Oculus (Satevis)

TIMELINE

This article takes place in the 26th century of Distant Worlds.

Oculus is a Tidally-Locked Eyeball world. It has one ocean, constantly situated underneath the red glare of its brown dwarf sun. It is a scientific outpost of Eoch Pruae.

History

Oculus formed 4 billion years ago around a White Supergiant star, and was promptly ejected from its home system by a combination of passing stars, and extreme solar wind. It wandered through the Globular Cluster, until it was captured in a very elliptical orbit around Satevis, a brown dwarf star. Over time, due to interactions with other stars and the only other planet in the system, Kveskneli, a superjupiter, its orbit was rounded. Eventually, around a billion years ago, it became tidally-locked to Satevis, and its solar-facing hemisphere melted, due to a combination of Tidal Forces and the miniscule amount of heat that Satevis gave off. In the early days of Eoch Pruae effort, it was catalogued by a team of explorers who explored dim star systems, which there aren't a lot of in the Eoch Pruae. It was settled in 2611, and has since became one of the most prosperous Touristic sights colonised in the Eoch Pruae Globular Cluster.

Settlement

When Oculus was settled, many hardships were found, and overcame. The first and foremost, was the fact that the planet is tidally-locked.

Tidally-Locking

Due to the fact that the planet is tidally-locked, Oculus has one face facing Satevis at all times, and one that is always in perpetual darkness. Due to its distance from the Star, and the lack of heat that the star gives off, the planet has turned into a 'Eyeball' world, with a central ocean in the centre of the dayside. There is practically nothing that can be done, without extensive colonisation, to mitigate this, so the planet remains a Eyeball world today. Another side-effect of the tidally-locking, is that strong winds blow from the hot side to the cold side, constantly. These create constant storms, which pose real threats to lone colonists.

Low Temperatures

Even being 760 thousand kilometres away from Satevis, the brown dwarf gives off so little heat that the Underneath The Sun Sea is only barely melted. Even right underneath the sun, temperatures reach only around 5 degrees C. Further out, were there is land, temperatures only rarely go above freezing. This is not much of a problem for the intelligent life, but for the plants it is very bad. They often die out in if they are subjected to sub-zero temperatures for a long time. Even boreal plants don't like it here, but they can survive.

Lack of Magnetic Field

Since the planet has no magnetic field, the vast amounts of radiation emanating from the star are slowly stripping away its atmosphere. Majority of Settlers decided to live underground to naturally cover against radiation

Life

Miraculously, extremophile life has been found living in pockets of water near volcanoes on the night side. Many nature reserves have been set up to protect the unlikely life there. United Sol Command had patented permission from Nova Science Team to act as protectorate of Eoch Pruae's found native life forms

System

Geography

Climate