Planetary Ecology

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Earth remains the most biologically diverse planet in the galaxy. Without any known extraterrestrial life, all floral and fauna that exist on other planets were put there by design. During the Great Expansion, massive orbital terraforming machines transformed hospitable planets for settlement, cultivation or resource exploitation. Fully automated, these terraforming processes would arrive decades ahead of humans and seed the planet with the singular cellular and multicellular life which was necessary for its development.

With specialized environmental service modules, these machines built up complex and stable ecosystems suitable for human habitation. But other than Terra Nova, many planets were systematically designed to produce only one or two specific crops for sale in the interstellar economy based upon what was optimal for the geological conditions of the planetary body. Only a very few were designed for full time habitation, as the majority of the population had already grown accustom to life and work in the orbital cities above planets.

After the Plague, it was the planets capable of full-time habitation which were first resettled. Mining operations and agro planned bodies were either lost or passed over in favor of locations with a climate capable of supporting a self-sustaining community of people. As a result, most planets with life on them have had multiple millenia for it to develop on its own and spread out without the structure of human society. It is only with the rise of the Commercial Plexus and the race to claim habitable planets in the New Worlds in Sagittarius, that a lot more worlds have become settled again.

With this re-occupation, the ecology of the uninhabited wildernesses are becoming more diverse. But, nearly all still bear the imprimatur of being designed for a different purpose than human habitation.

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