The Mashveya

The Mashveya is a ring of breathable air in orbit around the gas giant planet Matroya. It is home to indigenous organisms, thought to be the result of panspermia within the moon system. It is heavily populated, both by indigenous xenosophonts and by peoples from Capu, who live there inside open-air spindistricts not unlike those found in more conventional cavern habitats.

Geography

The Mashveya is a ring of air, vapor, dust, and rock in orbit around planet Matroya, similar to the ice rings of Saturn. Due to its gaseous nature, the Mashveya is more diffuse than Saturn's rings, and the disk's height is comparable to the radius of Earth. It is kept gravitationally stable by the shepherding influence of several Matroyan moons. It is thought that the ring was formed recently in astronomical terms, by the breakup of a water-rich small moon - possibly already inhabited - as it migrated into the Matroyan Roche limit and lost gravitational self-coherence. Geological studies of its asteroids seem to support this hypothesis. The early Mashveyan atmosphere would have been mostly water vapor laced with volcanic gases, but life appears to have filtered out the toxic chemistry while hydrogen was cooked out of the atmosphere over time by solar radiation and interaction with the Matroyan magnetosphere, leaving behind an oxygen-dominant atmosphere. Asteroid geology is heavily shaped by the presence of life. Significantly, the forests called Windwoods dominate much of the Mashveyan land area, and many species - once they take root - try to quickly expand to cover the surface of an asteroid and prevent the loss of valuable dust to erosion. Large, conscious eusocial organisms called Sailtrees influence the direction of an asteroid against the wind, steering it toward opportune flows of dust and organic matter; over time, layers of forest build upon the previous layer, growing the soil layer of the asteroid and preserving a geochemical and sometimes fossil record, in a manner comparable to a coral reef.

Fauna & Flora

Inhabited Mashveyan asteroids are called worldlets. They are typically covered in an outer layer of hardy flora adapted for retaining dirt and capturing new debris to incorporate into their reserve. Over time, given suitable conditions, this grows into a worldlet-wide coverage of forest called Windwoods. The root structures of the Windwoods are threaded by tunnels and pockets of many kinds; water reserves also dot the structure frequently, home to a variety of small organisms. On the surface of a worldlet, scavengers are dominant, pruning dead biomass from the surface of the windwoods, which helps prevent loss to erosion. Larger flighted creatures also make their nests here, sailing from asteroid to asteroid over periods of days and weeks. Many are eusocial organisms, with colonies of smaller workers attached to a larger winged caste. Predatory skywhales ply the air in small groups.

Natural Resources

The Mashveya contains many iron-nickel asteroids rich in platinum group metals, thought to be the remnants of its former planetary core. They are generally covered in a thick oxidation layer, distinguishable by a distinct red color. Digging too far beneath the surface, however, is difficult as one reaches the metal layer, which is ductile and hard to cut. Captured, intact carbonaceous asteroids are a rare find, but historically valuable to the combustion-fuel society of Alsifer. Carbonaceous asteroids can be mined to produce syngas, which can be refined into various grades of jet- and rocket-grade fuel. Sightseeing makes the ring a popular destination for visitors.

Type

Planetoid / Moon

Characters in Location