Verrune (pronounced "Ver-Roon") is a D-Class world, orbiting the yellow dwarf star Iyro, located near the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, 86,950 light-years away from Earth. It has simple plant and bacterial life that is noteworthy for living in extreme conditions with especially long life-spans. Verrune became the subject of scientific study after a scouting probe was found to have lied about it and the system it was searching. Currently, Verrune and the Iyronian system are off-limits to colonization or species introduction.
Probe J-176a and Verrune's Discovery
Iyro, Verrune's parent star, was the eighth of more than 400 star systems Probe J-176a of the Eros (CXVII) Scouting Program was assigned to explore. Not too long after reporting the star and the five planets it discovered were devoid of resources and interest, the probe halted all communications. At the time, it was believed that the craft simply malfunctioned. Being cheaper to simply send a new probe in its place than it would be to locate and fix it, the probe was largely ignored for over 2 thousand years, although the knowledge of its presence in the system was never lost.
The craft was finally recovered as part of a simple training exercise for new spacecraft pilots. The crew that returned the craft from deep-space handed it over to a group of specialists that would attempt to salvage parts from the now ancient scouting probe. However, upon analyzing the craft’s records, it was discovered that the computer’s Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) system had done something incredibly strange. Not only was the information it reported falsified, but it continued to collect over 700 years’ worth of data after communications went dark. Also, the probe was missing its three emergency pods (normally used to rescue pilots in danger if they happen to be nearby). This marks the one of the only known instances the computer onboard a simple scouting probe has disobeyed its orders and ignored the assigned mission. Further analysis of the data the probe stored provided even stranger information.
Before the discovery of the information stored by Probe J-176a, the star Iyro was simply known as “RS 8409-3449-6-176805-53”. The data banks of the probe showed that this is what the probe referred to the star as when it entered the system. However, its logs show that it soon gave the star the name “Iyro”, and went on to give a name to every planet and major moon in the system. All of these names were later officially adopted as the official names of their respective bodies. After cutting communications, the probe altered its course to orbit the fourth planet of the system. The A.I. dubbed this planet “Verrune” and spent most of its time here. While visits were made to the other bodies of the system, the probe collected far more data on this planet than any of the others. In a seemingly desperate to get as much data as possible, the computer even sent two of its emergency pods to the surface of Verrune to gather further information - an act considered high treason for human pilots.
The probe’s obsession with Verrune may be partially be explained by the fact that it contained life. Although no intelligent life was found to exist on the planet, Probe J-176a found it was covered in a very interesting analogue to plant life humans have always known. The probe went on to make a number of interesting discoveries in the Iyronian System, visiting, taking data on, and naming each planet over the course of several decades. The moon it called “Loa” was found to be an oceanic body with conditions suitable for life on the sea floor. The probe took a great amount of interest in this moon as well, even sending its final pod to the edge of Loa’s ice caps. After this, it continued to visit Verrune very often with frequent stops at Loa and, to a far lesser extent, the other bodies in the system, collecting vast amounts of data.
Internal reports made by the A.I. indicate that the probe became almost paranoid that it would lead humans to the system. Due to this, Probe J-176a decided to leave the Iyronian System. Before doing so, it took almost 800,000 pictures, where over 700,000 alone were of Verrune and about 50,000 were of Loa. However, as if it were having cold feet, it seemingly changed its mind just before reaching the velocity needed to escape Iyro's gravitational influence. Instead, it returned to an orbit around Verrune and sat in a parking orbit for several centuries, calculating the history of the system with more accuracy than was possible at the time. To aid in this, the probe somehow came up with new mathematics to help with the calculations, with one calculation taking 30 years at 90% of the CPU's capacity. The mathmatics it created are still being studied today and may one day revolutionize our ability to calculate the past history star systems such as Iyro.
As the probe's functionality began to fail, it created plans to delete the information it has stored, but seems to have decided against this plot. Instead, it spent the rest of its time reopening image files and reanalyzing data it had already taken. The most popular theory is that the probe thought the life it found was beautiful and didn’t want humans to come and potentially taint it. This theory has been criticized by many A.I. engineering groups, claiming that technology at the time was not yet sophisticated enough for this to be the case, although many counter-arguments exist.
System
Verrune is the fourth planet in the Iyronian Star System. Its parent star, Iyro, currently has 5 planets in orbit around it. In order from the closest orbiting body, these planets are Mahl, Saylem (both hot selenas), Noir (a warm gas giant), Verrune, and Kelliptos (a cold gas giant). There were two more orbiting bodies in the past, Torr and Cheut, but were both ejected from the system after a close encounters with Kelliptos.
Other Current Bodies
Iyro
Iyro is Verrune's parent star. With a surface temperature of 9,983 degrees Fahrenheit, it is a yellow dwarf.
Mahl
With an orbital period of just 22.5 days, Mahl is the first orbiting body around Iyro. It is a hot selena with three asteroid moons, the innermost being a large fragment of Cheut that survived its collision with Kelliptos. It is thought this is the only part of the ancient dwarf planet that survived. Mahl is very small at just 0.003 Earth Masses.
Saylem
With its only moon, Altone, being almost a third of its mass, Saylem is part of a binary system who's barycenter has an orbital period of 72 days. With a mass of 0.017 Earth masses, it is the second smallest planet in the Iyronian system. Both Saylem and Altone are hot selenas.
Noir
At just under a quarter of Jupiter's mass, Noir is a relatively small gas giant with 28 orbiting moons; all but one of which are asteroids. Its one larger moon, Astriol, is noteworthy for having an atmosphere made up largely of oxygen and radioactive elements decaying into flammable gasses. At current rates, Astriol's atmosphere will burn off violently in a single catastrophic explosion in approximately 70-thousand years.
Noir had particularly colorful rings in the deep past after several of its asteroid moons of varying compositions came within its Roche limit in a relatively short window of time, but these have long since decayed. It has an orbital period of just under 208 days.
Kelliptos
By far the largest planet in the system at almost 2 Jupiter masses, Kelliptos has a large gravitational influence. This influence is so large that it is the primary reason no further planets exist in the system, as its perturbations are prone to destabilizing orbits beyond its own.
Kelliptos has 68 moons, but only three of which are larger than asteroids. Of these three, its outermost moon, Durse, is a cool desert with a thin Martian-like atmosphere comprised largely of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. It has a rusty red color for the same reasons as Mars. Its innermost moon, Garnit, is a cool selena. Despite its name implying the color red, Garnit is noteworthy being light-green in color, even though it harbors no life. This is due to its thin chlorine atmosphere combined with its copper-rich surface.
Kelliptos's second largest moon, called Loa, is of particular scientific interest. This is due to its unique combination of chemical, geologic, and orbital factors that, together, are on the verge of allowing for abiogenesis to occur in the next 15 thousand years. Approaching 7 billion years in age, this will occur far later in its life-cycle than all previous abiogenesis events that have been observed. This will put the Iyronian system in the extremely rare category of having had 2 abiogenesis events. While currently an oceanic planet, intense geologic activity due to its proximity to Kelliptos will cause land to arise within the next few millennia. With Iyro slowly increasing in brightness over the next few billion years, its atmosphere, comprised largely of water vapor and carbon dioxide, will increase in thickness enough that, with its magnetic field, should be nough to shield its surface from Kelliptan radiation. This will create the perfect conditions for even the most complex life on Loa's surface to arise. Interestingly, Loa is the largest rocky body in the entire Iyronian system.
Like Noir, Kelliptos one had a large ring system after Cheut, an ancient dwarf planet, broke apart under its gravitational influence.
Past Bodies
Calculations made by Probe J-176a indicate that at least two more major bodies once inhabited the Iyronian system. Additionally, it seems to have been able to deduce Verrune once had an asteroid moon.
Torr
Before its ejection, Torr had an elliptical orbit that nearly crossed paths with both Verrune and Kelliptos. Calculations seems to indicate that at one point in its history, Torr came so close to Verrune that it was able to strip it of its only moon - an asteroid that orbited Verrune just at the edge of its gravitational influence. Once pulled away from its previous parent body, this asteroid eventually fell into Kelliptos.
Later, Torr itself had a close encounter with Kelliptos that caused its ejection from the Iyronian system. This ejection caused Torr to become a rogue planet now orbiting the galactic center now several light-years further out. As soon as Probe J-176a finished the calculation that revealed this, it created an unreadable log file filled with repeating characters. This is sometimes interpreted as being a sort of "celebration" on the probe's part for "justice" having been enacted on the planet that stole Verrune's only moon.
Torr was shown to be a navy and brown colored desert with an orange-red atmosphere of approximately 0.3 atm.
Cheut
Once the body furthest from Iyro, Cheut was a dwarf planet that broke apart when it the Kelliptan Roche limit. Like Torr, its orbit was highly elliptical and came close enough to Kelliptos for gravitational perturbations to cause its orbit to be unstable, eventually leading to its demise. Although a vast majority of the fragments that once made up the dwarf planet eventually had their orbits decay into Kelliptos, one major fragment is known to have been ejected and eventually ended up as the innermost moon of Mahl.
Cheut was a frozen selena with largely uniform features. Unlike Torr, its orbit only came close to Kelliptos, never reaching the inner Iyronian system. Additionally, its orbit went further out than any other major body.
Lost Moon
Calculations made by Probe J-176a revealed that Verrune had an asteroid moon just under two billion years ago. Upon having a close encounter with the now-ejected planet Torr, this moon was stripped from Verrune's sphere of influence. It continued to revolve around Iyro in an unstable orbit for another few million years between Verrune and Kelliptos before ultimately colliding with the latter.
This moon, called Cradyl by the probe, was know to be incredibly rich in potassium and chlorine, which is unusual for such bodies. As such, it has been postulated that Verrune's abundant reserves of these two elements may have arisen from early bombardments of a series of interstellar asteroids captured by Iyro early on in the system's life cycle. Without these crucial components, Verrune would likely have ended up barren of life.
Physical Properties
Verrune is older than Earth at 6.669 billion years. While it is the largest terrestrial planet in its system, Verrune is only a moderately sized planet with a diameter of 9660 km. Gravity at Verrune's surface is ~7.6 m/s (77% of Earth's). The planet's semimajor axis is 1.25 AU. One Verran year is 1.37 Earth years and has a rotational period of 17 and-a-half hours. While it does have an atmosphere, it is extremely thin at only 0.0036 atm. The atmosphere is composed primarily of helium and chlorine, giving it a green hue.
Despite its age and size, Verrune is geologically active. Although few volcanoes exist on the surface, Verrune's metallic core is almost as hot as Earth's. Major tectonic plates exist, but shift at around 10% the rate of those on Earth. This means Verrune-quakes exist, but are rare and typically are weak. The average temperature on Verrune varies between -2.8 F and 19.2 F throughout its year.
Verrune has an ESI of 0.877.
Life
Despite Verrune being too cold to harbor liquid water on its surface, all life on it is water-based. This is made possible by a special symbiotic relationship between the vegetation on Verrune's surface and the bacterial life that inhabit swellings in their roots, deep underground where temperatures are just warm enough for pure water to exist in a liquid state.
How this exceedingly tight symbiotic relationship developed is still up for debate, but the leading theory is that the bacteria first developed deep underground, where it was warm enough for abiogenesis to occur. Given the lack of resources, however, these primeval bacteria would evolved incredibly slowly. At some point, either due to tectonic activity or a asteroid impact, a large portion of bacteria-rich ground became exposed to the atmosphere at a location warm enough on the surface for water to exist in a liquid state, such as volcano. While water is not normally present on the surface given how quickly it tends to boil off in Verune's thin atmosphere, this event likely caused enough to be brought up for the bacteria to survive long enough to form chains of bacteria leading from the surface to the interior of the planet. (This being the most controversial part of the theory.) Water would have then been transported between individuals upwards in exchange for the new nutrients bacteria on the surface had access to. These chains are then thought to have gone on to become the first roots of what would eventually turn into the Verrune's plant life. Finally, through millions of years of mutations, natural selection singled out individuals that could survive could survive the Verran climate outside of these hotspots. Evidence for this theory include the fact that the regions on Verrune with the most genetic variation are the regions around volcanos near Verrune's equator.
Plant
All plants on the surface of Verrune have been observed to have roots that extend miles down to the warmer interior of the planet. Though very little moisture can be found at these levels, the plants will take in anything they can. On the surface, the sponge-like "leaves" of the plants absorb chlorine from the extremely thin atmosphere, which it is composed almost entirely out of. The mechanism that allows for this is a small pressure imbalance that the plant creates within its leaves that force the chlorine in, where it is then absorbed through capillary action. In addition to water, the plants also collect the potassium that found in the soil and rock in relative abundance. In a process that can take over one hundred years, these elements are then slowly transported to the deepest parts of the roots, where large swellings occur that harbor most of Verrune's bacterial life. Here, the bacteria take up these, along with other resources transported by the plants needed for survival. As a by-product, the bacteria form a salt the plant mixes with the small amounts of water it has. This mechanism is used to prevent said water from freezing on the plants on the surface. Because this process takes a very long time, plants grow at a very slow rate. Due to this, and the fact that these plants are what dominate the planet's surface unopposed, most of them are several million years old.
Once every 2 to 3 thousand years, the plants will develop small nodules along their root systems. These nodules eventually grow into entirely new plants that grow in all directions. Roots that reach the surface convert into the stems and sponge-like leaves that begin to gather sunlight and chlorine from the atmosphere. The porous roots that reach deep enough into the planet swell upon intaking Verrune's bacterial life, creating an ideal environment for them to thrive. Roots that encounter the roots of other individual plants, including the first connection made with the plant's parent, connect and resources are shared. This is where young specimens get the energy and nutrients needed to grow before being able to make energy on their own. It can take up to 1,700 years from germination for a plant to grow both surface leaves and root swellings.
Due to the asexual nature of their propagation, very little genetic variation exists among the species of plants that exist on Verrune. Indeed, most individuals found with regions spanning hundreds of square miles have been found to be nearly-genetically identical. By Earth standards, their taxonomic classification would only reach as high as the family level. This is only expanded upwards a single time when the bacterial life is included.
Bacterial
Bacterial life on Verrune is primarily restricted to large underground pockets that are relatively rich in water and nutrients. These pockets must be deep enough, or close enough to thermal vents or volcanos for water to exist in its liquid state. Beyond that, bacteria exist in large numbers in the swelling of plant roots deep underground, where the aforementioned symbiotic relationship between the two groups takes place.
Verran bacteria closely resemble bacteria on Earth, visually, and even use DNA to store their genes. However, they function very different, internally as they have adapted to low-nutrient and low-water environments. Their gelatinous interior is far more viscous than most known life in the universe, and their cell membranes are nearly as thick as the cell walls of Earth's plant species. This causes their movement to be very sluggish by bacterial standards, but it is made up for by their relatively long lives.
Like Verran plant life, all bacteria reproduce asexually via cell division.
Gallery
Space Engine Location
Verrune is RS8409-3449-6-176805-53 4 in 0.9.7.2