Aquarium 5

Alpha Corallum (α Corallum) is a binary star system located in the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) 23 million light-years from Earth.

Alpha Corallum is located in the Coral or Chorus constellation.

It consists of two stars, Asura and Amaimon, the former being a G-type star (identical to the Sun) and the latter a K-type star (a smaller, cooler orange dwarf). The system is classified as a binary system, with both stars orbiting each other. It also features circumbinary planets, meaning the stars act as a single mass and their planets orbit both of them (similar to the case of the exoplanet Kepler-16b, nicknamed "the real-life Tatooine").

Alpha Corallum has a total of 7 planets:

• Nearby orbits:

• Gallu.
• Revenant.

• Habitable area:

• Vetala.
• Praise. -Omibozu.

• Distant orbits:

• Soul.
• Hantu.

Galla is a planet similar to Mars in size and mass, being only ½ Earth's mass.

This world is composed mostly of basalts and volcanic lands, characterized by its Tidal Locking condition, meaning it always shows the same face to its stars.

Its atmosphere, on the other hand, is composed of carbon dioxide, mercury gases and other toxic substances that appear thanks to its high temperatures.

Areas of the planet:

• Perpetual day zone:

This area is a gigantic ocean of lava, metal and molten rock, an ocean that was born thanks to the planet's enormous proximity to its host stars.

• Sunset Zone.

A narrow band between the hot and cold zones. It is characterized by solid volcanic soils, large basalt structures, and rivers of molten rock descending from the lava fields. Here, one can find everything from volcanoes, canyons, and cliffs to caves, caverns, and underground tunnels, the result of intense volcanic and tectonic activity.

• Zone of perpetual night:

The other side of the planet is an immense frozen wasteland, covered in snow that is not snow, but crystals of toxic gases in the atmosphere.

In addition, there is a boundary of crystals between the sunset zone and the night zone, this being produced by rivers of lava that, when they cool, crystallize into mountains of volcanic glass.

An ancient, extremely salty ocean that, due to the dynamics of the area it inhabits, eventually evaporated.

Currently, Revenant is a planet covered in a snow-like white surface; however, it is actually sodium chloride (NaCl/common table salt). In addition to salt, Revenant's ancient ocean contained enormous quantities of heavy metals dissolved in its waters, solutions that, as the water evaporated, settled on the planet's surface.

These sediments give a unique appearance to the Revenant salt flat, having veins and patches of black powder, these being oxides of iron, lead or mercury.

The planet's atmosphere is similar to Earth's, being mostly hydrogen. and Oxygen, however, there is also Nitrogen suspended in it.

Vetala is a desert world, an endless wasteland of sand and silicon sediments that stretches for thousands of kilometers.

Vetala has enormous deposits of silicon beneath its surface, deposits which, when combined with the planet's acidic soils, give rise to forests and caverns of amethyst crystals.

The planet's surface temperature is around 30° in the shade, making it a particularly hot world and difficult to inhabit permanently.

The atmosphere, on the other hand, is mainly composed of Oxygen and Helium, also having patches of Methane suspended in the upper atmosphere: these methane clouds give the planet a blue sky that slowly turns into green clouds, also changing the appearance of sunrises and sunsets because the composition of the atmosphere is different from that of Earth.

Loa is an extremely comfortable planet to live on, a world of 0.76 Earth masses (everything weighs 0.24% less), with a tropical climate, large amounts of water, and a thicker atmosphere. denser than Earth's.

Loa is characterized by being composed entirely of archipelagos, reefs, and shallow waters, as well as having geological anomalies across its surface such as cenotes and sinkholes. This is because the planet has been bombarded with asteroids and debris from its moons.

Life and vegetation in Loa are characterized For two reasons: it is higher than what we can see on Earth, and it mostly has autumnal and green tones, due to gravitational and radiation conditions. of the planet. So the tropical forests of Loa are characterized by having giant trees that range from vibrant green to orange, red, yellow and ochre tones so characteristic of Earth's autumn.

Sunsets here would also be visible, with up to three types:

• Double sunset: the twin stars set together in the east, bathing everything in orange, reddish and violet tones as night approaches.

• Golden/Fire Sunset: When one star sets before the other, sunsets can look like those on Earth (if the G star sets first), or be bathed in reddish, orange and ochre tones if it is the Type K star that sets last.

• Perpetual days: during certain times of the year, the light may not disappear completely because, when one star sets in the east, the other rises in the west.

Now, regarding its moons, Loa has two of them, born from a rogue exoplanet that, upon getting too close to Loa, had its core separated from its crust by tidal forces, giving rise to its moons:

• Bokor: metallic core, a moon composed of metal and compact rocks.

• Obambo: torn bark, porous and fragile moon full of caverns and empty vaults.

Omibozu is an exoplanet called a "super-Earth", a rocky world with 4 Earth masses.

Omibozu is composed of a saltwater ocean that covers its entire surface. Beneath this ocean, marine life is small, short, and robust, living almost entirely on seagrass and giant patches of algae attached to the seabed.

Life here is also characterized by being bioluminescent, because, being at a great depth, hardly any light reaches from the surface, causing marine beings to have developed bright pigments.

A good comparison to life on Earth is the deep-sea species, creatures that are also accustomed to high pressures and deep darkness.

Anima is a giant gas planet slightly larger than Jupiter, with an atmosphere composed primarily of hydrogen, helium, and silica, along with some deposits of argon and xenon, noble gases dispersed throughout the atmosphere. This composition results in a characteristic white, orange, beige, and blue coloration in the planet's clouds.

Ánima is also accompanied by 2 important moons:

• Banshee: a moon with a surface composed almost entirely of cobalt and lapis lazuli minerals, resulting in Banshee looking like a small, bright blue jewel from space, thanks to the light it reflects from Asura and Amaimon.

• Raijū: a moon slightly larger than Earth, with a ridiculously dense atmosphere composed almost entirely of oxygen; in addition, this atmosphere is charged with static electricity, resulting in a gray and stormy moon with constant lightning.

Hantu is another super-Earth, an icy planet with an atmosphere mainly made up of nitrogen and methane.

The icy conditions of this planet cause its surface to be covered in Nitrogen and Methane snow; in addition, there are extensive rivers and lakes of these gases in liquid form.

Beyond Hantu, there is a moon orbiting it:

• Asmodeus: It is a moon very similar to Europa, a moon of Jupiter, because it has an icy surface and, beneath it, an ocean of liquid water.

This moon, thanks to its proximity to Hantu, experiences structural stress due to tidal forces, stress that ends up heating the interior of the planet as if it were an oven.

These conditions cause geysers and hot springs to appear from cracks in the surface, shooting jets into space, very similar to Enceladus, a moon of Saturn.

Humanity finally managed to find a way to travel to other systems, visit other galaxies, and colonize new planets, all thanks to the Warp Drive, a device that creates wormholes that can teleport entire cruise ships to any point in space.

The first colony outside the Milky Way was born thanks to that technology, a human civilization located on the sixth planet of a distant star system. The planet Eden.

Thus was born SERA, the Space Exploration and Research Association, which, in its quest to find new worlds, organized the Aquarium Missions and the Sagittarius missions.

The Aquarium ships are reconnaissance cruises, missions that precede the Sagittarius to collect observational data on specific points of interest.

On the other hand, the Sagittarius missions are purely for exploration and field research, equipped with technology to descend to all the planets in a system and investigate them.

Regarding the Aquarium 5, this ship operates with two types of engines: the Warp Drive, which uses Exotic Matter to move through Einstein-Rosen tunnels; and the Antimatter Drives, whose impulse is brutally energetic thanks to the properties of this strange material.

Millions of years ago, the planet Loa was the scene of an event that would forever change its history.

Vevé.

What was long believed to be a rogue protoplanet called Vévé was, in reality, a gigantic interstellar space station built by an extremely advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Vévé was practically an artificial planet. Its interior housed: enormous cities; industrial facilities; scientific laboratories; life support systems; a gigantic space distortion reactor located at its core, responsible for powering the engine capable of generating wormholes for interstellar or even intergalactic travel. Vévé's original mission has been lost to time. It could have been a scientific expedition, a colonization mission, a military vessel, or a combination of several of these functions.

The accident.

For reasons unknown, Vévé was trapped by Loa's gravity. The intense tidal forces ended up destroying the station. The structure separated into several parts.

Bokor.

The metallic core of Vévé survived. Today it is an extremely dense moon composed almost entirely of metal. At first glance it looks like a completely natural satellite. However, within it there are: tunnels; enormous cavities; artificial atmosphere; a gigantic central chamber. The old distortion reactor continues to operate in that chamber. Although no one understands its technology, the reactor has remained active for millions of years. It periodically releases distortion pulses, capable of altering nearby spacetime and interfering with modern distortion engines. It was precisely one of those pulses that caused the destruction of Aquarium 5.

Obambo.

The bark of Vévé was torn off during the destruction. It ended up becoming a second moon. It is a very porous body, full of caverns and composed of materials much less dense than Bokor.

The rings of Loa.

The rest of Vévé's hull was completely fragmented. Millions of tons of debris were left orbiting Loa. Some of that material formed a ring system and countless meteorites. Many ended up impacting the planet. Geological consequences The rain of fragments profoundly altered the surface of Loa. The following appeared as a result:

• Craters.
• Cenotes.
• Archipelagos.
• Geological anomalies.
• Huge fractures. These characteristics, combined with the planet's intense tectonic activity, gave rise to the extremely fragmented landscape it has today.

The survivors

The Vévé accident left its crew trapped in Loa. As time passed, they realized that they would never be rescued. Its population was too small to preserve its species. Faced with this, they resorted to genetic engineering. Using local organisms called Squills, they developed a new species perfectly adapted to Loa. That species would be the future Marelly. Over millions of years, the original civilization disappeared. Only their descendants survived.

The Atlantis of Loa

Before they became extinct, the builders of Vévé built a huge city. It housed one of the largest scientific complexes on the planet. There, the biological project that gave rise to the first Marelly was developed.

Over millions of years, the following occurred:

• Earthquakes.
• Volcanic activity.
• Tectonic subsidence.
• Changes in sea level. And these caused the city to end up completely submerged.

Meaning for the Marelly The Marellys are unaware of their true origins. However, they preserve numerous legends about that city. They consider her: the place where their ancestors were born; the city of the gods; the origin of his people. Its name could be roughly translated as "The Cradle" or "Place of Birth". It is one of the most sacred places in their entire culture. Human discovery Millions of years later comes Aquarium 5. During a distortion jump, a pulse emitted by Bokor triggers a reaction in the antimatter containers. The ship explodes. Only a few crew members survive using shuttles. The survivors live for a long period with the Marellys, learning their language, customs, and understanding the deep spiritual value of the Cradle. Later, Sagittarius 4 arrives, whose mission is to study α Corallum. Upon discovering the submerged city, scientists wish to investigate it. However, the Marellys consider that interfering with it constitutes a desecration. The survivors of Aquarium 5 are caught between the two cultures, acting as mediators and trying to prevent a conflict between human scientific curiosity and Marelly cultural respect.

The Marelly are an intelligent amphibious species native to Loa. Although they initially resemble humans, they are actually the result of an ancient genetic engineering project undertaken by survivors of the interstellar station Veve, who combined their own biology with that of the Scyllas, a cephalopoid species native to the planet. Over millions of years, this new species evolved to become the dominant civilization on Loa. General Morphology Because Loa has a gravity approximately 25% lower than Earth's, the Marelly have slightly taller and more slender bodies than humans. The upper body retains a clearly humanoid anatomy: Head with hair. Two eyes. Nose. Mouth. Neck. Trunk. Two arms with hands. However, from the waist down, the legs disappear. Instead, they possess ten muscular tentacles. Eight are primarily used for locomotion on land and underwater. Two are longer and more robust, being used as additional grasping organs and, moreover, as a trait of sexual selection. The most attractive individuals usually have these two tentacles considerably more developed. locomotor system The tentacles allow for easy movement through: reefs; mangroves; rocky coasts; volcanic terrain; cracks; ocean floor. This adaptation arose due to the complicated geography of Loa, characterized by intense tectonic activity and a huge number of geological accidents caused by the destruction of Vévé.

Fur The skin has several unique characteristics: brown color; total absence of body hair; a thin layer of transparent mucus that covers the entire body. This mucous membrane acts as: thermal insulator; protection against dehydration; moisturizer for your gills; help to keep skin cool in tropical climates. In addition, the skin retains chromatophores inherited from its cephalopoid ancestors. These allow them to slightly modify their coloration to: to camouflage; communicate visually (if you decide to develop that idea); express certain physiological states. They also feature striking iridescent patterns. Hair Unlike the rest of their body, they have abundant hair on their heads. This trait evolved as protection against the intense ultraviolet radiation that Loa receives. Breathing They have a double respiratory system. Lungs Used during terrestrial life. Gills Six gills located on both sides of the neck. These only work when the individual remains submerged. As a result: They need to keep them moist; They live primarily near oceans, beaches, rivers, or lagoons. Their civilization almost always develops next to water. Sensory organs Instead of ears, they have two sensory tentacles. These organs: detect vibrations; They perceive chemical changes in the environment; They help with balance; They perform functions equivalent to hearing and part of the sense of smell. They possess an enormous concentration of nerve endings. Therefore: They are extremely sensitive; A hard blow is very painful; Damaging them significantly reduces the perception of the environment.