L-II

Second largest of the rocky planets. The only known complex ecology in the entire Galaxy outside of Earth exists here. Prior to LOC, humanity had surveyed over two hundred and thirty billion stellar systems. Of those, Earth and Lampreytown remain the only two with any indications of life. The vast majority (93%) of these systems do not possess rocky planets within the liquid-water zones, though many of them do possess asteroid belts in or just outside it. In the remaining 7%, there are quite a few lifeless/atmosphereless/smashed rocky planets out there, but no life.

Contour map of L-II Legend

Scale note: One equatorial pixel = ~24km laterally by ~28km vertically.

Close-up contour map of basin formation Legend

25x zoom in of the basin formation surrounded by the Equatorial landmasses, scale is approximately 1km per pixel.

Lamprey orthodox geology holds these formations to be meteor strikes; they are associated with mass extinction layers. Magnetic surveying indicates the presence of large amounts of ferromagnetic material present at the bottom, which the Lampreys have fantasized about mining. Currently this is cost-prohibitive (in shallower regions) or outright impossible (the 10km+ ones).

It'd take billions of years to erase them. Those impact structures are very, very big. They've been spread throughout L-II's geological history; the oldest is at the South Pole, believed to be three and a quarter billion years of age. The most recent is the northren one between the two main landmasses, at six hundred and thirty million years. The one surrounded by the Equatorial countries, and the one just to the north of that, arrived simultaneously one point one billion years ago.

There have been smaller extinction events not associated with the geology like that, various ice ages and so forth. The extinction events associated with the big impact structures appear to've taken out more or less every multi-cellular species on L-II, each time.

There's a nitrogen/oxygen/carbon-dio atmosphere with chirality polarisation. What made this particular planet unique was the fact that it had a complex extra-terrestrial ecology; the first such found in the universe. The fact that the planet had intelligent life on it was not known at launch. It was only found out when you first hit the signals.

You could cause a dust-cloud winter. L-II should be somewhat more vulnerable to such events than Earth given its orbit is further from its star; a strong greenhouse effect is crucial to its current ecology.

At T-105 D, mkire-I has given you your first views of L-II with your own technology. You've had a solid idea of what the place looked like thanks to Lamprey TV, but this is your first direct observation. Lamprey-II is warmer than Earth, with higher O2 and CO2 concentrations, offsetting its further distance from the sun. Oceans are mostly shallow and occupy roughly half the planet. Landmasses are more dispersed than Earth's. Vegetation covers most of them lushly in yellow, with few desert equivalents.

The concentration of heavier metals is lower than Earthly. Lamprey cities follow oceans and rivers in most cases. mkire-I picked up enormous numbers of low-intensity transient radio signals, mostly cut off by atmospheric absorption or Lamprey-II's ionosphere.

L-II's ionosphere and magnetosphere are both weaker than Earth's.

L-II is a very fertile planet. Warm, shallow seas, with lots of land barriers to cut down on storms; moderate climate more or less worldwide (although, of course, the poles are still iced); a global average temperature moderately higher than Earth's despite being 1.2 AU out from Lamp. The oceanic plankton are numerous, productive, and a huge base for the rest of the food chain.

The oceans have a huge assortment of stuff. We don't even know everything that lives in our oceans now IRL; L-II's oceans, in general, have more.

More algae, more plankton, more filterfeeders, more things feeding on the filterfeeders, more big predators, more megapredators, more poison, more nastiness, more size, more brains, more cunning.

There's huge varieties in body plans, in feeding strategies, in habitat, in composition, in colours, etc, etc etc. There are a number of sea creatures that are amphibious in nature and can and will assault land fauna by the verge.

Bipedal animals of human or larger size are unknown. Bipedal locomotion in general is rare. Animal life usually on L-II has either no legs or many legs.

There are some other relatively intelligent creatures on L-II. The Lampreys are unquestionably the dominant toolusers, but other forms of life can and do make use of primitive tools or build complicated things; one predator is known to dig and disguise pit traps.

The Lampreys have domesticated some of these; for food, for work, for play. One of the most popular Lamprey pets is a blue six-legged insect-like thing, about a half-metre long (used as a model for a famous fictional robot). It can understand spoken Lamprey, hunt and track independently, haul, or carry; at least, it is so depicted. There are capacities assigned to it in fiction that more serious shows do not show to the same extent (esp. as regards understanding Lampreys). They historically used draft animals, though those have very largely been phased out in actual work and replaced by mechanised tools.

None of these share much evolutionary history with the Lampreys, working off of very distinctly different body plans.

L-II has two moons, L-II-I and L-II-II. They look like captured asteroid belt bodies from within the Lampreytown.

There is a lot of survelliance gear in L-II orbit and on the ground, on ships, in the air, etc. There are probably areas where the weapon coverage is less intense-- for example, the poles-- but remember that massdriver on the moonbase.

Numerous objects within the system cross L-II's orbit; most of these look like wandering asteroids from the belt.

L-II regularly passes through debris trails from comets and so forth, and the Lampreys have not yet demonstrated the ability to sweep L-II space clean, though this is changing.

Something small enough and diguised enough may down undetected or, at least, unshot.