By AARON SKETCHLEY (aaronsketch@HOTdelete_thisMAIL.com); concept created by Jet Jockey

Char (LV-426)

Char

• Ripley
  Venus-like planet close to Char.
  Orbit
  • Newt
    Natural satellite tidally locked with Ripley. No atmosphere.

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• LV-426
  Notorious in the Unified Government as a restored failed emigrant planet that's doomed to fail again; and is considered to be haunted by some.
  The terrain is a mixture of low and highlands, rugged mountains, and vast expanses of fine silicate sand. Initially a stark, dry desert world, in March, 2050, it became a sub-tropical to temperate well-watered planet, with one-third covered by water, and rapidly becoming a lush, green planet. The UNG has resumed their interest in the planet, and it is now a rapidly growing and expanding emigrant planet. Unified Forces Space Marines and Unified Forces Intelligence bases have been established on the surface, in addition to the construction of a Unified Space Forces orbital station. MOD FROM HERE
  The indigenous vegetation, generally found in the canyons, caves and crevices in and around the available water, is limited to hardy cactus type plants, algae and moss. Indigenous wildlife is limited to small lizard type beasties and insects; all of which are located near water, and rarely sited.
  Prior to March, 2050, the the planet was as dry as a bone and has little natural moisture on it. What little moisture there was, was either locked into one of the two polar icecaps, or eminated from springs found only in one small expanse, centered on one steep sided, rocky valley in the highlands near the equator. A mysterious energy field was also detected in the same valley. The energy field stabilized the elements and promoted growth in the area under it's influence. It enabling a farming and mining colony to be established on the planet.
  A terraforming tower was built in the rocky valley with the mysterious energy field. Shortly after its completion, the residents of the colony were all mysteriously killed. Their only remains were a red, bloody goo found in sets of clothes scattered about the colony where the colonists were working in their final hour. The UN Forces' scientists were still uncertain of the cause and scrubbed the site down, removed the equipment that they could, and closed the site down. The UNS didn't visited LV-426 for 10 years after the incident.
  • Population: unknown
  • Government: Unified Government Military Command
  • Loyalty: UN 100%.
  • Type: Unified Forces Space Marines and Unifed Forces Intelligence Training, Testing and Research Facility.
  • Cities
    • Central Valley (AKA: The Valley of the Terraforming Tower)
    • Paris
    • Bayside
    • Beach
  • LV-426 Transit Map
  • LV-426 Expanded Details
  • Military: TBA
    Orbit
    • Space Station
      As of 2050.04, the station is starkly Spartan. It has been rushed through production, and new arrivals can still smell fresh paint. The station is basically a cluster of pods, actually little more then stacks of rooms, bolted to each other on the inside of the outer skin of the station. The station isn't even a fifth full, even with the station’s power generator, a medium sized manufacturing center (equipped to convert asteroids from the Nostromo Belt into building supplies), and the extensive number of rooms. The empty sections are being worked on by a number of civilian contractors and military engineering teams.
      The majority of the easily accessible parts of the station are devoted to a processing and holding center for the civilian emigrants and military transferees to LV-426.
      It’ll probably be a year, to a year and a half before the station is completed; which doesn't include the removal of the pods that are currently being used, and replacing them with proper levels and infrastructure.

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    • Unified Forces Fleet
      • 1x Einstein Research Vessel; the UNS Columbia
      • 2x Three-Star Factory Ships w/ attached Guantanamo Space Carriers
      • many Bolognese Stealth Frigates, Stealth Carriers and other Unified Forces ships of various make and model.

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  The Nostromo Belt
  Large, mineral rich, difficult to navigate asteroid belt between the orbits of LV-426 and Caesar.

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  Caesar
  Gas Giant of 3 Jovian masses.
  Orbit
  • a few ringlets
  • numerous natural satellites

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  Augustus
  Semi-frozen sea planet approximately 2 Earth masses. Sea is composed of liquid hydrogen with carbon-dioxide iceburgs.
  Orbit
  • a few ringlets
  • a few natural satellites

History

• 2032
  • 06: Char system is charted. The Unified Government is initially interested as Zentraadi star charts expressly forbid the Zentraadi from entering the system. The explorers interpret this as implying that the system contains the ruins of a Protoculture colony. They find a planet with a breathable atmosphere and give it the temporary name LV-426.
  • 07: After the initial, basic scanning and charting of the Char system is completed, the Unified Government establishes a small outpost on LV-426 with the objective of feeding and entertaining the miners of the extensive resources on the planet and within the star system. The long term objective is to terraform LV-426 via raising the temperature of the atmosphere enough to melt what little ice there is at the poles, in addition to finding the source of the solitary water aquifer on the planet's surface and investigating a mysterious energy field nearby.
  2034
  • 02: Construction of the Terraforming Tower begins. A single farming and mining community solidifies and grows around the base of the tower and in the surrounding canyons with the influx of workers on the project.
  • 09: The Unified Government emigrant planet LV-426 is officially established. Additional immigrants arrive to bolster the fledgling settlements. The Terraforming Tower is completed, and brought up to to full power using the strange energy field underneath it as a source of power.
  2035
  • 06: The majority of the Unified Government forces move away. Colony growth virtually nonexistent due to more "habitable" emigrant planets being developed elsewhere.
  • 12: Nostromo asteroid belt mining venture collapses, leaving only the original emigrants to carve out an existence on the planet. The weekly shuttle flights to check on the operations of the Terraforming Tower becomes bi-weekly.
  2036
  • 07: Emigrants entice a developer to build a luxury casino on the top floor of the Terraforming Tower.
  • 09: Luxury casino begins operations with "desert eco-tours" as a sales gimmick.
  2037
  • 01: Bi-weekly shuttle flights to the planet become monthly.
  • October The luxury casino and desert eco-tours business collapses. Emigrants faced with economic depression. They opt to start the systematic exploration and mapping of LV-426 for precious metals or other high profit/low investment cost materials.
  2039
  • 01: Communications from the planet cease. An inspection team sent to investigate reports that all of the emigrants and Unified Government personnel assigned to the planet are dead - only red bloody goo is what remains of their bodies. As orbital satellites didn't detect any traffic into or out of the system during the incident, the Unified Government knows that it was not an extraterrestrial visitor. The signals from the planet's surface simply stopped. Due to a reduction in the strange energy field under the Terraforming Tower, the Unified Government assumes that the Terraforming Tower caused a massive amount of the strange energy to be released. The Terraforming Tower is deactivated out of safety concerns.
  • 03: The Unified Government finishes scrubbing the site down, removing all of the equipment that they can, retrieving satellites from orbit and closing down the colony. They then abandon the colony and the planet.
  • Summer: Solving the mystery behind the death of the residents of the colony is soon put on the back burner, and forgotten soon after that; as the Unified Government focuses its efforts on goals and objectives that give larger results in smaller time frames then what continued investments of resources in LV-426 would net.
    The Sector Seven Space Pirates established themselves in the Terraforming Tower and begin undertaking acts of piracy and limited trade with non-Unified Government affiliated forces, slowly building their forces. They reactivate the Terraforming Tower and begin extensive modifications to it.
  2044
  • Unspecified: The Sector Seven Space Pirates completely take over the pirating network in Sector 7 and a little bit beyond. They are officially named the Sector Seven Space Pirates (SSSP) by the Unified Government.
  2045
  • Unspecified: The SSSP complete their modifications of the Terraforming Tower. They've carved a giant hole in one side to accommodate an internal space-dock, and on the top they've installed a targeting and focusing array for a weapon of considerable power. They begin manipulating the mysterious energy field to affect the weather over the area.
  2047
  • Unspecified: Captured Unified Intelligence officer Leiagh Klein Moss is bought to the Terraforming Tower base and imprisoned as a slave (and eventually becomes a worker for the SSSP. She is the person directly involved in decoding transmissions from the pirate's mole in the 13th MUE's capital ship, the UNS Argo.
  2050
  • 02.04: Death Angels intercept the SSSP in the Charest (Britannia) star system. Senior members are taken prisoner. Death Angels learn the location of the SSSP's home base from a captured pirate.
    Death Angels investigate LV-426. Their backup, the Guantanamo class Rainbow Warrior II, is destroyed by an energy blast from the SSSP's base. Squad members of the Zero-Gs, Archers and Rain Dancers survive and escort the Death Angel's resupply shuttle to the surface. One group of survivors attacks the pirate's base directly, with near complete losses.
    One team of Death Angels is nearly completely destroyed by SSSP patrols in canyons surrounding the terraforming tower. The other team rescues their captured squad-mates from inside the SSSP base, along with Officer Moss. The SSSP and a contingent of Anti-UN flee the area, moments before a self-destruct device destroys the top two levels of the terraforming tower.
  • 02.Unspecified: The Unified Government refocuses its resources on the planet and initiated a revamped terraforming project and development of a joint UNSM and UNI training facility in and around the terraforming tower. As there hasn't been accurate or updated information on the planet for the past 10 years, the Unified Government initiates intense exploration of the surface of LV-426. One notable discovery is the remains of a crashed spaceship in the silicate desert to the West of the terraforming tower.
  • 02.15: The UNS flight of the Death Angels, retaining the Zero-Gs name, are transferred to the surface of LV-426 along with most of the Unified Forces Army Destroids and soldiers on the UNS Argo; who are to be an engineering corps for the pending arrival of 2 Three-Stars Factory ships. The Zero-Gs are ordered to make a short reconnaisance of the planet prior to landing.
    After a flight over the polar icecaps, where rapidly growing blooms of algae are observed, they are ordered to investigate a reflection observable from orbit, 2,000 km West of the Terraforming Tower in the desert wasteland. They discover the partially exposed, skeletal remains of what looks like a Baroota Fleet Flagship that is buried at an odd angle.
    Investigating inside, they find a creature, apparently abandoned, in a makeshift hospital observation bed. The creature is killed when it wrenches the gun pod way from the flight's 2 in command; who causes the creature to explode in nuclear fire when she attempts to cut her gun pod free from the creature's death grip by using her head laser. The creature's blood is composed of liquid reactant fuel. All of the Zero-G's VFs are damaged and the ship collapses, burying what little remaines of the creature in the desert.
  • 02.27: the Death Angels return to duty - space patrols in orbit.
  • 03.06 - midmorning: one of the Three-Stars orbiting LV-426 deposits a landing platform on the top of the Terraforming Tower. During the operation, a gravity dampening field is deployed that causes more of the crashed and buried Protoculture City Ship under the terraforming tower to activate.
  • 03.20: The Death Angels are called back to duty and ordered to report to "level 69" of the Terraforming Tower of LV-426.
  • 03.21: the Black Wraiths unit is formed out of the ashes of the Death Angels, with additional transfers from the fleet. They begin retraining in the VF-22 and Mk.3.09 Power Armour in preperation for their mission to stop the SSSP.
  • 03.23: Researchers detonate an extremely large Test Spiritia Bomb on the planet's surface. The bomb releases positive spiritia energy that causes a chain reaction which turns one-third of the planet's desert surface into water! Settled areas along the edges of the hills and mountains are hit by a massive tsunami.
    The planet has been transformed from a bone-dry desert to a humid sub-tropical to temperate planet, with an ocean covering one-third the surface. Plant life begins flurishing and the residents are faced with rain for the first time on the planet.
    The Black Wraiths, who are on a spiritia warfare training mission, are swept up in the chain reaction. When they recover from the initial impact, they are attacked by giant spiritia bugs which are apparently from below the surface of the planet.
    
  • 03.24 to 03.30: The entire planet's surface is hit with monsoonal rains and typhoonal storms for a week; resulting in massive flooding in low lying areas and narrow valleys and canyons.
  • 04.15 and onwards: During the preceeding two weeks, LV-426 has undergone a number of striking changes:
    - an extensive infrastructure network, consisting of power generators, water supply, waste removal, telecommunications and a rail network have been or are in the process of being completed in the vicinity of the Terraforming Tower. The rail network connects the vital areas of the colony and the soon to be developed areas together in a fast, reliable and easy to use network.
    - the Terraforming Tower has undergone an extensive renovation, and now has the Columbia, a Unified Forces Intelligence Einstein class ship parked on its top.
    - renovations and other related construction is far from complete. There is, however, more then enough permanent lodging and work stations for the Unified Government personnel that are present on the fledgling emigrant planet.
    - To the West of the tower, in the low hills and canyons stretching out towards the sea of sand is the Unified Forces Space Marines Koya Base. It is centered around facilities built around the valley and canyon area that the Death Angels used as there initial LZ when they first arrived on the planet during their mission against the SSSP. As time passed, and Unified Government interests in LV-426 increased, the temporary airfield that was built at "The LZ" was turned into a permanent one, replete with barracks, storage and administrative buildings for a permanent Marine garrison on the planet.
    - the two Three-Stars Factor Ships assigned to the planet during the development stage have both been busy punching out prefabricated housing and other structures for the first and second waves of emigrants. The first wave has already arrived and begun to settle into the recently established bedroom communities in the canyons and valleys near the Terraforming Tower. The most notable of them is the rapidly growing town Paris; built in a valley that has gentle slopes up to the heights above, and is the only valley in the highlands around the Terraforming Tower where the water table breaches the surface and creates a series of small lakes and ponds, with creeks between them. It is a very pleasant, cool and most importantly, green place to live and visit.