New Cynthia
New Cynthia
New Cynthia was colonized by a generation ship from New Shiron 102 years after it left Earth in 2054. The starship, Cynthia, had carried 200 crew and 25,000 passengers, plus thousands of tons of colonization equipment and a vast library of actual hardback volumes in addition to its huge data library. The colony ship was the last of a wave of 8 ships launched, the preceeding ships have carried out either survey missions or terraforming missions. In all 28,000 settlers including crewmen were landed in the colonization phase.
Now, some 300 years later, the population is approaching 600 million, and the planet is a unified state, with a capitalist economy and has reached and passed the technical, scientific and industrial knowledge and capabilities of the society that founded it.
(Authors note: In other words, it has MHD hydrogen and fusion technology, advanced spaceflight included the capability for interstellar travel via warp technology, advanced medical and nanotech technologies. In addition, the population is no longer homo sapiens, having only a 99% match, as certain measures where taken in the initial colonization period to adapt homo sapiens to local conditions. Therefore, the population is technically homo cynthian and look essentially like Tolkien Elves because of the lighter gravity)
With a diameter of 10,172 kilometers and an average density of 0.9 standard, New Cynthia's mass is approximately 42 percent of that of Terra, and its surface gravity is a comfortable 0.746 G. Almost 60 percent of New Cynthia's surface is covered by water, including the two large polar caps which cover almost 15 percent of the surface. It is the only earth like world in a star system that has a G1 type sun, 3 gas giants, a Mars type world, and a Pluto type world as well as two asteroid belts and an Oort cloud (which is also the location of one of the gas giants, a failed star). The star system (the star is called Sharon, named after the first of the starships that arrived), is approx 100 light years rimward of Earth, in a general line passing from Earth to Castor and beyond.
All of the planets and major moons are named after the starships that found them, all of which had artificial intelligence and had female human type personalities. That technology later led to the development of Ogres and other self aware type combat systems.
New Cynthia's land surface is composed of four major continents: three in the southern hemisphere and one in the northern. Much of the surface is covered in deciduous and coniferous forests, with some of the native plants bearing a striking resemblance to Terran pine trees. The remainder of the surface is mainly frozen tundra, and on the northern continent, ice pack.
New Cynthia is a temperate world, with a surface temperature averaging 15 degrees C; this can range up to 30 degrees C during the day and down to 0 degrees C at night. The Cynthian day lasts 17 hours and five minutes, and each local year consists of 278.46 local days.
New Cynthia has two moons, Selene and Surina, located at 30 and 45 diameters out, respectively. Both are airless worlds. Further surveys of Surina have indicated that heavy mineral deposits are located just beneath its surface.
One of New Cynthia’s notable aspects is its variety of animal life forms. The life form at the top of the food chain on New Cynthia is the Cynthian Red Wolf, a three-meter-tall, bipedal, mammalian creature which possesses a powerful bite. Red Wolves roam in packs, usually of 10 to 50 individuals.
