Foreword
Eryobis is an exercise in speculative evolution rooted in scientific realism for the most part, although it definitely has certain fantasy aspects shining through and is by no means supposed to be scientifically accurate to the dot. That would not be as fun!
Its a passion project that has been years in the making and has gone through several cycles of existence before it reached the point where it got a site.
I wish you a good day and hope you enjoy looking and reading around on the site!
(The first ever artwork I made for Eryobis back in 2021)
Prologue
In the far future, mankind escaped its earthly confines and has been venturing into the depths of space for millennia. They have a vast empire encompassing thousands of worlds, spanning countless light years throughout the galaxy, home to many billions of people. Through the discovery of an ancient star vessel of alien origin, the name and existence of which has long since been forgotten by the public, humanity increased its capabilities and influence over the stars exponentially by reverse engineering the many technological marvels that were found onboard that forgotten relic.
Besides possessing technology that was many millennia more advanced that anything humanity had at that point, the creators of that primordial space station had left behind an artifact, deep within the abandoned megastructure, of such incredible value that its mere existence nearly shattered the minds of those who deciphered its content.
Among its contents was what appeared to be map.
Not just any map, but a chart that depicted the near entirety of the Milky Way galaxy. Something seemed off about it though, it did not accurately reflect what humanity knew about the galaxy. This inconsistency was a result of the immense time difference between when it was created and when humanity stumbled upon it. The depiction of the galaxy was accurate, but it was nigh 400 million years past its expiration date. A minor hiccup, but nothing some tinkering couldn't fix. What we were left with was something that became the very base of the galactic imperium mankind would create.
The primordial creators of the map had "highlighted" dozens of solar systems on this chart. We did not know why, but we did know that those systems needed to be visited first. No one expected the alien architects to still be alive after so long, so we went in search of other artifacts they might have left behind. Rather than aimlessly venturing into space, we charted jump routes towards the highlighted systems, stopping at, and colonizing other solar systems along the way.
Often when we came to a system highlighted by the forebears, we found nothing. Empty space devoid of anything other than perhaps a few asteroids. Even so, occasionally we did find an actual solar system where the map said it should be. More often than not, these worlds were barren. Devoid of any life bar the few worlds with the broken and crumbled ruins of structures built eons ago. With the technological state humanity found itself in when these worlds were discovered however, their desolate state was not much of an issue. For humanity possessed the ability to terraform worlds, at least to an extend. So while the planets that were found may not have been much in terms of their nature, but they did provide humanity with new bastions as they spread throughout the galaxy.
But, in extremely rare cases, around once every thousand systems we reached, we found a world harboring life of its own. Humanity has discovered three of these worlds. The first to found, was in possession of the first and so far only living truly xenomorphic organisms encountered by our empire. This world, named Tophetos, is less than suitable for habitation by mankind, but has become a scientific haven nonetheless.
The second to be found was a world that appears, based on geological evidence, to have been created by the ancient architects of the forgotten space station themselves. This world, akin to the habitats within that station, was not only inhabited by life descending from terran organisms, but was actually livable for humans. Being so similar to old Earth in fact that mankind decided to make this world, called Peirnovar, its new capital planet.
Curiously, strange creatures started appearing on many of the empire's terraformed worlds that can not be traced to either Tophetos or Peirnovar, nor are they among the sanctioned GMO's made for the many new worlds of humanity. These creatures are generally referred to as "Rhynians". No one knows why, since there are no worlds or sectors within the empire that bear a similar name. It is assumed that they are the result of the heretical genetic experiments that occurred early on in mankind's space voyages, as there are reports of them existing before Tophetos and Peirnovar were even discovered. While their origin is unknown, they can now be found on most worlds, being very popular in the illegal pet trade and often becoming pests on the worlds they find themselves on.
The last of the life bearing worlds to be found, was only discovered because it was highlighted on the chart. If it wasn't, mankind would have never found it due to it being situated on an outer arm, on the opposite side of the galaxy compared to Earth. The system it was found in was officially designated as the AnVela Koeliv system.
When the first vessels came upon AnVela Koeliv, it had us wondering why it was even highlighted on the chart. While other systems highlighted on the map nearly all had one or more rocky planets orbiting their star within the habitable zone. AnVela Koeliv did not. It had had one super earth orbiting the star extremely closely, a massive gas giant within the habitable zone and several other gaseous planets beyond with a number of small rocky bodies orbiting at the outskirts of the system. A closer look at the second planet from the star, the gas giant AnVela Koeliv-C, colloquially known as Antæios, revealed however why this system was highlighted. The reason behind the distinct lack of rocky planets in the AnVela Koeliv system had become apparent: Antæios had captured them all. This gas giant, comparable in size to Jupiter of the Sol system, had not one, but 3 massive moons between the sizes of Mars and Earth and dozens more smaller moons.
One of the big moons is AnVela Koeliv-C-I, the moon closest to Antæios. It is nearly identical in size, if not slightly larger than Earth, but is more similar to Venus in that it is a volcanic wasteland because the incredible tidal forces exerted by Antæios constantly rip its surface apart.
The second big moon, AnVela Koeliv-C-V, was of more interest to us. It was slightly larger than Mars, possessed a thin atmosphere of mostly nitrogen and was covered in sheets of ice and snow. This world, named Kalpea, was terraformed and became one of the most important worlds in this corner of humanity's galactic empire. For the most part it became a farm world, producing food for the imperium, although mining operations on Kalpea do play a major part in its economy.
And then there was the third large moon of Antæios. This world, AnVela Koeliv-C-VI, the next world orbiting the giant from Kalpea, was the most special of them all. Around 80% the mass of Earth, AnVela Koeliv-C-VI possessed not only an atmosphere, but surface oceans as well. Its surface appeared odd when seen from space. Many of the landmasses were stained a bright crimson red color. The first captain to discover the world nicknamed it "Erythosorbis", the red ball. Much to the dismay of many officials, this nickname stuck, but over time became bastardized to the name which is now known throughout the imperium: Eryobis.
An abnormal moon
Every aspect of Eryobis suggests its a planet. It is unusually large and has a thick atmosphere, thicker than the one of Earth even. It has oceans of liquid water on the surface and even rotates on its own axis every 27 hours. And yet, it isn't a planet, for it orbits another planet. Our current hypothesis is that Eryobis, along with Kalpea and AnVela Koeliv-C-I as well as possibly all other moons of Antæios, were captured by the gas giant as it migrated towards the inner solar system. That however, does not explain the peculiar conditions of Eryobis or why, perhaps most importantly, it sustains life. The red stains so accurately observed by the first captain were in fact vast covered in vast swathes of vibrant scarlet and vermilion vegetation. This was only discovered when orbital scans revealed the carmine areas to be nearly completely composed of biomass. We had never encountered red vegetation in such expanse before, so this revelation came as a surprise.
Those scans also informed us that the atmosphere of Eryobis, much like Tophetos, could be less than suitable for human habitation. Being largely similar to the atmospheres the human body is adapted too, but denser and with higher concentrations of carbon dioxide and water vapor. On top of that, the fact that Eryobis orbits a massive gas planet means that it is constantly bombarded with synchotron radiation, posing a serious health risk to us were we to not use some form of protection. The moon orbits Antæios on a quite far orbit though, taking 17 axis rotations to complete one orbit around its parent, so the amount of radiation is not enough to kill a human outright and is even lessened by the dense atmosphere of the moon.
It is very tectonically active and currently finds itself in a period of global mountain building, with many active fault lines having been detected and every continent possessing mountains that rival the Andes range of Earth in height, with a number of places having peaks over 10.000 meters tall.
Curious is the fact that this moon even spins on its own axis at all, even more curious is that it spins in a retrograde fashion, rotating from east-to-west instead of west-to-east as Earth and Peirnovar do. This results in ocean currents moving in the other way and all the climate zones of the world being found on the opposite side of where one would expect them to be on Earth. The world appears to have a global temperature of around 18° Celsius, similar to the global temperature of old Earth during the Miocene.
(Elevation map as calculated by orbital scans)
(Satellite map of Eryobis)
(Estimated Köppen climate classification)
(Estimated surface ocean currents)
The surface
Upon descending to the surface of AnVela Koeliv-C-VI, it quickly became apparent that the atmosphere was not exactly human-friendly. When explorers took their helmets off and attempted to take a breath of fresh air after months breathing nothing but recycled air, they quickly found themselves "drowning". The Eryobian air was too dense and rich in carbon dioxide for their lungs to properly work with.
An unfortunate revelation for sure, but there were solutions to this, such as face masks that filter the air.
Then there was the radiation emitted by Antæios. The explorers needed to apply a solar protection creme with an SPF 100 regularly, for they could get a severe "sunburn" within half an hour if they went out without protection.
From the red colored vegetation, to the toxic air to the radiation and the view of the night sky itself. Everything about this world seemed genuinely alien and everyone was convinced they had found a second truly alien planet. The first explorers that landed reported that upon descent, they hit heavy turbulence caused not by air pockets, but by a large flock of floating organisms. They reported that these must be alien plant-animals, possessing photosynthetic and heterotrophic organs alike.
The first explorers had a simple task: retrieve samples of the surface and return to the mothership. They took samples of various red plant species and took a few specimens of their "roadkill" back with them.
Expecting the sample results to come out as unknown to our biological database, the whole imperium was in shock when the results turned out to be a match with already existing data.
These were not aliens.
They were organisms of terran origin. Not only that, but they were even closer matches to those of old Earth than any Peirnovari or "Rhynian" organism. The red plants were nothing other than Rhodophytes, red algae which can still be found on Earth and many other colonies as well. And the strange floating plant-animals? They were tunicates, related to salps and seasquirts.
What was happening on this world? How is it possible that a world with organisms of terran origin turned so strange and inhospitable to actual actual terran creatures like humans? Even stranger is the apparent fact that these Eryobian organisms are more closely related to those of Earth than either are to those of Peirnovar.
A second expedition was sent down to the surface to further investigate the world. They reported witnessing unusual animals, six legged monsters with horizontally opening mouths and ears on their shoulders and strange spider legged creatures with uncannily doglike faces.
But the by far most harrowing discovery came in the night. While the squad of explorers was sleeping, their camp and vessel were raided in complete silence. In the morning when they investigated the scene, they found what might be the single most important item in humanity's recent history: a broken spear, tipped with a sharp bone, carved in with symbols and depictions of animals.
...
We were not alone here.
The exploration squad immediately departed from the surface and returned to report what had happened.
The news of the discovery of possibly sapient extraterrestrials on AnVela Koeliv-C-VI spread through the empire like wildfire and soon, many leading officials, autocrats and ecclesiarchs accompanied by vast garrisons of the imperial military hastily made their way to the Vela Koeliv system to assess the situation.
Satellites and orbital probes set course all over the red and blue moon to attempt to find where these tool making extraterrestrials were based.
They were everywhere. Large cities with populations of several tens- or even hundreds of thousands were detected all along coastal regions. Data suggested that these many of these civilizations were in what we would call "the classic era".
This made the situation delicate. By now, they must have already been aware of our presence on and around their planet. We knew nothing about them, and they knew nothing about us. It could take decades before any viable contact could be established,
So, most of those who had come to Eryobis to see the news for themselves retreated to their own systems or settled on AnVela Koeliv-C-V, Kalpea.
The task now was clear: build Kalpea up to imperial standard and continue research on Eryobis.
Over 200 years have passed since the discovery of AnVela Koeliv and contact between us and the natives of Eryobis has been sporadic and largely fruitless. Research on the flora and fauna or Eryobis continues and new species are encountered on a daily basis.
Soon, contact between us needs to be properly established for the imperium has sanctioned the construction of multiple permanent settlements on Eryobis and plans to officially add the red and blue moon to its assets.
(Human given names of large provinces and islands)
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