Eithlinn
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Eithlinn is a habitable moon in the Milky Way. The moon is the homeworld of the Dotsk and is capital and most populated body in Dotskgard. It orbits the gas giant Tuirne which itself orbits three astronomical units away from Medb, a fairly large brown dwarf. The entirety of the Tuirne system has a population of 145 Quadrillion, making it the most populous planetary system in the Milky Way. Eithlinn is the largest moon orbiting its planet as well as the largest terrestrial object in its system. Due to the lack of a parent star, the main source of heat for Eithlinn is tidal heating from Tuirne.
Accompanying Eithlinn are over forty other spherical moons. The largest of which is Anamnesis, the first world the Dotsk terraformed. Other major moons include Mys, Roid, and Erroi. Eithlinn is about seventy percent as massive as the Earth, while its parent is approximately fifty percent more massive than Jupiter.
History
The moon first formed 9.77 billion years ago around Tuirne's proto-planetary disk. Due to tidal forces on the moon, volcanism was very common and Eithlinn soon built up an atmosphere of Carbon and Sulfur Dioxide. The strong magnetic field of both Medb and Tuirne protected this atmosphere from cosmic rays and there were no nearby stars to strip it. This atmosphere quickly built up to almost twice that of the Earth's by 8.94 Gya.
This atmosphere greatly reduced the risk of deadly asteroid strikes, however, asteroids were still common. The large gravity well of Tuirne attracted large numbers of asteroids. For the first several billion years of the moon's history, asteroids large enough to penetrate the atmosphere were common, contributing the to the volcanism already prevalent on the moon. These same asteroids seeded Eithlinn with all the materials life needed to form. The life, first forming roughly 5.5 Gya, was carbon-arsenic based life as phosphorous was rare on Eithlinn. Much like most instances of abiogenesis, it formed near to the bottom of Eithlinn's fairly deep seas near to hydrothermal vents.
This life was greatly inhibited by the relatively common asteroid impacts the moon faced during the first part of its history. As such, it took almost 4 billion years for complex life to form. This life comprised of simple scavengers but quickly diversified into a stunning array of life. 1.1 Gya, the first single-celled forms of life emerged on land. The abundance of chemicals in the air useful for chemosynthesis gave a clear incentive to colonize the land. Shortly thereafter, 750 Mya, complex life formed on land.
This complex life started as large fans trying to capture as much material as possible from the air. Animals emerged after these fans became common, feeding on them like herbivores. The land soon became home to a large array of life forms.
The Dotsk
The Dotsk emerged in 120,000 BCE and quickly developed agriculture as there was no ice age to inhibit them like it did with humans in 100,000 CE. From there, they took another five thousand years to develop metallurgy and enter into a bronze age, quickly replaced by an iron age later that millennia. Much like most species, they had tribalistic tendencies and formed their own nations and economies.
The Dotsk had no access to oil on their moon, they used geothermal power for everything. The lack of oil but abundance of volcanism made this an easy choice for them. As they slowly industrialized, they began spreading to every corner of their moon, bringing technology with them. After several wars, they entered a period of globalism in which the economies of their various nations became more and more interconnected. During this same period, they began landing craft on their accompanying moons. With no threat of climate change, due to the irrelevance of sunlight and the lack of oil, the Dotsk were quickly able to form their humble moon into an ecumenopolis. There were no limits, they had access to the easiest form of power for free.
Type I
Eithlinn was fully under the control of the Dotsk by 17,000 CE. Around this same time, the whole of the Tuirne system was being colonized and Eithlinn became an ecumenopolis. Their first mega structure was not a Dyson Swarm, like most civilizations, but a massive orbital ring around Tuirne. This ring was made up of the hundreds of asteroids orbiting Tuirne. With this ring they were able to start gas giant lifting the planet to gather large amounts of Helium 3 to power their ever-expanding nation.
Type II
One of the few civilizations to become Type II without a star were the Dotsk. With huge arrays of Fusion reactors, they were able to generate the power required to attain Kardeshev II status. Without things such as plants or a home star, they never developed the concept of Dyson Swarms. Instead, they just kept building up their home system. Soon, they had hundreds of rings around their Brown Dwarf, lifting huge quantities of material to build up their civilization. Other planets in the system were moved around Tuirne as it very quickly became the proverbial center of the Dotsk. Over 99% of Dotsk lived within one light-second of their home world.
Contact
Eithlinn and the moons around it remained where the vast majority of Dotsk lived. They continued advancing their own system with little regard for the outside universe. Their own system could support quintillions, so they had no reason to leave. As they remained in place. population growth slowed, but advanced technology made death a rare occurrence, so this mattered little.
When the LaC first contacted the Dotsk in 15,671, they quickly had the Dotsk join as a single-system-state called Dotskgard. The Dotsk were eager to join an interstellar confederacy, it meant that they would have protection and could remain in their one system. Despite being the smallest of the new states, they were instantly one of the most influential. With a population of ten quadrillion at the time, it was easily a large portion of the population of the LaC. Its economy grew considerably as it was able to import materials it needed rather than fuse elements, allowing for the government to life restrictions on population growth that served to prevent overwhelming the reactor array. Very quickly the population grew as several million more O'Neill cylinders and other habitats flooded the space around Tuirne. Eithlinn gained several artificial layers in this time period to make more room for all the new Dotsk.
Blockades
During the War of the Decamillennial Transition, the system was blockaded by The Empyrean, a nation fighting against the Lactean Confederacy. The imports the people relied on were cut off all at once and the infrastructure around Medb to star lift was mostly several millennia old as they did not need to continue extracting metals from it. The local government, which was largely human or influenced by them, issued several mandates to lower the consumption of individuals. After a decade of this, the Dotsk grew weary of these restrictions, many were suffering deficiencies and the LaC military was busy defending human worlds over nonhuman ones. The normally very temperate Dotsk broke and a revolution occurred, causing the Lactean Spring and, later, the Split of the Lactean Confederacy.
Anarchic Period
The Anarchic Period in the Milky Way saw the collapse of The Lactean Confederacy and downturns in most major nations around it. What this period did was end the Blockade and allow the Dotsk to overthrow their leaders. After several coups and a brief civil war, the nation was able to set up a decently stable republic modeled after the original government the planet had before the Lactean Confederacy. With Eithlinn as the capital world of this New Dotsk Republic, called Dotskgard in Xeno after the Neo-Norse word for the nation, the nation broke its habit of isolationism and began sending colony ships to other worlds. Again, the population swelled as resources flowed in from nearby systems the Dotsk easily subjugated with their huge population to draw troops from.
The Confederacy of Borealis
After the formation of the Confederacy of Borealis, the Dotsk, whose total population was exceeding one quintillion, a companion moon of Eithlinn was made into the Financial Capital of the Confederacy. This thrust Tuirne from a comparatively minor world to the center of markets in the Milky Way. When wormhole technology was perfected a millennia later, over twenty ended up leading to the Tuirne system. Currently, many of the largest corporations have offices on Eithlinn or orbiting it. Despite the large amount of wealth circulating in the upper echelons of Dotsk society, the majority end up living average lives apart from the high population.
Physical
Eithlinn has a small magnetic field of its own. This field is just enough to protect it from the cosmic rays that its parent's magnetic field misses. Even so, a lot of radiation is missed, causing most species to be covered in thick layers of dermis filled with pigments to absorb harmful rays.
Oceans water covers the surface of most of Eithlinn. These oceans are mostly a uniform depth except for around land masses. Here, they sharply decrease it depth until hitting land. What land there is on the moon is formed almost entirely from volcanic activity. Every bit of land has a large volcano at its center, spewing large amounts of vital chemicals into the air and ground. Islands that cease volcanic activity somewhat quickly erode away due to the fairly high erosion rate on the moon. The Dotsk have since ended most volcanic activity on Eithlinn in favor of artificial means of introducing nutrients into the environment less reliant on natural and unpredictable processes.
Geography
Most of the Eithlinn's original volcanic activity and natural surface has been altered by the Dotsk to suit their needs better, leaving little in the way of natural geography left. The moon has five layers made mostly of material brought in from asteroids orbiting Tuirne. These layers are covered in large amounts of buildings and other infrastructure in edition to large open spaces and parks for the sake of aesthetics. On the poles of the moon are massive radiators that emit large amounts of infrared light, cooling the ecumenopolis. Were it not for these radiators, the moon would very quickly heat to the point of killing its inhabitants.
Each concentric shell from the center becomes larger in area and mass. The mass of the moon has increased almost ten percent since the Dotsk first became Kardashev I. These layers are all artificially lit apart form the upmost layer, which itself is being enveloped in a sixth layer as of present day. All of these layers have large seas and are air-tight. As one gets higher in one of these layers, the amount of gas decreases until hitting the next layer, where it is almost a vacuum. Holes in the layers filled in constantly by a swarm of quadrillions of machines inspecting every square centimeter of the layers for damage. A large hole in the layers (something on the order of several dozen meters in scale) would leak large amounts of air into the lower layer. To combat these dangerous, and rare, occurrences, there are large machines placed roughly every one hundred meters capable of melting itself into a slurry of semi-liquid material able to quickly plug the hole until repair crews can arrive.
Across the moon are truly large towers, often twenty kilometers long and a kilometer and a half wide which link the layers. They support people, matter, and power throughout the moon. Many of them extend deep into the core, extracting all the power they can from it. They also server to radiate excess heat from the moon.
Biosphere
Most native species were relocated to O'Neill Cylinders orbiting Tuirne and onto the moon Erroi to make more room for Dotsk on Eithlinn. This life is mostly based on carbon with a large amount of arsenic and oxygen present. The lack of phosphorus in the area made it far too uncommon for life to incorporate it into their biologies, so life evolved with arsenic as the backbone of its DNA instead. This caused phosphorous to become a valuable commodity to the ancient Dotsk, a material rivaling gold in terms of value.
The large volumes of Hydrogen Sulfide present in the atmosphere, in addition to the large amount of carbon dioxide, methane, and sulfur dioxide, is vital to life on this planet. Eithlinn is over two light years away from its nearest star, so photosynthesis is impossible. Instead, the lowest level of the food-chain relies heavily on chemosynthesis. Hydrogen Sulfide and Carbon Dioxide can be oxidized to produce sugars, releasing large amounts of pure sulfur. Most organisms which chemosynthesize end up becoming purple or yellow due to this release of elemental sulfur.
A large portion of the moon's biosphere relied on another exotic form of energy production, radiosynthesis. Near to the bottom of the sea, there are no high-energy waves for life to us, however, on land, the moon is often bombarded with high-energy waves. Every so often, Eithlinn will pass through a Van Allen Belt of Tuirne, that is, a region of space where high-energy waves can be "stored" by the magnetic fields. Tuirne has large Van Allen belts that often pelt the surface of Eithlinn with a large amount of radiation. The first "plants" emerging onto the land would mostly chemosynthesize like everything else, however, they were able to switch to Radiosynthesis when the moon passed through these belts. Radiosynthesis is akin to photosynthesis, except it uses higher energy light than photosyntehsis ever could.