Revision as of 02:51, January 19, 2025

Vyllurian is an ocean planet orbiting Helyar. Home of the Kya, this planet has a long and difficult history. There are two main forces that shaped Vyllurian's path—the fact that the entirety of its surface is submerged and the fact that it was only the second planet in the system to develop. Today, twenty billion call Vyllurian home, most of which reside on the more shallow polar regions. The equator is desolate by comparison, so far from the sea floor that it is devoid of nutrients. In effect, Vyllurian does have an analog to the oceans found on other planets.

While history began on Vyllurian millennia before contact with outside civilization, contact with the Triumvirate Civilization fundamentally changed the direction it was going in. Vyllurian's sister, Aegyn de facto homeworld of the Humans, consistently received more attention from the international community. For most of history, this left Vyllurian a comparative back-water, but the Sedrua-Triumvirate War was the chance the Kya needed to shine. They devoted their entire industrial capacity to fighting Sedrua and traitorous forces on Aegyn. Vyllurian rode the post war boom toward prominence on the galactic stage.

Vyllurian remained a powerful world even after the collapse of the Triumvirate. As Aegyn waged its wars, Vyllurian peacefully extended its influence. Its population was the highest around Helyar by 8800 after Aegyn was largely abandoned. Eventually, the Kya began leaving the planet in mass numbers, particularly when the cost of a ticket off world was less than the cost of living on Vyllurian. So wealthy was the planet that its rulers, the so-called Nooarchs, bought most of the Helyar and Byutix systems. For centuries, the Vylluri Nooarchy stood against the Dominion of Astraeus, its neighbor on all sides. Fighting and losing the War of the Ancients, Vyllurian's empire briefly became the largest duchy in the newly-created Greater Martial Consilium, only to be carved up by Human generals who argued that Humanity's home system should be ruled by Humans. Today, Vyllurian's population continues to fall. It is the most expensive place to live in Aylathiya.

Physical

Land on Vyllurian disappeared some fifty million years ago, the last small atolls sinking beneath the waves as Vyllurian's ice caps melted for the last time. Much of the more complex life on the sea floor originally evolved on land which took up as much as a third of the planet's surface one billion years ago.

North Pole

The north pole hosts a bulk of the population and was the site of civilization's dawn. In 4000 CE, the first crops, multicellular algae called soargim, fueled Kyan civilization. Its waters hosted a once-diverse ecosystem brimming with plants, corals, and animals. Its thick seaweed forests created Vyllurian's modern atmosphere, half of which being oxygen. Their roots extend deep into the crust, collecting carbon dioxide sourced from volcanic activity.

While there is much less biodiversity in the modern north pole, the government has set aside two thirds of it as a nature preserve. Creating new structures in this region needs the approval of a myriad of environmental committees and boards, leaving most proposed projects undone. The remaining third of the north pole is a dense aquatic metropolis. Many buildings poke out from under the water, including 'Zhara Nooarch, the planet's capitol building. In these areas exposed to air reside the foreign population, mostly Humans and Huefolk who work and reside within them. The north pole hosts a high number of corporate headquarters from across Helyar and nearby Byutix.

South Pole

The south pole is dominated by a single reef, not of coral or any other animal, but of the Kya. Like the vast expanse of vegetation and living rock once covering the south pole, most of what remains is bleached and lifeless. A ring of currents separates the waters of both poles from the rest of planet's waters. In the case of the south pole, it keeps its pollutants from spreading to the rest of Vyllurian. Only half a billion reside in the south pole and, apart from private police and security, there is no governance to speak of.

The highest point on Vyllurian, only ten meters below the waves, is Aratta Reef. Skeletons of factories jut out of the water, once housing processes too sensitive to take place in water, now house invasive species. While a few places have community or gang efforts to stay somewhat maintained, the majority lies undisturbed. Plant life infiltrates every major structure.

Lan Nooarch

Lan Nooarch is a large palace complex located five hundred kilometers south of the north pole. Stretching across seabed just a few hundred meters beneath the surface atop an extinct volcano. This proximity to the surface makes the place just as fertile as the poles and its distance gave it a unique ecosystem. Most of Lan Nooarch lies within a singular structure, Zhara Nooarch. This colossal structure pushed 7th millennium material science to its limit, stretching from the sea floor over 2500 meters into the air. Large circular windows, each nearly 2000 meters across, look out over the sea. They hold back twenty cubic kilometers of water.

Swimming within this water, with its ratio of electrolytes, salts, and plankton is kept to parts per billion precision, are some of the wealthiest individuals in Aylathiya. With wealth accruing for millennia in Florathel's exchange markets, they have silently nudged the course of cosmic politics, profiting when the circumstances favor them and profiting a little less when they don't.

These are the Nooarchs, the rulers of Vyllurian since Kyan civilization began. Everywhere the Kya go, so do their agents. The [[Kyan Commonwealth], representing all Kya in existence, is more a claim of ownership than a government protecting its citizens.

Near to Zhara Nooarch is the prestigious Orbata Institute. For centuries a leading school of thaumic research and application. A private non-military affiliated school, the institute hosts aspiring magi the universe over. The Kya are kept entirely segregated from the student body and even have limited access to the professors. The best of the best are made into agents of the Nooarchs, while one per myriad is inducted into their group.

Abyssal Plane

Stretching from pole to pole is the abyssal plane. Vyllurian is covered with ever-eroding mountain ranges and ever-filling trenches, the remnants from its days as a hotter planet. With its mantle hardening and its tectonic plates fusing together, Vyllurian's seabed has been homogenizing. With an average depth of two kilometers, not a single photon reaches the sea floor. While the poles are bastions of photosynthesis, most of the planet has comparatively little life. The Kya followed submerged mountain ranges to colonize both the north and south poles.

With the advancement of technology, floating platforms could sustain life deep into these otherwise dead areas. At Vyllurian's population maximum of two hundred billions, large numbers of these platforms increased habitat and living space dozens of times over. These platforms need not be on the surface either. Through careful manipulation of their density, they were placed at all heights, even beneath the fertile photic zone, or the zone where light penetrates.

Most of these structures have sunk to the sea floor, now habitats for worms and other squirming things that reside far deeper than the Kya can handle. They have made for great habitats, but not for great living arrangements. Only a few million maintain their platforms, and therefore their food sources. They barter with those living on mountain peaks for nutrients to feed whatever plant or fungus they are growing on the platform.

Astrography

Vyllurian is only 21,000,000 km from Helyar (0.145 AU). The orange dwarf star heats the planet to average temperatures of fifty Celsius. In the past, Vyllurian had two moons, the large moon geologists call Pyerhen and the small one called Killaga. Pyerhen strayed too close to its parent some twenty million years ago. The sea boiled, the crust split, and volcanoes churned. Pyerhen heated its parent as it drew ever closer, eventually straying just close enough to be torn to pieces—Vyllurian's gravity pulled harder on Pyerhen's own surface than the moon did.

As nutrient-rich meteors obliterated the old ecosystems of Vyllurian, the ancestors of the Kya could pop their heads out of the water and see the bright white rings of Vyllurian. Only a small handful of them survived in the south pole region, avoiding the mass extinction through happenstance. This event kick-started a brief era of activity in Vyllurian's mantle, spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Vyllurian's plants, lean from lack of atmospheric carbon, engorged themselves on the molecule. Vyllurian's oxygen levels increased, allowing for big expensive oxygen-devouring brains to evolve. The Kya evolved at a perfect time when the seas had not yet become too deep and the air not yet devoid of carbon.

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
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 '''Vyllurian''' is an ocean planet orbiting [[Helyar|Helyar.]] Home of the [[Kya]], this planet has a long and difficult history. There are two main forces that shaped Vyllurian's path—the fact that the entirety of its surface is submerged and the fact that it was only the second planet in the system to develop. Today, twenty billion call Vyllurian home, most of which reside on the more shallow polar regions. The equator is desolate by comparison, so far from the sea floor that it is devoid of nutrients. In effect, Vyllurian does have an analog to the oceans found on other planets.