Meatson Geographic Location in Confederate States of Earth | World Anvil

Meatson

This place had nothing in particular, just another ordinary suitable planet for those fortune seekers to live in peace.   Until it wasn't.

Meatson is a red planet orbiting in a habitable zone. It is red not from the oxidation in its air-exposed crusts, but a massive organic web of messy flesh and blood. It's a property of Nature Harmonic, the terraforming company, where their experiment ruin the entire ecosystem.

Geography

The whole planet is covered by a massive, single flesh made of crimson veins and muscle. The surface is bouncy, and the air smell like a rotten flesh.

Ecosystem

The sweat coming from its skin is much enough to form cloud and rain, though it only feed itself. It's good thing that raining can reduce the amount of Meatson floating in the atmosphere.

Fauna & Flora

The only thing living here is a parasite creature known as Meatson. It can creep on any structures, growing and engulfing. If whatever is biomass it'll absorb and disgust and that's why no other species has survived, though it's slower compared to the early age. Nevertheless, it can feed itself with surface minerals and heat from the sunlight.

If it's taken into space the vacuum can kill it for sure, but can't when it's inside a sealed container.

To prevent anyone from stealing as well as further infection, the planet is quarantined with an energy barrier emitted from military orbital station thanks to the aid of the Mulatos. No one is allowed to land without authorization, and all the ships must be disinfected back and forth.

Any landing attempts must not make any scratch.
  A proper spacesuit is required.
  And most importantly, do not make the floor bleed.

History

The terraforming is quite slow, but the slowest operation is lifeform inhabitation; Not every planet has native species, sometimes they have to bring plants and animals off-world. Moving from one place to another is good and stable, but too slow for them to distribute.

That's what they need to speed things up.

The development goal is a lifeform creator that could synthesize a certain type of species in which adapt into any environment by mixing and growing plenty of species cells, creating a suitable lifeform in an instant. The project was known as The Printer.

They decided to test it on one of their terraformed products. The atmosphere and the surface are ready for settle to be deployed.

The Field Test

Everything is put into a science device, holding hundreds of species of plants and animals. The device is supposed to measure the environment and then progress into predicted species before the vat rapidly raised such a thing. The device was activated in an open area with spectators to record the test. If success it'd be advanced into more every day like stuff, or the terraforming could progress faster than it was.

Sadly though, It turned disastrous after a while the test seemed to succeed. According to survivors, the module broke, all substances mixed. It started to grow uncontrollably at an incredible speed, creating a grey goo effect. Whoever couldn't escape in time was seen being crushed over by the unstoppable blobby mess.

Just a few days a quarter of the planet was red. At such this rate, even fire and acid couldn't stop it so easily. Once a few weeks passed the whole planet became unrecognizable, even the ocean was engulfed.

Afterward

If Terra Coriolis is a sin to Otherworld Construction Corp., this planet is that of Nature Harmonic. After the catastrophe, the company abandoned and forbidden all projects related to biological manipulation, turning back into a traditional way.

Nowadays, somebody still rest there at the bottom, somewhere.

Type
Planet
Owning Organization

Comments

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Jan 23, 2022 10:47 by Gavionara

What an interesting (and terrifying) piece of lore. I hope Nature Harmonic suffered some consequences for this other than losing one habitable planet because this kind of tampering is very reckless.   I wonder if the one resting at the bottom of the flesh could have survived somehow.

Jan 16, 2023 14:12

The article does a good job using vivid and graphic language to effectively convey the grotesque nature of the planet. The history of the terraforming company and their failed experiment adds a layer of intrigue and raises many more questions.   It may be helpful to have some scientific explanation on how the grey goo effect happened, and the reaction of other parties (government, other companies, etc) on the catastrophe.