Teralla

Teralla A, with Esera poking out behind it, and Taozora in the background.

**Teralla**, formerly known as The World, is the fourth planet around Verda and second largest of the four terrestrial planets. It is also the first habitable planet known to Terallans. Teralla has one binary companion, Esera.

Teralla is most known as one of the capitals of the Verdan Federation, as it is the birthplace of that nation.

## Overview

Teralla is one of the most important worlds in the local neighborhood, as it served as the birthplace of the Terallans, who would quickly spread out to become one of the most prominent species in the region. Because of this, the planet is held in very high esteem in almost all Terallan cultures, and it would serve as the spiritual homeland of all Terallans, if any of them believed in that sort of thing.

Teralla is the most universally shared object in terallan culture across the local neighborhood, and because of this is the most heavily guarded planet in the area. You need a special pass to even visit.

Despite how much it is loved by the terallans and all their descendants, they did not take very good care of the planet at first, letting global warming run rampant, excessive deforesting, among other things, causing countless life forms to go extinct, and almost killing the entire biosphere. However, they would manage to reverse the horrible damage their ancestors had done to the planet and transform it into the shining gem it is today. YAY!

As of today, Teralla is a paradise residential planet, a top tourist destination (you still need to be *seriously screened* though), and a large trading hub. Many gigantic cities can be observed from low orbit, some of which are even in the ocean!

Most farming on Teralla takes place on certain levels of the Arcologies where most people live. Each Arcology is completely self-sufficient, though luxury items are imported. These farms comprise 78% of the food income on the planet. About 5% of the food income comes from floaty ocean farms (dunno why that makes me laugh), and the remaining 17%, mainly luxury items, is imported from other planets or habitats.

After the fixing of all those problems discussed way above, Teralla is much greener than it was before, thanks to the mass exodus to other colonized planets and space habitats, and subsequent ruralization of most big cities. Arcologies, where most people live these days, all have roofs that are basically gardens, to maximize green area. Some low-income cities were even abandoned, as their population moved into the arcologies, where there was better living conditions.

All energy on Teralla comes from renewable sources, either beamed down from the dyson swarm, or from orbiting solar panels, wind energy, etc. A tiny fraction is from geothermal processes in the core, while the rest of the energy comes from reactors in the buildings themselves, so that's neat.

## Physical Characteristics

Based on radiometric dating and *really big computers*, Teralla is calculated to have formed approximately 1.91 billion earth years ago. It's only natural "Satellite", Esera, is so large as to pull the center of mass of the system almost out of the planet. A Terallan day lasts approximately 12 1/2 hours. Teralla's orbit being the reference plane for the planetary system around Verda, it has no inclination. The gravitational interaction between Teralla A and B causes gigantic tides, normally exceeding 200m, and has slowly dragged the twin planets into a double tidal lock, similar to pluto and charon in the Sol system.

### Notable Surface Features

Teralla's Lithosphere has "cracked" into several tectonic plates which slooooowly move across the surface over millions of years. Approximately 83% of it's surface is covered in water, which is rather close to the limit beyond which a technological civilization is unlikely to evolve. This leaves 17% of it's surface out of water, and Teralla plays host to a *lot* of long, thin islands very close to each other, constructed by it's native civilization over hundreds of years. The construction of these islands has pretty much leveled the mountain ranges of the planet, and left the abyssal plains far less deep. Teralla's interior remains active, generating a magnetic field and driving plate tectonics.

One of the most interesting features on Teralla's surface is it's very large impact crater, which was until 120 BFO believed to be punishment from the gods for violating their laws or whatever. It is now known to be a very large impact, which narrowly missed turning the surface into lava 440 million years ago. The only reason it didn't turn Teralla's surface into lava is because the asteroid scraped past Esera's surface, being slowed down by both the atmosphere, and a gravity brake from the large gravitational field of the big moon. A lucky coincidence! *or is it...*

## Atmosphere

The atmosphere on Teralla is approximately 1.2 atmospheres (121590 pascals, 17.63513856 psi, or 1.2159 bars) and has a composition of 69.8% Molecular Nitrogen, 25.1% Molecular Oxygen, 1.2% Argon, and trace amounts of other elements, including carbon dioxide, ozone, and an abnormally large amount of noble gases than was expected from it's location in the system. It's biosphere has altered the atmospheric composition in several ways: Firstly, 1.4 Billion years ago, Photosynthesis was developed, releasing an insane amount of oxygen into the air, rendering most ancient anaerobic species extinct, and over millions of years after that, indirectly creating an Ozone Layer that protects life on land by deflecting or absorbing lethal ultraviolet radiation, which is admittedly pretty rare in the Verda System anyway. Aside from this, the thickness of the atmosphere protects surface life from most asteroids, that could otherwise destroy large areas of land.

## Orbit and Rotation

Teralla orbits at 1 TAU, which is equal to 0.138697 AU, or 20748775.91 km. It has a low eccentricity (0.0005). It's orbit being the reference plane for the entire system (Yes, it still is!), it has an inclination of 0º. A Terallan Year is equal to 32.34787948 earth days, and it travels around it's orbit at 46.63840987 km/s.

Teralla rotates once every 11.8173398064 hours, causing it's solar day to be exactly 12 hours.

## Formation

Teralla formed from a disc of dust and gas surrounding the newborn Verda. The planet accumulated a bunch of mass over a period of approximately 200 million years, and captured another approximately mars-sized protoplanet, which accumulated more mass along with Teralla, and became Esera.

## Esera

Esera is a very large, planetlike natural satellite that boasts the record of being the largest natural satellite in comparison to it's planet. The only reason it is not considered a binary is because the mutual center of mass is beneath Teralla's surface. The gravitational attraction between the two planets causes massive tides, often exceeding 200 meters, and have been dragging the twin planets into a double tidal lock.

## *LIFE*!

Teralla is one of the only known planets to have evolved sentient life on it's surface. The only other known objects with this title are Adelpha c, home of the extinct Ta'Vo species, possibly Tera, and the homeworld of the Antecessors.

Life was seeded on Teralla by unknown origins 1.7 billion years ago. Yes, even a K2 civilization can't figure it out! Major theories range from life being created by chance chemical reactions near a deep ocean vent, to life reaching Teralla by a comet impact (panspermia). I don't particularly like the latter hypothesis, because it just kicks the problem down the road. However, panspermia may have happened between Rellis, the moons of Jevethra, Glau b, and possibly Violis. Panspermia happening from Altara however, is a long shot.

Teralla is known for having many complicated ecosystems on it's surface, with the most diversity in the rainforest regions around the equator. Most of the intelligent population of the planet lives either in the grasslands, on spindly islands, in the sky, or in a massive cluster of orbital habitats. Other than teeny insects, most life on Teralla is either bipedal or quadrupedal. A very diverse collection of fish species reside in the oceans.

## Geography

Teralla is home to eight continents, <name>, <name>, <name>, <name>, <name>, <name>, <name> and <name> (sorry I have no idea how to name continents post suggestions in article comments). Each of these continents holds a population of trillions, larger than many colony planets, housed mainly in arcologies (should I write an article on those?). Separating these continents are four oceans, the <name>, <name>, <name> and <name> oceans. Again I suck at naming.

Across these continents are many different biomes, such as forests, plains, wetlands, deserts, tundras, badlands and so on. Thanks to this extremely varied geography, Teralla is quite famous for the biodiversity of its respective landmasses.

### Biomes

* Ice caps
* Ice Shelf
* Tundra
* Highlands
* Mountains
* Grasslands
* Deserts
* Badlands
* Shores
* Shallow Water
* Deep Water
* Islands

## Climate

Teralla's climate is perfectly suited for a variety of lifeforms. It's mean temperature is 288 K, well within water's liquid range, allowing water to pool on the surface and create oceans.

Most of Teralla's history is dominated by ice ages, followed by short periods of warm tropical climates across the planet. The last ice age ended approximately 12000 years ago, which interestingly coincides with the invention of agriculture by ancient Terallans. *hmmm...*

Teralla has one of the most diverse climates in the Verda System. Some areas had scorching deserts (before they were artificially cooled and terraformed), and some areas have loads of icebergs. Each region of Teralla has a unique biosphere able to support a great variety of flora and fauna.

Teralla's average climate is quite temperate, in fact it is used as the model for a "temperate world". It's distance from Verda allows carbon-based life to flourish and proliferate across the surface, orbiting within the so-called Habitable Zone of the star for that type of life.

This nice climate is kept in check by carefully arranged mirrors and sunshades at the Verda-Teralla L1 point, carefully blocking light or shining more of it towards the planet to keep it juuust right. This has allowed Teralla to become even more habitable then it already is. Cool cool cool.

## Population

Being the homeworld of the Terallans, the global population is around 4.5 trillion people currently, far above the natural holding capacity, and not possible without relatively advanced technology like Arcologies. This population excludes orbital habitats and Esera. Approximately half the population lives in vast, dense cities, stretching high into the atmosphere held up by active support™, while the other half lives in small "cloud cities", held up by balloons, or in the reclaimed countryside.

Teralla is a very culturally diverse world, as it contains thousands of regions, some of which still follow now-useless state borders.

## Interesting Characteristics

* A huge cloud of habitats, known as a "Planet Cloud", surrounds the planet
* You should live here.