Terraforming

" As i stepped down from the passenger hold of the shuttle, i was immediately struck by the cool winds of Mars upon my face. But they felt comfortable, unlike what would have happened half a millenia ago, when just stepping outside without adequate protection would be fatal to us. But after centuries of delicate terraforming, Mats had finally become our first true home outside Terra and Inaria."
Lorann sanguinus meros, talking about his experiences on visiting Mars, by then terraformed by mankind

Terraforming is the act of transforming a world which is initially hostile to the biology of a sentient species, to a world that is habitable by them. In its most popular usage, terraforming refers to planets, moons and other celestial bodies being transformed from hostile, uninhabitable worlds to worlds that are just as habitable as Terra for humans. It can be undertaken in two forms, scientifically and with the usage of Void energy based terraforming, with the latter being mostly used in present times due to it being far more faster. It has tremendously aided mankind, with almost every world being terraformable, mankind now has the ability to claim practically every last planet and moon that exists out there in the milky way galaxy.

Famous celestial bodies that were terraformed

• Mars
• Venus
• Mercury
• Luna
• The four galilean moons
• Rhea
• Iapetus
• Tethys
• Titan
• Oberon
• Titania
Triton

Discovery

Scientific terraforming has its roots mostly in nineteenth and twentieth century chemistry, physics and biology as well as other scientific subjects. Void based terraforming however, was developed in the late 23rd century by a team which included Hans Jurgen Kürsch, Aiden Tallorann, Soras Valcoran and Augustus Ludwig.

How terraforming works

Belaria II terraforming station

Scientifically speaking, terraforming has its roots in mostly 19th and 20th century chemistry, physics and biology. The basic principles are quite easy to understand, as the most basic ideas are rooted in common chemistry, physics and biology. However, there are some other worlds where terraforming quickly becomes a complex and mind boggling subject for even the most gifted of human minds. That, combined with the slowness of scientific terraforming prompted the development of a more efficient system, and that is when void based terraforming comes in.

Void based terraforming

Void based terraforming is different from scientific terraforming in the sense that whilst scientific terraforming has its roots on science and its various subjects, void based terraforming uses the powers and energy of The void to simply alter reality and terraform objects such as gas giants, stars and even black holes. It was discovered around the early twenty third century by a team of people including Aiden Tallorann, Soras Valcoran and Hans Jurgen Kürsch.
As with other void based technology, the main drawback to void based terraforming is that using void based terraforming has a high risk of opening up Void fissures , which then serves as a gateway for demons and demonic creatures and their allies into realspace and gives them a chance to spread their corruption even more. For this reason, void based terraforming takes incredible amounts of planning, and the ones behind the terraforming operation take great care not to use it excessively, since it increases the risk of opening up a void fissure even more and has an extremely high chance of messing up the entire operation.

Availability of terraforming

Venusia no 1

The subject of terraforming is widely known to the civilian populace of The Imperial Terran Federation. However, the technology itself is extremely expensive and requires incredible skills by a huge number of skilled individuals to operate. Terraforming is undertaken only by the government itself, corporations sponsored by it or by extremely large public corporations. Even then, it takes a tremendous amount of planning before the greenlight to start the operation is given.

Complexity and risks

"Terraforming in itself brings a whole lot of risks. From suffocating due to an idiotic mistake by an equally dumbass worker to being clawed to death by demons and a thousand other worse fates, Terraforming sure isn't an easy job."
Attributed to Soras Valcoran.

Outer territories- atmosphere terraforming

Terraforming, whilst having its basics rooted in basic chemistry, physics and biology from the nineteenth to twentieth centuries, is an incredibly complex task on the field. It is something that can never be done at once, lest the entire operation goes awry quickly. For this reason, terraforming requires a tremendous amount of planning and is broken up into various stages, with each stage being delicately and meticulously fulfilled and any problems being ironed out before moving onto the next stage.

A history of terraforming

Terraformed Venus

Ever since the dawn of mankinds arrival on Terra, they have reminisced about exploring the stars and ruling them. Some of mankind had also thought about finding worlds similar to their own and transforming uninhabitable wastelands into lush paradises mirroring those of Earth. Many millions of years passed by without mankind ever achieving its dreams, until around a thousand or so years ago.

The second space race

Snow capped volcanoes

"On this day, as i stand upon the red and rusty surface of Mars, i echo in the words of Neil Armstrong, the first man to have stepped on a brave and hostile new world completely alien to our own. One small leap for a man, one massive leap for mankind."
The first words of Augustus Ludwig, upon touching down on the surface of Mars for the first time and becoming the first person on Mars and also the first person on an alien planet

In the 2030s and 2040s, the space industry recieved a massive boom, after the privatisation of space had reached its peak and many private space companies, including AEGIS corporation led by Augustus Ludwig, had begun to achieve enormous amounts of success in space technology and in the industry itself. Many people had started going into space by then and there were already thriving colonies in the inner Sol system, particularly on the moon and Mars. In this period, the first seeds of terraforming were planted on the planet Mars, with it undergoing a major terraforming operation run jointly by the united nations and many other large private space companies including AEGIS corporation. It seemed as if mankind was truly starting to conquer alien worlds and soon, they might spread to the stars too. All of that came to a halt however when the calamity came.

The calamity

"It all came so suddenly. Like a storm that caught us right in the rear. It left us broken, dead and shattered. And yet we survived. Yet we banished those fucking hellish bitches right back to the hellhole they deserve to be in and lived to tell the tale. And we will do that as many times as need be"
Augustus Ludwig, speaking about mankinds devotion in winning the war against the breaker

The calamity was an event that would be remembered by all of mankind for history. It was a time during which, the very strongest forces of Kerr had attacked mankind and Terra, having finally found their location after billions of years. In the end however, they were defeated after the Ludwig himself, taking on the physical form of the great titan Sanguinus managed to defeat them and banish most of them back to the void, if not permanently destroying them. Despite all the damage mankind suffered, they lived to fight another day.

Discovery of void based terraforming

"Two and a half centuries or so after the calamity, mankind had largely recovered. With the invention of the The sigma -Ludwig void Drive, humanity had also achieved faster than light travel and were beginning to settle in the stars. Whilst all of humanity were busy in their own ways, a group of researchers and scientists on a desert world were trying their best in having a breakthrough with a new way of terraforming, one that could be done at a faster scale than the science based methods that were being used on some of the colonized worlds. Their efforts had been in vain however, with no breakthrough being achieved till one day.
One normal morning, as most of the researchers and workers on the project woke up, Soras Valcoran roared in frustration. He had been working on this project the most and was in charge of leading it as well, and he had been angered that they had achieved not a single sign of progress in so many months. Enraged, he accidentally unleashed a devastating bout of void energy, being an extremely powerful psychic himself. Some of the energy was infused to the terraforming machines that were outside.
When the project began as usual again, the researchers found to their surprise that the barren area they were in immediately turned into a lush and fertile area. With the new terraforming machines, they had managed to terraform the world in only a year or so. After many other projects, the researchers came to deduce that some sort of energy was powering these terraforming machines that would allow them to work much more faster than science based terraforming. They deduced that it was void energy, the natural energy that makes up much of The void and in the upcoming years, decades and centuries, through many errors and failures, master the art of void based terraforming and transform practically every single world for mankind, thereby truly establishing humanities dominance in the milky way galaxy.

Public opinion on Terraforming

Whilst most of the people in The Imperial Terran Federation support terraforming, there are also a large number of vocal opponents who believe that terraforming ruins the natural beauty and pristinity of a world. They believe that terraforming might also contaminate any exotic form of life that may exist inside of those worlds. For these reasons, there has been a directive amongst every terraforming operations that at least some parts of the to-be terraformed planet be preserved in the way as it is.