Aeligir

**Aeligir** is a life-bearing super-Earth planet located in the Federal Cluster of the Diploma Cluster. The homeworld of the spydiers, Aeligir is incredibly developed compared to other planets, having the largest cities, highest GDP, and holds many of the most powerful corporations in the Diploma Cluster. It is the capital planet of the Spydier Republic, and is informally both the capital and capitol of the Co-Federation.

### Geography and Climate

Aeligir's terrain is quite flat, primarily due to higher surface gravity and a denser, more eroding atmosphere. The planet still experiences a healthy level of tectonic activity and volcanism, but Aeligir's current tectonic plate layout isn't well suited for constructing large mountains. The largest mountain range on Aeligir is Charcoal Ridge, which still barely exceeds 6 kilometers in height. High winds are common year-round in most areas.

Current tectonic plate arrangement makes Aeligir unsuited to have glaciers and ice caps, lowering the surface albedo and raising the planet's average temperature considerably. Water evaporation rate is increased, along with the fraction of water vapor in the atmosphere. Combined with the high winds, Aeligir frequently has large amounts of rainfall and powerful cyclones.

Ocean coverage is around 78%. Compared to other planets with oceans, Aeligir's oceans can be unnervingly deep (deeper than Earth's Mariana Trench in multiple places), and only beaten in depth by Ra Latura.

### Atmosphere

Aeligir's atmosphere is quite standard for a typical life-bearing world. The air is comprised of mostly nitrogen, with oxygen next in abundance. The remaining fraction is made up of argon, carbon dioxide, and some other trace gases.

### Life

#### Flora

Like other life bearing worlds orbiting a G-Type star, most plant life on Aeligir uses the green pigment chlorophyll to photosynthesize. Due to high temperatures, high rainfall, and overall lower altitudes, Aeligir's surface is covered in many massive jungles and other tropical environments (plants in these areas closely resemble those on Earth).

Outside the rainforests, plants are usually short and tough, as to survive the higher winds. They commonly have narrow, almost needlelike leaves and a stem/stalk supported by tough organic polymers, or even calcium composites in some species.

A famous and very recognizable plant from Aeligir is the Great Shade, a tree-sized plant found in many rainforests. Evolved from a stocky grassland plant, Great Shades have a single, massive leaf growing radially from the stalk. The stalk is supported by bark stronger than other tree-like plants, and can grow to heights of up to 120 meters. A Great Shade's leaf creates a large shadow underneath, killing off shorter plants and reducing competition, thereby fueling the Great Shade's growth further. The only reason why they haven't completely taken over Aeligir's rainforests is because of their slow growth cycle, and can be easily killed by other plants and animals when young.

#### Fauna

Animals of Aeligir, shaped by the many tens of millions of years of a lush planet, take on such a variety of forms that even closely related animal groups may look very alien to each other.

Like almost every other planet bearing macroscopic life, Aeligir hosts a vast array of animals analogous to Earth arthropods, in which they bear a chitinous exoskeleton. Unlike Earth arthropods, however, the "arthropods" of Aeligir don't possess hard, segmented legs, instead having rubber-like hydraulic legs.

Animals possessing vertebra and internal skeletons mostly dominate the larger-scale niches of Aeligir. Aeligir "vertebrates" possess two eyes, along with six to ten limbs. Bones are made from a composite of complex hydrocarbons, with roughly the same strength of bones of Earth animals, but are more flexible and can grow faster.

### Spydier Influence

Aeligir is the homeworld of the spydier race. During their stone age, with such a vast array of resources to their immediate disposal, along with large bodies of water separating landmasses, the spydiers never ventured far from their place of evolution. Their diet consisted mostly of fruits picked from bushes and short trees, so they never cleared forests to make farmland and their agricultural revolution had little effect on the planet. Their early society was peaceful and with little armed conflict, until the development of large sailing ships.

As they spread around the planet, the discovery of new foods, medicinal plants, and valuable metals had sparked both an industrial revolution and a massive population boom unparalleled by any other race in the Diploma cluster, reaching a population of 2 billion by 512 BIT. (At this time, the spydiers' level of technology was comparable to Europe around 1750. Earth's population in 1750 was around 814 million.) Vast stretches of forests were cleared to make room for massive cities and factories. Conflicts over territory and resources also caused destruction of environments, as arson and forest fires were widely used in attacking enemies. They mostly burned wood and charcoal for fuel and energy, and with such a large population before reaching an information age, these fuels had created such a high level of atmospheric pollution that the water cycle began failing and rainforests began deteriorating, and switched to renewable energy much earlier on a technological scale.

Aeligir's population soon began a political and sociological shift for a more eco-friendly society. Cities were encouraged to grow forests along their outskirts. Massive national parks were founded. As the spydiers became a spacefaring species (having colonizing Aeligir's moons and visiting two other planets), they heavily valued arcologies in their cities. They began the development of only a few massive cities over many scattered ones, which helped unify the planet. The only large setback in their development was the outbreak of the Aeligir World War, which caused much destruction but was recovered from.

#### Current Era

The population had only continued to grow, reaching 36.5 billion as of recent estimates. 98% of the population live in one massive city, Epzylon, which has become the shining model for the Diploma Cluster. There is little influence outside this area, save for some small cities and agricultural populations. Aeligir's ecology has reached that of pre-industrial age, and has even seen the de-extinction of many species killed off by spydier activity.