roughly a third of the planet's volume, more than any other planets except Praxis and the captured moon Doresyl. Most of this core is molten, allowing for the generation of a comparatively strong magnetic field surrounding the moon and shielding it from a decent fraction of Verda's solar wind. The mantle-crust layer is in total 924 kilometers thick, with the crust itself making up approximately 26 km of this distance. After the crust solidified, the core and mantle underwent a period of cooling and contraction, leaving behind evidence of this process in the form of narrow ridges hundreds of kilometers in length.

The higher iron content of Moa's structure is likely explained by its close proximity to Verda's heat. At this distance, lighter particles like silicates are lost to drag, increasing the metallic content in the protoplanetary disk as a protoplanet approaches the star. A theoretical planet forming inwards of Moa would likely be even closer to Praxis in composition without requiring a supermassive impact, although such a planet is more likely to simply not form at all due to the roche limit.

Surface geology

Moa's surface, with the city of Admah visible on the bottom right

Moa's surface appearance is similar to that of Leno or Isak, albeit with more lava. Extensive igneous plains and heavy cratering cover the surface, showing that Moa's geology has been completely inactive for billions of years. Large parts of its surface host homogeneous terrain, with sharp changes between plateaus, highlands, maria, and lava. Large-scale albedo features also exist on Moa, including ejecta from more recent impact craters, ray systems, and higher-reflectivity plains. The features most common on Moa include rugged highlands, mountains, igneous plains (mariae), fully molten lakes, escarpments, and valleys.

Due to a past magma ocean phase, the planet's mantle is sufficiently chemically heterogeneous to create a layered crust. Crystallization and later convective overturn then caused the crust to exhibit great variations in composition across the surface. The crust is high in sulfur content, but low in iron due to the strongly reducing conditions in its early history. Pyroxene and olivine dominate the surface alongside sodium-rich plagioclase, in addition to magnesium, calcium, and iron-sulfide based minerals. Lower-albedo regions are high in carbon, in the form of graphite.

Impact basins and craters

Shortly after its formation 1.9 billion years ago, Moa was bombarded by a cavalcade of comets and asteroids, receiving impacts over its entire surface. Due to the lack of any atmosphere to slow impactors down, almost none of the surface has not felt a crater. Moa's low orbit around Verda and the volcanic activity created by the strikes has resulted in the largest of the impacts simply never cooling enough to freeze back into rock, creating the planet's famous lava-filled craters and plains. The famous Lefrani Crater is known for its spidery network of partly lava-filled troughs radiating away from the impact site.

The craters of Moa range in diameter drastically from small, bowl-shaped basins to enormous multi-ringed impact craters clearly visible from high orbit. The largest of the craters invariably remain at least partially filled with lava, and appear in all states of degradation from highly eroded remnants to fresh craters created less than 200 years ago.

The largest impact site on Moa is Taonas Crater, found within the equatorial regions and extending over a diameter of 3,236 kilometers. The Taonas impact was sufficiently powerful to raise a three kilometer height mountainous ridge, and over a fifth of its basin remains molten. Larger craters may exist on Moa, but none of them are certain to be singular craters rather than several successive eroded impacts. The floor of the Taonas Basin is filled by geologically distinct flat igneous plains, as well as intermittent lava fields particularly on the western side of the crater. The much younger Chulis Crater near Taonas' center is roughly 743 km in diameter, and fully molten at its base.

Fifty-nine major impact basins have been identified across Moa's surface, most of which have mostly or completely molten crater floors. Notable is the Omeyocan Basin near the planet's north pole, which is far enough from the equator that its basin has completely solidified since its formation. It also exhibits a massive ejecta blanket in evidence over 500 km from the rim, and is home to the planetary capital of Discenna. Similar to most airless worlds, Moa's surface has experienced long-term space weathering, caused by the powerful solar wind and micrometeoroid impacts.

Plains

There exist three geologically distinct plains regions across the surface of Moa. Firstly, wide flat areas fill depressions of various sizes and are likely solidified magma. These often coexist with the remaining molten parts of the surface outside of craters, further confirming that they were formed in the same way. Second, gently rolling hills cover a different type of plains terrain between the craters, and are Moa's oldest visible surfaces. They generally lack smaller craters below 20 kilometers in diameter.

Compressional features

As Moa's interior cooled, the planet began to contract slightly and its surface deformed, creating escarpments, thrust faults, and wrinkle ridges. The scarps can be upwards of 1,500 km in length, and notably appear over the top of many other features. These compressional features show that Moa's radius decreased by approximately 3.5 kilometers over its existence. The smallest of the thrust faults are estimated to be approximately 50 million years old, demonstrating that this process continues either to the present day or nearly so.

Volcanism

Whether the term is fully applicable is a matter of debate, but Moa's volcanism is by far its most clearly visible feature. Four percent of the planetary surface is permanently molten, and further regions melt temporarily under Verda's heat and tidal flexing before cooling in the long night. Pyroclastic deposits also exist primarily within impact craters, emanating from low-profile extinct shield volcanoes.

Moa's lava plains are directly visible from space, especially on the night side where their glow drastically outshines the planet's cities. The transient lava fields' constant melting and refreezing in a 341 hour cycle also prevents both permanent surface features from forming in these regions and the construction of cost-effective infrastructure.

Surface conditions and exosphere

The surface temperature on Moa ranges from 180 to 1700 K, never rising above 210 at the poles due to the planet's negligible axial tilt. During the daytime, temperatures at the subsolar point are around 1400 K on average at periapsis and 1100 at apoapsis, resulting in large expanses of terrain temporarily molten until the sun sets. Although daylight temperatures are extremely high across most of the planet, the permanently shadowed basins of the polar craters are host to vast amounts of ice. This ice is covered by a layer of regolith preventing sublimation, and its presence facilitated the building of the first colonies on Moa by both the ancient Kesstra and modern Alorath. Most of this ice came from either outgassing from the planet's interior or deposition by comet impacts.

Moa is much too small and far too close to Verda to allow any form of atmosphere to exist across geologic timescales. However, a tenuous exosphere exists at a surface pressure of approximately 0.8 nanopascals, composed of hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, silicon, hydroxides, calcium, potassium, and many others. This exosphere is only metastable, as atoms are continuously lost in large fractions of the total exospheric mass and replenished from various sources. Hydrogen and helium likely come from the solar wind, temporarily captured by Moa's magnetosphere before escaping back into interplanetary space. Radioactive decay's release of alpha particles from the crust also creates helium, sodium, and potassium. Water vapor comes from a wide variety of sources, including sublimation from the polar ice, slight environmental leaks from the planet's cities, cometary strikes, and combinations of solar wind hydrogen and oxygen in the rock.

Magnetic field and magnetosphere

Despite its small size and slow 5-day rotation period, Moa has a global magnetic field clearly detectable from afar. It is approximately 3.5% the strength of that of Teralla. Unlike Teralla, Moa's field is close to alignment with its rotational axis, with the south magnetic pole currently residing in the Omeyocan Basin near the city of Discenna. The planet's somewhat larger than typical iron core, kept heated by the powerful tidal forces from its proximity to Verda, generates a dynamo effect to create the magnetic field.

The field is strong enough to deflect Verda's solar wind, creating a stable magnetosphere strong enough to trap solar wind plasma despite being small enough to fit entirely beneath Teralla's surface. Flux transfer events form windows in the magnetic shield through which the solar wind enters and strikes the surface, causing further small-scale weathering across the planet.

Orbit and Rotation

Moa has the most eccentric orbit of any planet in orbit of Verda, and the second most eccentric within the Verda System as a whole (following the Von-Ora binary) – its eccentricity of 0.4 sends it from 6.3 million to 14.8 million kilometers from Verda. It traverses this highly elliptical orbit once every 7.1 days, making it also the fastest natural object in the system outside of comets at periapsis. This varying distance to Verda causes the creation of tidal bulges over 39 times stronger than that generated by Verda on Teralla. Combined with the 3:2 spin-orbit resonance of the planet's rotation, complex variations in surface temperature are also created. This resonance ensures that the solar day is equivalent exactly to two orbits around Verda, or 14.2 days.

Moa also has an inclination of 5.8 degrees from the system's reference plane, the largest of the seven planets of Verda. This means that transits can only occur during two times of year, but the rapid orbital period of the planet ensures that transits occur almost every time that they theoretically can. Due to Moa's spin-orbit resonance, its axial tilt is held to a negligible value of around 0.021º. It sits beside Praxis as the two worlds orbiting Verda with by far the lowest axial tilt. This means that to an observer at the poles, Verda never goes above 1.9 arcminutes above the horizon. For reference, Verda appears to be 3.42º across on average in Moa's sky, ranging from 5.7465 to 2.4478 degrees between periapsis and apoapsis.

Due to Moa's highly eccentric orbit, large portions of the orbit near periapsis see the sun move backwards across the sky as the angular velocity of its orbit exceeds that of its rotation. In certain regions of the planet, Verda can be seen to rise partway above the horizon, reverse course and set, and then rise fully again. 1.5 days after periapsis, normal motion across the sky resumes.

Spin-orbit resonance

In the early days of Alorath space exploration, it was thought that Moa was tidally locked to Verda similar to its sister planet Praxis. However, it was soon proven that it rotated in a 3:2 resonance with its orbit rather than being in full tidal lock. Moa's highly eccentric orbit stabilizes this configuration, as the sun is nearly stationary in the sky near periapsis when solar tides are strongest. These tides act along irregularities in the way mass is arranged in Moa's structure, ensuring that its axis of inertia is pointed in the direction of Verda at periapsis.

Interestingly, Moa's eccentricity chaotically varies between 0 to around where it is now over millions of years due to perturbations from the other planets, particularly Glau. A future feedback loop in interactions between Moa and Glau may cause the eccentricity of Moa's orbit to continue increasing beyond its current position to the point that it may completely destabilize in the next 5 billion years. This would result in Moa either falling into Verda, collide with one of the other inner planets, destabilize the inner system entirely, or be ejected. Luckily for everyone, this has a 4% chance of happening!

Population

Moa's surface population of 394 million people is predominantly found within the four cities of Discenna, Admah, Taonas, and Prayon, each of which is located near the planet's poles. The equatorial regions are largely uninhabited save small settlements of scattered "mushroom habitats" shielded from the heat by constantly moving mirrors and stilts, and even roving mining expeditions constantly moving to stay out of the heat while they strip-mine large regions of the barren surface.

The planet is not controlled by a single authority, as the Children of the Sun control roughly 29% of the planetary surface from the city of Taonas. Taonas is the only major city on the planet to be more than 10º away from the poles, and is also the site of one of the lowest quality-of-life indexes in the Verda System. The Children also control a number of orbital habitats and stations in Moa and Verda orbit as well. The rest of the planet is controlled by the Discennan Union, which is a member of the Verdan Federation and therefore Vernarcan Federation. Despite controlling only 71% of the surface, it holds over 90% of the planet's population due to its holdings including the much more comparatively habitable polar regions.

History

Formation and Ancient Times

Roughly 1.9 billion years ago, the Verda System formed from a collapsing cloud of gas and dust in the then-much-younger Vernarca Nebula. Among numerous protoplanets in the inner system was the object that would become Moa, although it had yet to achieve such stature. While its sister worlds of Praxis and Doresyl were viciously bombarded by the vagaries of the early solar system and stripped of much or all of their silicate crusts, Moa mostly escaped this fate by virtue of its closeness to Verda. As the early solar system evolved, Moa grew in size and gathered a sizeable collection of craters.

Moa's position in the deep inner system of Verda lent it a sense of stability held by very few worlds further afield. Praxis saw much of its mass blasted away, and Doresyl was thrown towards Vijal to be captured, but Moa stood alone under the pounding heat of the sun. The silence broken only by the occasional minor impactor, Moa remained in this state for almost a billion years until the coming of the Ancient Builders.

The grand civilization of the Ancient Builders, obsessed as they were with epic experiments and constructions, had little use for a minuscule, superheated rocky world in a system far from their heartlands. After the Builders were crushed by the Qomarat Empire, the Empire similarly showed little more interest than half-hearted mining expeditions digging small troughs into the surface seen today.

Roughly 1 million years ago, the Kesstra arose from the planet Teralla farther out in the system, alongside the wise Silik species. While the Kesstra expanded across much of the inner system, the Silik generally kept to their homeworld of Sulpha and a selection of orbital habitats. The only exception was Moa, which due to its great heat was much more difficult for the Kesstra to colonize than for the Silik. With this, Moa became the largest extraplanetary colony of the Silik species as hundreds of millions flooded into great cities in the shadowy craters of the poles. While small numbers of Kesstra settled there also, the incompatible environmental requirements resulted in a fundamental split between the two populations, and the Kesstra population is believed to have never risen above 230,000 people.

During the (from modern perspectives) vanishingly brief Silik-Kesstra conflict, Moa spent decades under siege by various Kesstra factions. This period led to the construction of an array of defense platforms on the surface, covering most of the planet, which would come to be known to historians as a surprise tool that would come in handy later. Although the full-scale conflict never actually reached Moa, and the defense platforms were never required to defend against a ground invasion, they remained ready for use long after the war ended. The actual conflict stuck to the regions surrounding Sulpha and Teralla itself, but after decades of needless conflict an uneasy truce was struck and it faded into a cold war. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the world's greatest staring match was interrupted by a far greater threat.

The Edrons, a robotic species controling a great swath of space expanding out of the Pillars of Dawn, thought themselves the true rulers of all that was. The creatures of flesh and blood were naught but vermin to be cleansed from the worlds which they were to rule. And so, the Kesstra and Silik came under attack after decades of being at each other's throats, suddenly turning their military might towards the last defense of their lives.

While the Kesstra were spread thinly across the Verda System, the Silik's smaller population was found almost exclusively in the vicinities of Moa and Sulpha itself. This resulted in the Edron invasion force initially leaving the Silik civilization largely unscathed as the outer Kesstra colonies bore the brunt of the attacks. Unfortunately, with the betrayal of the Ovion Cabal and destruction of the Kesstra Defense Fleet, the homeworlds of both races were left wide open. After a swift and violent attack, Sulpha, Shirus, Teralla, Esera, Doresyl, and Rellis were bombarded and Moa became the last outpost of civilization in the Verda System.

The defense platforms from the Silik-Kesstra conflict proved the last line of defense against the Edrons, but it was not to last. For almost a year, the armaments and defense network at Moa were operating well beyond their intended capacity, successfully holding the line against the Edron hordes, but all good things must come to an end. In an instant, the line buckled, the fleets reached the planet, and the last of the Silik died in nuclear hellfire.

Alorath Exploration and Colonization

Over a million years after the Silik had been struck from the galactic stage, the more primitive relatives of their Kesstra competitors had rose to dominance on Teralla. The Alorath spread across the solar system like wildfire, due to a combination of the ruins of their ancestors' infrastructure and a cultural emphasis on exploration common to most of their species.

However, Moa has always been the most difficult world orbiting Verda to reach. Orbiting almost twelve times closer to Verda than the homeworld incurred enormous fuel and time costs, and every expedition to the planet prior to the invention of torch drives has required numerous gravity assist maneuvers and multiple years of travel. Thus, even as the other worlds of the inner system began to establish burgeoning colonies and even Glau was receiving large-scale crewed expeditions, Moa held only the barest of automated presences.

All this changed in 305 BC, when the religious group known as the Children of the Sun launched a self-funded mission in an attempt to take control of the planet. Forgoing the comparatively easily colonized polar regions, the Children of the Sun amassed their forces to effect the painstaking task of colonizing the hellish equatorial regions of the planet. This seemingly illogical decision was exactly as illogical as it sounds, and only happened because the Children were a group of religious zealots who worshipped the power of the sun centuries after most people left religion behind entirely.

The Children were small in number, but their fervor knew no bounds. Establishing sprawling assemblages of habitats across Moa's burning plains, almost the entire following of the movement migrated to the planet in the next decades. However, religious fervor does not create a self-sufficient society. The colonization of Praxis by the Union of Doresyl in 298 gave them a trading partner in the massively overproducing farming complexes built for the Praxis colony, enabling the ragtag Children of the Sun to survive until their own farming operations were established.

The rest of Alorath society was perfectly happy to colonize more reasonable locations, with Moa left exclusively to the sparsely-populated Children of the Sun until 195 BC. As the Children focused on brute-forcing habitats into existence on the equatorial plains, what would become the cities of Discenna, Admah, and Prayon were able to be built in the polar craters in isolation. Moa would always be among the least populous worlds of the Verda System, but this was the beginning of its ascent to the ranks of "vaguely relevant to someone".

In the years before the Verdan Federation's founding in 131 BC, Moa's population rapidly expanded due to pressures on the other inner system planets like Shirus, Doresyl, and of course Teralla and Esera. The rise of an even more extreme faction of the Children of the Sun among their outer settlements also caused an exodus to the secular societies of the polar regions. By this time, the three cities of this region had politically unified into the Discennan Union over a long period of time and a long string of treaties slowly bringing them closer together.

Verdan Federation Era

Very few among the population of Moa were particularly interested in joining the nascent federation. Due to the planet's comparative isolation and difficulty of travel there, the colonists of both the Children of the Sun and the Discennan Union had established a culture of rugged individualism and self-sufficiency. Even the food shipments from Praxis and Doresyl had largely ceased to be over a century prior.

This state of affairs largely continued until 92 BC, when a particularly extreme faction of the Children of the Sun came to power at Taonas. High Priest Sufi Alaka saw the presence of the secular colonies of the Discennan Union as defiling the holy sunblasted planet, and advocated for direct strikes against them. They began to persecute the more moderate among the Children, and many migrated to the polar cities or fled the planet entirely. With very poor quality of life in the Childrens' claimed territory, many felt they had little to lose and everything to gain in the afterlife, so the most fervent of the Children began to throw themselves into suicide bombing operations against the heathens of the polar shadows.

Generally, such attempts were found and the would-be bomber captured, but one made it through in 84 BC and cracked the dome over an outlying suburb of Prayon. Almost 7,000 people were caught outside or had their homes' emergency seals fail and thus were killed. The Union had very little in the way of actual military force, existing as it did in a relatively isolated position, and so could not do much to retaliate against this attack. The frequency of attempted and successful bombings increased as Alaka began to sense weakness, with four more successful strikes in the next three years forcing the institution of martial law across the Union.

While the stringent security prevented any further attacks from the Children, life became harder and harder in the polar cities as freedoms were restricted ever further. It soon became obvious that First Minister Ila was simply using this as an excuse to establish a dictatorship, but it was far too late to do anything about it. Even after High Priest Alaka died to a life-support malfunction and the Children of the Sun reverted to the more isolationist bent of the previous years, Ila continued to hype up various outward threats, either massively exaggerating the risk or making them up wholecloth.

In 71 BC, First Minister Ila's air recycler unit failed, but was fixed quickly before any damage could be done. True to form, they blamed this on their political opponents and had three "ringleaders" publicly executed in the grand square of Discenna. Historians believe that this was a mechanical failure rather than any sabotage, but the propaganda was effective. Historians are unsure if the ringleaders were even related to Ila's political opponents or were simply randomly chosen scapegoats.

This otherwise flawless propaganda coup backfired spectacularly in 63 BC, when members of the democratic resistance completed a years long plan of infiltrating the palace and doing exactly what Ila accused them of doing eight years prior. And of course, because it was actually intentional, it worked. The main unit and its backups failed, and the air in the palace vented into space, killing the First Minister in seconds. Unfortunately for the resistance, Ila's military swiftly moved in to take control in their absence, resulting in the Union government's transition from flashy violent dictatorship to slightly less flashy violent dictatorship.

The oppression continued for decades. Faceless military strongmen cycled through the center seat, changing nothing about the actual material conditions of the Discennan Union's populace. Meanwhile, the Children of the Sun grew ever more reclusive on the burning plains, with almost no contact taking place between them and the outside universe.

Early Modern Era

After the founding of the Vernarcan Federation in 1 BC, the Discennan Union was placed under increasing amounts of pressure due to its rampant sapient rights violations and corruption. Even Taonas, now the worst place to live on the planet, was better than almost anywhere in the Union. The oppression of the military combined with the sanctions against the Union levied by the surrounding peoples meant that the people of Moa were beginning to break.

In 7 AC, grassroots revolutionary movement began to arise in the southern city of Prayon, quickly spreading to its neighboring settlements and soon after to Admah and sounding the beginning of the Pink Flag Revolution. The people stormed the military prison of Barik, liberating a store of weapons which would later be used to great effect. The Children of the Sun even took part in the fighting, with High Priest Tana Jin Furas championing a more progressive brand of their religion supporting the downtrodden. The longtime "enemies" of the Discennan Union were suddenly fighting side by side with its people against its oppressive government.

This would not be an easy fight. With much of the Vernarcan Federation military fighting in the Tyran War several light-years away, the revolutionaries were on their own. A crack team escaping to the binary asteroid of Maesa-Scelosi built a "sniper" cannon on its surface and used it to destroy moving military convoys at absurd range when the planet and asteroid were close enough, but the installation was destroyed after just a few months of use because you can see where projectiles come from. Further attempts at this strategy took place, but eventually the revolutionaries returned their focus to direct attacks and sabotage in an effort to weaken the military strength of the regime.

One classic example of this was the "attack" on the base at Juna. Originally a small northerly settlement of the Children of the Sun, Juna was taken over by the Discennan Union military in 42 BC and used as a military black site. Prisoners were taken here to be tortured, and experimental technology was developed here for use against the rebellious populace. Assuming that the base's remoteness and obscurity would protect them, the outer shell of the surface complex was completely unguarded and the base was severely understaffed, allowing the revolutionaries to quickly take control of the base, evacuate the prisoners, and overload the reactor.

The loss of numerous prototypes and other advanced technology crippled the regime, and further crackdowns did little to stop the escalating revolution. Just a year after the Juna attack, the Pink Flag revolutionaries took control of the Presidio in Discenna and forced a transfer of power. Unfortunately, transitioning from a brutal dictatorship to an enlightened democratic society is far more difficult than it looks.

In order to quickly establish a new government and not leave large chunks of the Union completely without order, numerous distasteful concessions had to be made to officials of the old regime. Many of them even remained in their original posts, pinky-promising not to stir up trouble, and continued to collect their bribes. So for almost three decades, the Discennan Union wasn't really that much better than it was before the revolution. The Verdan Federation refused to admit it until it had, in the words of Ambassador Sonna, "gotten its act together".

In 45 AC, newly elected First Minister Oros embarked on a campaign to purge the Discennan government of corruption. Firing numerous seat-filler officers who were paid much and accomplished little, they angered large segments of the Discennan political ecosystem that benefitted from this status quo. Despite attempts to slander Oros as being a Child of the Sun, a group which retained an unfortunate stereotype of being crazy zealots who blew themselves up, they continued their efforts to improve the real life of their citizens. Despite political talking heads speaking of them as a destroyer of tradition, their approval ratings rose steadily as food, water and other necessities became more available to the masses. After three reelections, Oros retired in 61 AC after seeing the Union through the process of joining the Verdan Federation, and thus the Vernarcan Federation at large.

Modern Times and the War of the Broken Bow

Joining the Federations connected the previously insular Moa to a vast network of trade in both materials and ideas, extending not only throughout the Verda System and Alorath colonies near it but across much of the Vernarca Nebula. Ironically, the population of Moa began to decline as people previously unable to afford passage off the planet suddenly found it possible to leave with the dissolution of capitalism, and fled to greener pastures. By the time of the discovery of the Szalana Wormhole in 123 AC, the population had dropped from almost a billion to less than 400 million people.

The Children of the Sun also began to open up to outside contact, with small numbers of people from elsewhere electing to join their religious movement even as more and more were going the other direction. High Priest Kalla championed the idea that coerced faith is no faith at all, and that a religious environment which did not allow for apostasy did not allow for devotion either. This also allowed the Children of the Sun to be taken seriously as a political entity by the outside galaxy, enabling them to engage in trade with the latest technologies developed by the Vernarcan Federation that surrounds them.

This new era of prosperity being experienced by much of known space came to an end with the beginning of the War of the Broken Bow. The overwhelming power of the Alliance of Five in the earliest phase of the war resulted in the conquest of large swathes of territory from the Vernarcan Federation and other members of the Yazera Pact. In 141, the armies of the Alliance of Five broke through the defense pickets and occupied the Verda System itself, but large swathes of the habitat swarm population turned on whatever propulsion they had and left for interstellar space. Moa's orbital space was almost completely clear outside of immobile structures when the armies of the Carremmat Ro'kasa arrived in the system. Large parts of this infrastructure were proactively destroyed or sabotaged to prevent their use by the occupying force as well.

While the bulk of the actual research into breaking the Carremmat Ro'kasa group mind was taking place at Praxis, Moa was under a tremendous amount of scrutiny by the occupiers. Carremmat citizens already wired into the group mind were regularly seen walking the streets in environment suits, and those who publicly resisted the invaders regularly disappeared, never to be seen again. Much of the local population still had memories of the military junta of the previous century, and an atmosphere of dread settled in as the growing resistance began to make their plans. The secret base at Praxis was in intermittent communication with them, as they worked to most effectively distract the occupiers from their work. In one case, an unknown rebel pretended to be a surviving member of government to lead the imported police forces on a wild goose chase for several months. Several times, they came directly face to face, only for the police to move past them because they did't actually look like the government figure in question.

In 143, the Praxis team finished their work. However, they were just slightly too late, as the underground site was discovered and bombarded from orbit. The data was successfully transmitted to the remaining resistance, but it had to be hastily pieced back together to make it usable. Meanwhile, the First Citizens' Fleet was beginning to amass at the Byfa just beyond the war's front lines. The surviving military began to amass at Katheria simultaneously. The board for the Terminus Invasion was set, waiting for the first move.

On 11.4 of 143, the Terminus Invasion began with a surprise attack on the Carremmat defense picket at Elachor simultaneous to another at Crouge, but Moa's populace did not know of this. The Alliance crackdown against the resistance after the destruction of the underground Praxis base made it nearly impossible to get information in and out of occupied territory. Members of the Children of the Sun were just as occupied as the Discennan Union was, but the sparseness of their population made it much more difficult to directly control them. Tiny habitats in the equatorial hinterlands were able to go for several weeks between appearances of any government, let alone an occupying one from 90,000 light-years away, so these people were able to see the light-show produced by the battles in the outer Verda System through basic telescopes and spread the word. At the same time, the resistance managed to disable the Carremmat group mind over a vast swathe of occupied Federation territory including Moa itself, and suddenly the occupying government was in complete disarray as its officials were abruptly mentally cut off from each other.

Just a year later in 9.5 of 144, the Verda System was almost entirely liberated from the Alliance of Five. The ground-based civilian population rose up as one to evict their oppressors as the fleets clashed in space above their heads, and Moa was free again. In 146, the last holdouts in Federation space were finally expelled, and the entire population rejoiced. The civilian population of Moa and its neighbors largely lived in peace for the next two years as the fight was largely restricted to fleet engagements on the other side of the wormhole as the Yazera Pact worked to liberate its allies there. Even the emergence of the Void and the signing of the Treaty of Praxis just one planet over affected daily life relatively little – until their final offensive.

On 30.2 of 150 AC just five light-years from the Szalana Wormhole, the Arwell System was destroyed by an artificially induced supernova by the Void, and this was only the beginning. Voidspears began to flood through the wormhole in the dozens, in numbers never seen before in the war. Dozens of worlds were destroyed, and several entire stars detonated to wipe out their entire systems. Everyone knew someone lost to the Void in this attack, and everyone felt almost certain that they'd be next. However, with a Voidspear just 4 million kilometers from the orbit of Nayeren and hours from reaching the inner Verda System, they went silent at the stroke of midnight on 13.10. After months of certain doom, the threat was abruptly over. The Working Title Fleet was not well-publicized upon its departure and wouldn't return for another month, so the vast majority of the civilian population had no idea why they were still alive. But that didn't matter, and celebrations spread across the surviving peoples of the Vernarca Nebula. Today, Moa is still rebuilding from its occupation in the war, and many of those habitats who fled when the Carremmat arrived have still not returned.