Planetary Hazards
Planetary hazards are numerous. Many are those that would have been encountered on Terra-that-was: electrical storms, high winds, extreme temperatures, and other atmospheric phenomena. These, humans have withstood over their tens of millennia of existence, and will continue to do so. But space exploration has brought humanity to many worlds that humans have not adapted to naturally.
A planet whose atmosphere contains toxic and corrosive gases, exotic radiation, or simply thin unbreathable air can force humans to survive in life-support suits when travelling there. Such a planet is simply incapable of supporting human life – but humanity has proven anything if not tenacious and human settlements cling to the most inhospitable worlds. Even on young planets where the mantle has not cooled, humans live amongst magma fields on ever-shifting and often-temporary landmasses. Humanity has proven time and time again that it has the tenacity to endure in the deadliest environments.
These natuaral hazards are very rarely insurmountable – the worst hazards on many worlds are the consequences of human action. The Imperial war machine possesses hundreds of lethal weapons that leave deep scars on the worlds they used on, rendering entire regions unable to support life again. Devices that trigger crippling earthquakes and orbital bombardments that throw dust and debris into the atmosphere can lead to severe environmental catasrophes. It is not only wars that bring ruin to worlds, but also human negligence. Often, the Imperium’s hunger for raw resources and mass manufacture leads to planetary devastation. From strip-mining of resources, or land clearance for mass farming to feed the masses – Imperial industry is not clean and industrial worlds develop polluted toxic environments even as ecosystems break down.
Planetary Hazards of the Prosperitas Sector
Most of the planetary hazards of the Sector are Imperial-created. Amenophis, Duroverum, Ferraeus, Korimesta, Naximus – all these world’s environments are the victims of Imperial industry. Their ecosystems are in various states of collapse and toxic, with radioactive and other waste intermingled so deeply as to render whole rivers or even the very rain toxic and corrosive. Their planetary surfaces are so toxic that inhabitants are either specially adapted for survival, or live within sealed Hives and arcologies where the air and water are scrubbed as much as the aging filters will allow.
These worlds are not alone in Imperial-made disasters. Leaving the primary settlements of Kelper Prime is ill-advised because war has laced the landscape with minefields; the dustbowl of Mawson’s Wake is the aftermath of failed terraforming; and, of course, both Caudica Secundus and Strayvia are lifeless wastes – the aftermath of the ultimate sanction of the Imperium, Exterminatus.
Not all worlds are inhospitable by the results of human industry, however. Letifer Secundus, and Bachian IV are both uninhabitable hells by their very nature. The corrosive rains of Bachian and the venom rains of Letifer, along with their utterly deadly atmospheric gases has always made them uninhabitable, though the Letiferens make an industry out of their planets toxicity. Lubyanka is an uninhabitable ice world, with a thin atmosphere subject to frequent meteor strikes that make the surface deadly even if you can survive the cold. Shadowglow is like Lubyanka, but without even the relief of a sun’s light. Those who go to the surface do so in near-constant darkness, as the planet utterly eclipsed most of the year round – and those that dwell beneath the ground are subject to high gravity troubles. Other worlds like Lerwick and Nivalis are inhospitable outside of the equatorial regions, subjected to ice storms and regular snowfall. On Lerwick these storms cause atmospheric interference that makes communications difficult.
The former shrine-planet of Gaudium is lashed by constant storms. The Sector Meteorological Survey spends a goodly amount of time studying these stormfronts in attempt to understand them and the unique magnetic anomalies that accompany them on the ocean planet. With underhive flooding and tsunamis increasing, there is pressure on local authorities to build bigger and better storm defences. The surface of the planet boils with increasingly larger and longer-lasting typhoons, hurricanes and other storm-formations – far beyond what even the most pessimistic meteorologist’s models predict.
Though its central desert belt is uninhabitable hot, Macharion is a stable planet environmentally – with one notable exception. The entire southern pole is shrouded in dense fog banks and electromagnetic interference from an unknown source – speculated to be the result of rare mineral deposits on the surface reacting with the atmosphere – which has made remote scouting nigh-impossible. In recent years, there have been some intrepid souls who have attempted to explore the region, but few return – those that do speak of seeing strange lights and shapes in the mist.
The world of Vannin, part of the holdings of House Vilas-Lobo, is made up of impenetrable jungles and forests, with an atmosphere toxic to humanoid life. All efforts to explore it or exploit its resources have met with failure, beyond a few exported plants and their derivatives which exist mainly as curios in collections: or, at least, that is the public understanding. There are rumors that Vilas-Lobo – or even the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition – hide some dark secret on the verdant world, but as none but Vilas-Lobo vessels ever approach, it is difficult to verify this.
The forests of Helaerus III seem serene at first glance – yet, were it not for the stable hive arcologies on the planet, it would be classified a ‘death world’. Though the term applied to forested worlds summons up images dense living jungles where every inch of land is hostile to civilised life – like Vannin – Helaerus’s surface is a temperate coniferous forest, densely populated by vast evergreen steelwood trees. These trees are prized as a major export of the planet, but is only possible with convoys of heavily armoured land crawlers to protect loggers – for on Helareus, every plant and animal is deadlier than it seems.