Carrotopia

It's a joke. It's ridiculous. When you think of the horrors we've seen out there, this place is so over-the-top in its mundanity that it's hilarious. Then you realize the kind of power they... I guess we're calling them 'the predecessors' this week... the predecessors had. They could remake ecosystems on a planetary scale to provide a single type of desired foodstuff. And then it hits you. They're gone. Something happened to them. Something destroyed a culture so powerful, so rich, that turning an entire world into a carrot farm was worth doing because it represented such an infinitely small fraction of their power. And we have no idea what that something was. Or, perhaps, is.

— Dr. Katherine Goldenberg, BREACH Dendribotanist

So. Many. Carrots.

The world formally declared 'Predecessor Agricultural Facility 1 (Presumed)', and less formally, "Carrotopia", is an Earth alternate that has been ecologically engineered at every level to produce carrots. Tens of thousands of species. Cactus-like versions in the deserts. Aquatic varieties, both free-floating and rooted in the undersea soil. Immense breeds with roots twenty feet long, and tiny ones that are almost moss like. As with Baseline's ancestral species, they come in a tremendous range of colors and flavor profiles. What non-carrot life there is serves to support the ecosystem, recycling oxygen into CO2, transporting seeds, rooting out patches showing signs of disease.

Early teams assumed the carrot-centric environment was purely local, but as wider probes were conducted, it was determined to be a global phenomenon. And everywhere, there were the ruined remnants of an industrial operation on a scale scarcely imaginable. This generated tremendous excitement, until the true state of the ruins became apparent; virtually nothing remains but corroded shells, enough to vaguely guess that something was a warehouse, a processing plant, or a harvester. From an archeological perspective, thrilling. From a "how to we take advantage of this?" perspective, not so much. The ruins of an ancient factory-planet, and not a single practical military or economic advantage to be had.

But, hey... free carrots!

"Carrotopia" has become something of a punishment assignment for BREACH agents who have committed minor sins. The work of organizing, cataloguing, and collecting samples is useful, in the abstract, but dull. While there are hopes of a mass export system coming soon, in the short term, the provision of extremely exotic "interdimensional vegetables" has brought needed funding for other research projects of less interest to NATO and its corporate partners.

World Type

Engineered

Divergence

Indeterminate

Current Year

2023

Invasive?

All specimens returned, before being shipped to eager buyers, are sterilized. The last thing anyone on Baseline wants is invasive extradimensional carrots.