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Lore: Epsilon Eridani System

Overview

A relatively young system, thought to have formed between 400 and 800 million years ago, ε Eridani is the 13th nearest star system to Sol, located 3.2 parsecs from it. It is a single-star system, home to several distinct debris rings still lingering from it's formation, as well as a limited number of terrestrial planets and several gas giants. The notable bodies of the system in order of increasing semi-major axis are:

• Ran - Star

• Baldr - Terrestrial Planet
• Albion - Terrestrial Planet
• Hodr - Terrestrial Planet

• Inner Asteroid Belt - Astronomical Feature

• Aegir - Gas Giant
• Forseti - Gast Giant

• Outer Asteroid Belt - Astronomical Feature

• Thunor - Gas Giant
• Heimdallr - Gas Giant

• Comet Belt - Astronomical Feature

Ran

The single star at the center of the Epsilon Eridani system, Ran is a bright and young star which generates stronger UV and solar winds compared to larger and older Sol. It belongs to the spectral class K2V. The name "Ran" derives from the Old Norse "Rán" (lit.: theft, robbery), a goddess which personified the sea. Generally thought to embody it's dangerous and unfavorable aspects, she was sometimes depicted as killing seafarers by dragging them into the depths with a fishing net. The star's low orbits are largely unoccupied save for solar power collection infrastructure, as well as space weather monitoring and scientific probes.

Baldr

A small and airless terrestrial world, orbiting roughly 0.34 AU from Ran, Baldr is tidally locked in a 2:5 resonance, it's astronomical day is rather long at ~32 days compared to it's ~81 day orbit, leading to a solar day ~54 days long. The extreme thermal environment at the planet's surface, coupled to the proximity to the star and it's powerful stellar winds, leave Baldr ironically overshadowed by the system's plentiful debris rings in the mining sector. The planet holds no permanent population, however it has been previously visited by manned expeditions and been the object of scientific study for nearly as long as the system has been colonized. The planet is named after the Norse god of light, owing to it's proximity to the star, whose death is prophesized to be a harbinger of the end of the world.

Albion

Albion is the only Earth-like planet in the Epsilon Eridani system. Detection of it's earth-like characteristics, most notable of which were the presence of water vapor and oxygen in it's atmosphere, were the very reason the system became one of the first targets Humanity set out to colonize.

Surface Conditions

The planet orbits at roughly 0.71 AU from Ran, weighing 1.3 Earth Masses and with a radius of 1.1 Earth Radii, well as a similar, if marginally richer in oxygen atmosphere. The solar day on Albion is 33 hours and 8 minutes long. Surface temperatures reach as low as -101°C at the poles and as high as 26°C during summer at the equator, although average temperatures in most inhabited areas hover somewhere around 0°C over the course of the year. When it was first colonized, Albion already harbored it's own alien biosphere, although it was primitive compared to Terran life. Oxygen producing bacteria and small land vegetation and fungi were all that were present on land. While an analogue to the Eukaryotic cell had seemingly evolved, the handful of multicellular animal organisms within the planet's cold oceans were only beginning to develop. How such life had developed in so short a timeframe when compared to Terra was both highly unexpected to it's first settlers and still a topic of scientific discussion, although current leading theories are that relatively advanced microbes and possibly even eukaryotic life may have been seeded through panspermia after the planet had cooled from it's formation. Regardless of how it arose, the planet's native life was unfortunately ill-equipped to compete with the Terran specimens brought by the colonization effort, and a significant part of that early life was lost before any attempts at study and preservation could be made. Most of pre-human Eridanian life today exists only within controlled study environments and purpose-made space stations which attempt to emulate the planet's early biosphere. On the surface itself, most of the planet's flora and fauna have been replaced by descendants of the imported Terran examples and gene-edited additions which were considered necessary to stabilize the biosphere during the change, although a handful of the most adaptable of native land and sea life managed to persist into the current day, and were considered best left as they were. The planet's equator harbors a climate not too unlike temperate regions of Terra, although the further away from it one travels it quickly becomes more tundra-like and eventually arctic, with large continental glaciers dominating the planet's higher latitudes completely.

Colonization

While most early colonies did not stray far from the more habitable equator, present-day arcologies on Albion will sometimes stretch into the more desolate high latitudes when needed. Population densities are, in general, low and concentrated around a few major metropolises near the equator. The planet is the capital of the Eridani Alliance, headquartered in Morveren, one of the planet's largest cities, built along the coast of the Galdrygean Ocean, within the region where the first colonists had once landed their shuttles. It's sparser regions, meanwhile, include smaller clusters of towns, cities and standalone arcologies, and are unique within the Epsilon Eridani system given the world's singular status as a habitable, breathable natural environment. One of the reasons for this lack of centralization, which has carried to the Alliance's governing of it's interstellar territories, is the relative heterogeneity of initial settlement. Unlike many of the colonies that arose in the super-luminal age the Eridani awoke to, theirs was a colonization effort of a single, self-contained trip, one with enough numbers to establish many concurrent settlements on the surface, many of which have persisted into the current day.