Terraformation

Orbital Terraformer over Europa sending constructors to the surface to build Gravity Generators, ca. 2140

## Background

The process of deliberately modifying a planet or moon's atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable by Earth-like life is called Terraforming. Throughout most of the 20th and 21st centuries, as humankind grew closer and closer to resource scarcity, the idea of terraforming alien worlds was a popular one - albeit one which was relegated to the realm of science fiction.

## History

During the late 2060s, Rubinsky Aerospace partnered with NASA to begin the process of transforming the environment of Earth's sister planet, Mars, into one that humans could survive, using a combination of conventional terraforming techniques aimed at heating and insulating the planet's surface. The project was thought to be a long-term one which would take hundreds, or perhaps thousands of years, but it was halted when the Warp War began. After the Warp War ended, the Earth was devastated and polluted with radiation. Though the planet was made livable once again with the construction of the Earth Supersphere, the metal and concrete arcology could not support natural, biological life outside a planter's box or hydroponics tray. Survivors of humanity looked to space to fulfill the need for biological resources that could no longer be found or produced on Earth.

In 2116, the Neo-Earth Directorate established the Solar Expansion Initiative, a government-funded organized effort to terraform all the potentially habitable worlds in Sol using technology derived from the Lagrange 1 Box. Future Forward Corporation invented the first Orbital Terraformer, a highly advanced satellite complex and self-contained space outpost. In 2120, the first Orbital Terraformer reached Mars to continue the terraforming process that had begun nearly half a century before. Within just under a decade, the first successful terraformation of another world was completed.

## Description

Orbital Terraformers are adaptive and multifunctional, carrying with them nearly all the necessary equipment to be self-sufficient, including an onboard mineral refinery and mining crew. The extremely quick terraformation process can be attributed to several distinct technologies, although the use of Orbital Terraformers is restricted to worlds with thin or non-existent atmospheres. First, the Orbital Terraformer surrounds a planet in a warp bubble in order to keep its atmosphere and magnetic field contained during the process. Next, it alters the geography of the planet to the desired condition by carving through the terrain with an orbital X-Ray laser. When this is finished, insulating greenhouse gasses are introduced into the atmosphere and the planet is heated by reflecting and focusing sunlight into the warp bubble. Once the planet is sufficiently warm, genetically engineered bacteria are spread across the world, designed to break down metal ores and rocks into a finely ground sand while emitting breathable oxygen and nitrogen at an optimal ratio. Over time, the atmosphere is pressurized, water ice on or beneath the world's surface melts and the bacteria dies off en masse. When the liquid water mixes with the remaining organic matter and the sandy substrate, it forms workable soil. The last steps are to build Gravity Generators on the ground to alter the felt gravity to precisely 1G (which helps keep the atmosphere contained when the warp bubble is taken down), and finally to seed the rocky barrens with plant life before moving on to the next terraforming candidate.