From Gephqua

Current revision as of 22:04, 4 October 2007

The Planet Eirh

Adjective Form:	Eirhan
Location:	The Korah System
Solar Position:	5th
Inhabitants:	The Gephqua
Percent Water:	85%
Percent Land:	15%
Day Length:	71.32 Hours
Year Length:	1,236 Days
Mass:	1.25 Earths
Circumference:	31,125 Miles 50,090 Km
Moon(s):	Rona
Aphelion Distance:	447,838,164 Miles 720,725,662 Km 4.818 AU
Perihelion Distance:	403,419,582 Miles 649,240,883 Km 4.34 AU
Axial Tilt:	24.137°
Surface Temp: Min: Mean: Max"	12 °F (-11 °C) 77 °F (25 °C) 127 °F (53 °C)
Atmospheric Composition:	70.01% Nitrogen 28.89% Oxygen 1.001% Argon 0.099% CO2 0.01% H2O Vapor

Eirh is the fifth planet of the Korah system and is the second largest terrestrial planet. It is often called "HaEirh", "Home World", or simply "The World".

Home to millions of life forms, including the dominant species, the Gephqua. The planet formed roughly 5.2 billion years ago, with life having only appearing on the planet just over a billion years ago. Over this period of time Eirh's biosphere has changed considerably, along with all its other planetary systems.

The planet's surface, like that of Earth, is covered in tectonicplates which move slowly across the surface of the planet. The vast majority of the planet's surface (about 85%) is covered in water, of that most of it is fresh water; the remainder of the planet's surface is covered with land, the largest land mass on the planet being the Great Continent which comprises the bulk of the planet's 15% land area. Eirh's interior is active, with a thick layer of mantle, below which is a dense molten core.

The planet's chief cosmic interaction is between its star, Korah, and its moon, Rona. Eirh orbits Korah once for every 412.51 times it rotates on its axis (i.e. an Eirhan year takes 412.51 Eirhan days), which equals to about 1,236 Terran days or about 3½ Terran years. Eirh has an average orbital distance from Korah of 425,628,873 miles or 4.578 AU, making Eirh about four times further from Korah as Earth is from the Sun; Eirh needs to be this far away due to Korah's significantly more intense presence than Sol. The planet's axis is tilted to about 24°, allowing for seasonal variations throughout the year, however temperate they might be. Eirh has only one moon, Rona, which is believed to be a captured object. Unlike our moon, Rona is not tidally locked, which means from an Eirhan observer the moon rotates upon its own axis. Rona effects the tides, helps stabalize the planet's axial tilt and is believed to be gradually slowing down Eirh's rotation.

Roughly 550 million years ago the planet suffered the Great Axial Shift, a large cosmic body collided with the planet's surface with such force that it considerably shifted the planet's axis from a 42° angle to the 24° angle it now has--the event was so catastrophic that it ended virtually all life on the planet. It's believed that roughly 99% of the planet's life went extinct in the event and is considered one of the most important events in the planet's evolutionary history.

[edit] Planetary Evolution

[edit] Physical Characteristics

[edit] Geology

[edit] Hydrosphere

[edit] Geography

[edit] Atmosphere

[edit] Weather and Climate

[edit] Climate Zones

[edit] Equatorial Zone

[edit] Temperate Zone

[edit] Twighlight Zones

[edit] Weather Phenomenon

[edit] Magnetic Field

[edit] Orbit and Rotation

[edit] Divisions of Time

[edit] Great Axial Shift

[edit] Moon

[edit] Biosphere

Eirh is home to countless millions of species of organisms. Due to eighty-five percent of the planet being covered in oceans, the majority of all life exists in the seas, of that the majority are microscopic organisms.

Of these varied forms of life it is worth taking a closer look at some of the notable components of the Eirhan biosphere.

[edit] Animal Life

Animal life is defined as organisms that are heterotrophic; that is, they require sustenance upon something different from them selves; as opposed to autotrophs which produce their own sustenance (such as the phototrophs); and which are motile at least at some stage in their lifespan. The animal life on Eirh ranges from microscopic, unicellular organisms to vast, robust multicellular organisms--including the Gephqua themselves which are the most advanced lifeforms on the planet and its only sentient species.

[edit] Sea Gels

Occupying a similar niche as Earth's jellyfish, the sea gels resemble overgrown unicellular organisms, though they are multicellular. Most have flat bodies, and they propel themselves through the water with an flagellum-like appendage, while undulating their body to help swim. They are predatory, usually feeding upon anything smaller than themselves. To feed they will wrap themselves over the body of an organism, and inject a toxic enzyme which both stuns or kills (depending on the species) its prey as well as begins breaking down the tissue which is absorbed directly by the sea gel through its cellular membrane. These animals are asexual, and reproduce by mitosis, producing a "bud" which eventually separates from the parent creature, the offspring is an exact genetic duplicate of the parent. Sea gels can be found throughout Eirh's oceans, and range in size and shape from the nymph sea gel (about the size of a pencil eraser) to the giant phantom (about six feet long, including its flagellum). Due to their toxin, swimmers are always cautious when swimming in the seas, as even some species of small sea gels have enough toxin to kill an adult Gephqua.

[edit] Placocalvae

A group of bony-headed, endothermic, air-breathing, marine animals superficially resembling cetaceans (Earth whales and dolphins). Evolving from land-dwelling animals from the same clade of organisms as the Gephqua, that is anuraforms--recognized for their smooth skin, similar to that of Earth's amphibians, but lacking the characteristic "sliminess", since they do not need to continually keep their skin moist, they are also endothermic (warm-blooded) tetrapods; and almost all anuraforms lay eggs. The placocalvae are an exclusively predatory group, even the whale-sized specimens are hunters. The most feared hunter in the seas is the bone-crusher whale, seventy feet long with a bony beak that can cut through the bones of even large prey; however very few will attack people. The smaller fish-dolphins, which have the friendly, intelligent and playful demeanor of Earth's dolphins (though about the length of a large salmon) are usually found swimming in pods, jumping and playing and tend to be attracted to ships and have long been seen as a good omen to sailors. All placocalvae breathe through their nostrils, located near the eyes on the top of their armored heads, when a large placocalvae surfaces to breathe its exhalation is very reminiscent of Earth's whales.

[edit] Bat-Birds

For most of Eirh's history the air was the domain of flying arthropod-like organisms very similar to Earth's insects, however millions of years ago during the age of giant mammals a number of arboreal mammal-like beasts (not true mammals, but like them in most respects) and saurians took to flight. While the aviasaurs (flying lizards) did not last long, dying out long ago, a group of flying mammalian creatures, the bat-birds, have thrived. Bat-birds have some of the characteristics of both birds and mammals, they are among the few groups of mammal-like beasts which lay legs rather than giving live birth, they are covered in fur rather than feathers, a few species have beak-like mouths similar to birds while others have toothed-jaws (the beaked species are mostly fruitivores, with a few exceptions). Like birds their front limbs have evolved into wings, rather than like bats which have outstretched arms with a webbing of skin between the front and rear limbs; only a very small few species retain vestigial front claws. They typically nest in trees or, in some cases, rocks; a few island species build their nests on the ground. They are warmblooded, feed their young from milk glands, and are mostly diurnal. They range in size from the very large to the very small.

Some species of bat-birds have been domesticated, particularly the "dog birds", after millennia of breeding have become a staple of Gephquanese domestication.

[edit] Oximanders

Large herds of quadrupedal, herbivorous anuraforms roam many of Eirh's grasslands, most of which are located on the main continent. Like Earth cattle, oximanders have been domesticated for a variety of uses, predominantly as beasts of burden as well as a domestic food animal. In fact domesticated oximanders provide the main source of meat for most urban-dwelling Gephqua. Approximately the size of an ox, these large anuraforms use their girth and large numbers to avoid predators, though if that were not enough the male of most species (including the many breeds of the domesticated kind) sport a set of cheek spikes. If the similarity between Earth cattle and the oximander isn't quite revealed yet, then it may be important to point out that, like most anuraforms, oximanders produce milk for their young. Additionally the sound of an oximander bears some resemblance to the "moo" of a typical Earth cow, coupled with low sounding grunts. When danger approaches the herd the bull will make a loud bellowing sound, vibrating a pair of organs in his throat which can be heard over vast differences, the herd of cows and calves respond instinctively, following after the lead bull away from danger.

[edit] Lobsterfish

The seas and oceans of Eirh are filled with a variety of life, but for millions upon millions of years the lobsterfish have ruled the seas. The lobsterfish are a kind of hexapod, early in Eirh's history the vertebrates broke into two distinct super families, distinguished by the number of their limbs. The four-limbed slugfishes were the ancestors to all terrestrial tetrapods (including the Gephqua), while the six-limbed hexapods generally remained in the seas with a few making a terrestrial life for themselves. In the seas the hexapods became the dominant form of life, with marine slugfishes dying out millions of years ago (only freshwater slugfishes survive). The lobsterfish is the most widespread variety of hexapod on Eirh, filling virtually all the niches in the oceans which Earth's fishes do today. Big and small, long, short, predator and prey. Like all hexapods, lobsterfish bear some superficial resemblance to Earth's arthropods, they have armored bodies; but unlike arthropods all hexapods have vertebrae. Most lobsterfish look like fish, with streamlined bodies, dorsal appendages and the like. They retain several key hexapodal novelties however, such as having four eyes rather than two, and not all species have true jaws, many species are jawless with mouth parts resembling Earth's lamprey. The armored sharks are a particularly fearsome group of lobsterfish which have evolved to be among some of the most cunning and intelligent predators in the oceans; of them the sea wolf is particularly dangerous, these lobsterfish get their name because their behavior resembles the pack behavior of Earth's wolves. They swim and live in packs of males, with an alpha male, and attack their prey in this fashion, a pack of sea wolves can take down some of the largest of Eirh's marine life, including the whale-sized placocalvae.

[edit] Phototrophs

What we might typically call "plants", organisms that feed primarily through the absorption of light via photosynthesis. On Eirh two similar, but completely unrelated, "plants" exist. The most familiar are the phototrophs that consume primarily blue light, and photosynthesize it into simple sugar compounds--these typically have a green or greenish color to their photosynthetic components due to their cells containing a substance similar to chlorophyll. The other variety of phototrophs are those which feed upon ultraviolet light, due to Korah's (the sun) status as a Type A/Type F blue star there is considerable amount of ultraviolet light which radiates the planet; since these "plants" absorb only ultraviolet light they reflect all the other frequencies of the spectrum which gives them a white or off-white appearance in their photosynthetic components. The fields of deep green grasses which cover most of the planet's land surfaces are an example of the former, while the white fern forests in the northern Twightlight Belt is an example of the latter.

[edit] Fungi

[edit] Other

There are a number of lifeforms that don't fit the traditional norm on Eirh, various forms of unicellular organisms which can not be classified as animal, plant or fungi, though a few multicellular organisms also are strange in their own way.

[edit] Grub Trees

A very peculiar organism is the grub tree. It begins its life seemingly as an animal, but after a metamorphosis becomes planet-like. They hatch from egg-pods in a larval stage, and have the appearance of a small grub (hence their name) without any legs with small mouth parts, the larva have no eyes but rather pick up scent through their oral cavity. Grub tree larva move around, inching their way on the ground, feeding mostly upon small fungi (or in some species plant roots), they live to feed and will continue to engorge themselves for several months, or even a year or two in a few species, after having sufficiently engorged themselves (usually doubling their mass), they will bury themselves in the ground, and encase themselves with an enzyme which produces a cocoon, in which they radically transform. In the cocoon the larva undergo metamorphosis and develop chloroplasts in their cells, after a period of time the cocoon erupts with tendrils reaching out into the soil and what was the grub's body grows upward until it breaks the topsoil where its flesh has hardened, reaching out toward the sunlight it sprouts stem-like structures covered in thick leafy hairs. The grub tree, at this point, is no longer remotely animal but mostly plant, it no longer has any internal organs of any kind, nor any mouth parts. The grub tree in its "adult" feeds exclusively through photosynthesis, converting sunlight into simple sugars, while absorbing nutrients from the soil, "adult" grub trees can live for an exceptionally long time. At the top end of its body-stock is the reproductive parts of the organism, the ovum in females, and the spermum for the males. The spermum produces spermaphores which are usually taken by various animals and deposited in the ovum of the species, similar to how bees pollinate flowers on Earth. When the spermaphores are in the ovum of the female grub tree, egg-spores are fertilized which then blossom into a cluster of egg-pods, the egg-pods will grow until they "ripen" at which they will fall to the ground and larval grubs emerge from the pod.

[edit] Gephquanese Habitation

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