Celeste

A human colony located in Barnard's Galaxy, one of the very first extragalactic human colonies.

## Physical

With a diameter of 11856.6 km Celeste
(RSC 8440-0-3-173-146 in 9.7.4 patch 5), a temperate temperate terra, is the
fourth planet in its system. It has gravity practically identical to that of
Earth. It has a semimajor axis of 1.1 AU and an orbital period of 1.04 years.
It originally had a day length of 15 hours and 24 minutes according to the
ancient databanks but after terraforming was complete it had a more Earthlike
day.

Along with the system it has an
age similar to that of the Sol System at 4.7 billion years. It has no moons.

## Climate

With an axial tilt of only 4°27’
there are barely any seasons on Celeste, resulting in a massive equatorial
desert and two large polar ice caps. Originally it had an atmospheric pressure
of 0.1 ATM but terraforming made it more Earthlike. The mean temperature of the
planet is warmer than that of Earth at 24.3 °C.

The planet does suffer from
large hurricanes which ravage the native forests and the human cities.

## History

The planet was discovered in
10012 by the Bernard’s Galaxy Colonization Mission which was launched over
a millennium before. The colonists chose Barnard’s Galaxy because of its
relative closeness. They launched from the edge of the Milky Way and placed themselves
in stasis. They aimed for the center of the galaxy.

When they woke in 11450, they
found themselves in the irregular galaxy. They then set to work searching the
nearby stars for habitable planets and got lucky. Near the center of the galaxy
was a planet that was nearly a perfect Earth analogue. They found a world that
could be a garden world with only half a century of terraforming. The lifeforms
on the planet would hardly be affected.

By 12065, terraforming was
completed and the first post-terraforming colonies were established. They decided to try and
attempt to build an interstellar civilization themselves like the United Federation of Star Systems, but it ended up failing due to the greater presence of the UFSS nearby.

For a hundred years, the people
lived peacefully. They build hundreds of drone ships to scour the
galaxy for habitable worlds and to catalogue and maybe inhabit said worlds.

However, due to the terraforming, the Celestians were plagued by a disease that emerged when many
ancient flying reptilian creatures were awoken due to the change in the
atmosphere, both of which sent them back technologically reminiscent of pre-industrial medieval societies back on Earth.
Their planetary government fractured, leaving small city states in the massive
cities. Over the next thousand years humans on Celeste lived in their massive
cities in fear of the plague and the creature which they had named Wyverns.

In 11251, an expedition outside the cities discovered a cave which contained strange crystals that, when
embedded in the skull of a live Wyvern made them extremely suggestible and
trainable. One after another kingdom after kingdom began to head out into the
wilds of their world, capturing and training Wyverns. The Age of the Wyvern had
begun as with the danger of the Wyvern attacks gone and the entire human
population now immune to the strange plague, the Looking Glass Wars were no
longer needed.

The Wyvern Wars were long and
bloody, lasting for over 120 years. Many people and Wyvern died in those wars.

When each kingdom realized that
the wars were meaningless they met in a neutral location in a desert, an
ancient ziggurat from a long dead human civilization. They signed a tentative
peace treaty and began to rebuild their kingdoms.

As this went on, the fusing of
the crystals to the Wyverns seemed to accelerate their evolution in terms of cognitive
abilities. This was noticed with concern and curiosity by the humans. Most
began to try and teach the Wyverns human speech. With each new generation the Wyverns
got smarter.

Their intelligence grew until it
began to reach the intelligence of their human companions around the year 11874, where it began to slow down. By this time the humans and Wyverns had
become full-fledged partners.

Contact with the UFSS was
reestablished in 12960, when an exploratory vehicle from the UFSS crashed landed near a larger
city state. Curious about these strange humans who flew without a Wyvern, both
humans and Wyvern from each city state sent representatives to Earth. They were astonished by the technology. The
Wyverns even sent some of their best to start a colony in the Milky Way.

Thanks to contact with the UFSS, technological advancement sped up on Celeste until they regained their interstellar routes. They established a trade deal with Eden, bargaining for Star Beasts as a means of interstellar travel.

The planet's kingdoms began to fuse into one major kingdom, the Kingdom of Celeste, and began to spread among the stars, settling and terreforming other worlds.

## Culture

While technologically advanced, Celeste is still a nominal kingdom with a king who claims to trace his roots, back to the original first King of Celeste. The planetary population is around 14.6 billion.

## Native Life

The plant and animal life, like
most E-Class worlds, are carbon based and similar to those on other worlds. One
creature of note is the Wyverns, which slightly resembles dragons of Earth myth. They
have a high level of intelligence and are extremely loyal to their human neighbors.