Carlea

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Dance, O Freest Aeon

This content is a part of Cosmoria.

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Index / Lexica / Timeline

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Carlea

Meta Info

Article Creator

TheMinmusDerp

Location Info

System

Cnara System

Society and Politics

Population

75,000,000,000

Capital City

Carlea Capital, Larenna

Economy

Economic Value

High

Production Value

High

Affiliation

Illuin

A cool, temperate planet with abundant life, Carlea is the third planet around the star Maea in the Cnara System. Carlea is the homeworld of the Kalar species, the most populous species of the Isra Tree, as well as one of the twin capitals of Illuin.

Overview & Brief History

Carlea is one of the most important worlds in Florathel, as it is the capital world of Illuin, and the galaxy's most populated natural world. Carlea was the site of the ancient state of Erlas, one of the first planetary nations in all of history before it was wiped out by the Swarm. It was later recolonized by Ectabana after the end of the Dark Times, and genetic engineering caused the Varla colonists to diverge away from the baseline to create the Kalar.

Under the Alshunaman Empire, Carlea became a fairly prosperous and major world in the region, but the species was nearly driven to extinction by the orbital bombardment of Karith the Accursed. Carlea was almost completely abandoned for much of the time of the Dyad of Nations, with the Kalar population slowly trickling back from the few colonies. By the beginning of the Years of Fire, Carlea had assembled a small, self-sufficient nation, fully capable of defending itself against the surrounding warring states. It would become a protectorate on the borders of Yanaris before its dissolution.

The rise of the Providence Union and the final destruction of Yanaris meant the end of Carlea's protected status and prosperity as it was conquered by the Union's crushing military power. The ongoing depredations caused enormous environmental damage as resources were extracted at will from all across the Cnara System. Despite knowing full well that automated labor was more efficient, dissidents were placed in work camps purely as punishment. This and other atrocities led the Kalar, normally a peaceful people, to be among the most powerful fighters against the Providence Union in the long, violent, and universal-scale War of the Last Alliance.

Carlea and its neighbors mostly sat out the War of Saiheran Succession, providing safe haven for civilian refugees fleeing the war zones. As the capital of Illuin, its influence increased exponentially as that nation became a founding member of the United Nations of Florathel.

As one of the oldest continuously inhabited worlds of Cosmoria, Carlea has acted as the political center of Florathel many times throughout history, offering both the greatest gifts of peace and the harshest consequences of war. Today, Carlea is among the most astoundingly prosperous worlds in Cosmoria. Lush rainforests fade into diverse savannas, punctuated with gleaming self-sufficient arcology towers surrounded by pristine wild ecosystems.

Space infrastructure

Carlea, orbiting so close to Maea, has no natural moons of any kind. The lack of major moons makes vast orbital infrastructure very easy to set up, meaning that the space within Carlea's sphere of influence is positively stuffed with various rotating habitats, space stations, transport spacecraft, space farms, and solar collectors.

There are also many rotating habitats around Carlea. There are in fact so many that over a quarter of Carlea's population isn't actually on the planet. These rotating habitats are mainly fed by low gravity space farms, carefully designed to be as efficient as possible.

The most efficient route to and from the planetary surface is in the form of a selection of active support orbital rings and Atlas Pillar constructs. Passengers and cargo are loaded onto an elevator mounted on the Atlas Pillar, an actively supported tower reaching out of the atmosphere linked to the orbital ring. The orbital ring is held in place above the planet by a magnetic ring spinning around much faster than orbital velocity allowing the platform to sit stationary encircling the planet without collapsing, so the pillar only really needs to hold up itself. Public transports depart from mass drivers mounted on the orbital rings at regular intervals, accelerated along tracks circling the planet. Carefully aligned arriving spacecraft can decelerate in much the same way.

Geography

Carlea has a static-lid crust, leading to a relatively flat seafloor, with no trenches and no undersea ridges. This means that the continents don't move around the crust, unlike tectonically active planets. However, large portions of crust have been shoved upward by magmatic upwelling, creating two large contients, Reana and Porania. Each of these continents contains massive populations, filled with billions of Kalar and other species, living in tall arcologies.

These two continents are divided by a vast ocean. The region between the lands is known as the Tenesic Sea, and the rest of the ocean encircling the globe is referred to as the Saialas Ocean. This ocean is filled with hundreds of islands of varying sizes, from tiny spits of sand barely poking above the water to vast islands almost continents in their own right.

A map of Carlea.

Most of the Carlea is covered in forests, and the deserts are being artificially cooled down and terraformed via cloud seeding mechanisms. Along with the endless forests, Carlea is covered with taigas, large volcanic hotspot mountains, frozen wastelands (not much of them anymore though), small deserts, sparse regions of arid badlands, and a few swamps near the coasts.

Continents: Reana

The continent of Reana, from a spacecraft in high orbit.

Reana is the equatorial continent of Carlea, containing many species of life and is mostly covered in tropical rainforest. The continent is partially submerged, with only ~fifty percent of its land area protruding above water. Reana is home to many coral reefs, and is thus the most biodiverse continent on Carlea.

Larenna

Reana is home to the city of Larenna, the most populous city of the planet. Larenna is a floating city suspended from an orbital ring, to avoid disturbing the fragile ecosystem there. It plays host to the local government of Reana and Carlea as a whole, as well as a number of prestigious educational sites and research organizations.

Larenna's shape is much longer than it is wide, by virtue of being suspended from a functionally two-dimensional object. It hovers roughly 800 meters above the treetops near the Reanan coastline, and much of its architecture is carefully designed to allow as much light as possible to reach the trees beneath the city.

Targa Archipelago

The Targa Archipelago is an archipelago filled with many islands, which are set aside as a nature preserve. It has many species of animals and plants found nowhere else on the planet, including the Pyre Deertrap, a carnivorous plant that looks like an alarmingly large jaw capable of eating animals as large as deer. The carnivorous plants like the Deertrap evolved because of the low soil quality (it's actually sand), which required extra nutrition to allow the plants to grow and reproduce.

Kesalles Rainforest

The Kesalles Rainforest spans the eastern above-water portion of the continent, and has many many types of plants, some of which remain uncatalogued to this day. It contains both the rainiest place on Carlea and the place where lightning strikes most often, Lake Marelaka. Some Kalar have chosen to leave the cities and live in this rainforest in small huts suspended from the vast trees.

The Rainforest contains massive trees in excess of 400 meters tall, and a small portion of the rainforest has a massive collection of buildings suspended from the massive branches. This city, Nenaus, is made of relatively primitive materials, as it has to make sure not to damage the trees upon which it is built.

Nenetas Rainforest

The Nenetas Rainforest is a rainforest on the western above-water portion of the continent, and it is relatively similar to the Kesalles Rainforest. It has many unique species and is the most biodiverse region of the planet. On the eastern shore of the rainforest, there is a space elevator port, which was placed twelve kilometers offshore.

Alatara Desert

The Alatara Desert is the driest portion of the planet, on the southwestern shore of the northern portion of the continent of Reana. It is created and maintained by a rain-shadow effect caused by the Pellot Mountains, which block water vapor carried on the wind from reaching the location of the desert. There are some places in the desert which haven't seen rain in all of recorded history.

The extreme conditions of the desert necessitate similarly extreme species there. There aren't very many species that live here, and the few that do are carefully adapted to the harsh conditions. One species lives in the relatively wetter regions of the desert and can live for over eleven years without a single drop of water. Another lives on the shoreline and digs trenches to guide water into a drinking trough.

Pellot Mountains

The Pellot Mountains are extinct volcanoes caused by a roving hotspot breaking through the crust. They are the highest mountains on Carlea, and are the anchor of another space elevator. They aren't very biologically diverse, but a few species have managed to gain footholds there.

Continents: Porania

The continent of Porania, from a spacecraft in high orbit.

Porania is the southern and less populous continent of Carlea, and is mainly covered in dry forest and savannah. Porania only has one major city, Arkos, floating in the deep water off the jagged western coastline.

Salapar Forests

The Salapar Forests are the most ecologically diverse area of Porania, filled with various sorts of birds and other plant and animal life. The forests are home to one or two uncontacted Kalar tribes, meaning that travel is restricted due to the possibility of disease introduction. As such, very few venture into the thick forests and vines.

Anacreon Savannah

The Anacreon Savannah is a hot, dry, and very biodiverse region of Carlea, with many species of large animals populating the endless grasses. It is quite dry, but there are many rivers, lakes, and seasonal waterholes among the grasses. These allow all kinds of animals, and even lonely Kalar, to survive and even thrive here. The trees are relatively sparse and widely spaced, and are often quite tall to avoid their leaves being eaten by foraging animals.

Letza Ice Cap

The Letza Ice Cap is the coldest portion of Carlea, covered in kilometers of ice. Almost nothing lives here due to its extreme lack of precipitation. The Letza Ice Cap is home to the Great Dry Valleys, a series of snowless valleys deep in the center of the ice cap that have not seen a single drop of rain for millions of years.

Many lakes lie hidden deep beneath the ice populated by fascinating fauna adapted to the complete and utter blackness, which will never see the light of day.

Islands

Alerus Island

Alerus Island from low orbit around Carlea.

Alerus Island is a medium-sized island in the middle of the ocean. It is mostly covered in a small forest, surrounded by beaches. Because of the island's remoteness to landmasses, the island has many unique species which diverged from the rest of the world millions of years ago. The isle has a population of only a dozen Kalar studying the unique native fauna.

Lakes

Lake Marelaka

File:LakeMarelaka.png

Lake Marelaka from low orbit, barely visible through the clouds.

Lake Marelaka is a freshwater lake very close to the shore of the continent of Reana. the lake is located very close to the equator, and is hit by rain and lightning storms almost daily.

Climate

Carlea has a rather varied climate, with each portion of the planet having its own unique climate. Like most temperate worlds, its climate is mainly varied depending on latitude with some areas creating hot deserts and others creating patches of frozen wasteland.

Most of the landmasses are covered in temperate forests filled with endless types of flora and fauna, not all of which are even documented yet. However, the north and south poles are covered with large ice caps where only the hardiest life-forms of Carlea can survive.

The atmosphere on Carlea has a composition of 69.8% Molecular Nitrogen, 25.1% Molecular Oxygen, 1.2% Argon, and trace amounts of other elements, including carbon dioxide, ozone, and an abnormally large amount of noble gases than was expected from it's location in the system. It's biosphere has altered the atmospheric composition in several ways: Firstly, 1.4 Billion years ago, Photosynthesis was developed, releasing an insane amount of oxygen into the air, rendering most ancient anaerobic species extinct, and over millions of years after that, indirectly creating an ozone layer that protects life on land by deflecting or absorbing lethal ultraviolet radiation, which is admittedly pretty rare in the Cnara System anyway. Aside from this, the thickness of the atmosphere protects surface life from most asteroids, that could otherwise destroy large areas of land.

Flora and Fauna: Overview

The iron core of Carlea is less active, producing a magnetic field, albeit somewhat weak. The lower flow also means there is no plate tectonic activity. Earlier in its history, there was far greater activity, bringing heavy metals to the surface. Since the crust froze, the nutrients and materials have remained stable.

Life evolved almost immediately in the oxygen depleted, storm ridden salted oceans, lightning initiating the reactions creating amino acids and other simple biologic monomers. Chemosynthesis consumed poisons in the atmosphere, followed by photosynthesis which filled the skies with oxygen. After the heavy rains created by comets, and the heavy bombardment of failed planetoids, life flourished in the shallow seas that covered the planet.

Bacteria-like life was followed by eukaryotic-like life, both encased by cell walls that acted as shields against the somewhat more intense radiation that penetrates the weaker magnetic field. One driver of evolution was the widespread use of plasmids, loops of DNA that rapidly transfer between individuals. Whereas eukaryotes as we know it do not use this mechanism, the more advanced cells of Carlea evolved to continue utilizing these, enabling the widespread sharing of genetic material between species.

This was to guide the remainder of evolution for the planet, since species as a whole were not to be in direct competition with one another. One species would benefit from its neighbor, leading to multiple species occupying the same niche. Asexual and then sexual reproduction for all species are controlled by ‘braking’ proteins that limit offspring by available resources, which prevents population collapses as seen on most other planets.

Plants rapidly diversified, from algae to simple floating plants that sail the high seas. The shallow oceans receive light on the bottom, where even the dim rays toward the red end of the visible light spectrum allow the growth of broad-leafed plants that are grey in color, and cover the ocean bottom. Scant light power has led to great biodiversity across the ocean floors, as the plants have evolved creative ways to overcome these limitations, with leaves growing to several meters in size across, catching not only light, but the rain of dead material from above, and eating them like animals.

Coral reefs are everywhere, and each riot of coral is capable of photosynthesis and consumption of plant and animal material. This resulted from the widespread sharing of plasmids, even among advanced individuals.

On land, there are swamps, deserts, and rainforests, all stricken by low soil quality and intense radiation from above. Plants and animals alike have cellular structures carrying cell walls forming incomplete shields that still allow flexibility and movement.

Rainforests hold colossal trees over 400 meters tall. Their height does not compare to their depth, boasting roots that penetrate a kilometer into the crust, the roots capable of surviving a dense and hot crust interior. These anchors serve primarily as miners, transporting heavy metals and minerals from the crust to the surface. This bonanza of nutrients has led to impossibly dense forests. Smaller plants have used the same plasmids that code for the roots of the trees, with some grasses and squat shrubs also having kilometer long root systems that grow slowly but steadily, inexorably exploring the interior for every possible nutrient.

Over time, the trees have exhausted their attempts to spread to new biomes, and finally settled on expending excess energy creating ultralight spores that are shot into space in bubbles of hydrogen and helium. These are capable of surviving a vacuum near zero Kelvin.

Animal life is similarly diverse, with sea life of squid and fish that form the bulk of the complex food web. Most animals are slow growing and developing. The infrequent development of a species that is more aggressive and competitive has invariably been ‘infected’ by plasmids that brake growth and development, and any evolutionary arms race returns to the status quo.