WIP: This article is a work in progress and is not yet approved for usage in the RP.

Gartaga is the first planet from the sun in the shara system

Gartaga is an arid world, sporting calm shallow seas that cover up roughly 62% of the planet's surface, and a very rocky and geologically relaxed terrain. It however is subject to violent dust storms but also receives enough rain supply the ecosystem.

The advent of the Gartagens has driven many of its naturally forming lesser life forms to extinction, as well as drained up the resources to the point that the native sentient race has to look to the heavens to find a way to continue sustaining its existence. From space one would see clear skies with wisps of storms clouds approaching. At its poles no ice caps can be seen. Around the equator of the planet band of prominent thickly banded rings can be seen in the skies above. These rings are comprised of rocks, and metallic debris, from what is speculated to be the remains of a moon.

The biosphere of Gartaga was once rich and extremely diverse, but now is a mere shadow of its former beauty, with many other non-sentient species being destroyed by the rapid rise of the Gartagen population. The clustering of the Gartagen cities around coastal areas has left the interior of the continents relatively devoid of vast cities, leaving small settlements in place. The forests of Gartaga are also showing signs of having paid the price of over population, but at present are being restored, with aid from the resources gained through the inter-system mining efforts.

While the radiation has died down, much of the planet still sports scars from the nuclear wars that occured in recent past. Of the three major continents, one of them is a barren, glassed, waistband.

Gartaga’s cities are not home to vast glimmering sky scrapers, but rather squat, primitive looking buildings. However these cities are located mostly on the coasts of the world’s continents, and are vast urban sprawls. From space the lights from these super cities can be seen, and give an obvious indication that this is a world suffering from over population, as well as heavy pollution.

Gartaga is a slightly old world for harboring sentient life. It has gone through more extinction cycles than most planets, and each bottleneck has reduced it's biota. Due to an earlier bottleneck, most of the species on Gartaga possess relatively high intelligence, in many cases even proto-sapience.

Geologically, Gartagen continental drift is less than that of Earth. The planet has a cooler, smaller core and a thicker crust. It has fewer volcanoes and less mountain-raising activity. This is part of what resulted in the generally flat and smooth geography. The mountains that do exist tend to be near the oceans, catching most of the planet's moisture and preventing it from reaching inland. Of the three major continents, two of them are ringed by low mountain ranges.

It's greater proximity to the star makes the planet hotter, on average, than earth as well. There's also a slightly higher abundance of radioactive in the surface of the planet due to a low probability strike by a very radioactive asteroid and due to it's closer proximity to the star, and thus heavier composition. The site where this asteroid hit has become the primary site of Gartagen uranium and plutonium mining.

This page was originally created on 2013/01/02 11:57 by gardener_in_the_dark.