Soundless Sprinter
The Soundless Sprinter is a hexabiome eco-ship designed to transport “seed biomes” to barren worlds with the primary goal of aiding colonization and terraforming. Biomes are designed and cultivated to be fully self-sustaining (except for the provision of water) during their transport on the ship and immediately functional upon installation at their destination, complete with fully developed plant life and animal populations.
The Soundless Sprinter comprises six city-sized domes, attached to a spinal drive-ship. Biomes can range from tropical forests to tundra, and incorporate soil, temperature, and atmospheric controls to ensure that each dome remains stable despite interstellar radiation or exposure to solar heat.
In spite of the large size of the ship, the Sprinter’s crew size is relatively small—roughly 200 in all. These include a wide variety of botanists, biologists, animal behaviorists, genetic engineers, technicians, landscapers, and survivalists. A large portion of the crews live in the biomes they are actively monitoring, often crafting shelters from materials sourced within the dome itself to avoid introducing foreign materials to the biome.
The Soundless Sprinter’s philosophy toward terraforming and biome cultivation is somewhat peculiar compared to its peers: rather than cultivating flora and fauna whose genetic material is tightly controlled and predictable, the Sprinter’s geneticists aim for a wide variety of genotypes and phenotypes to increase the chance of survival in the face of changing conditions, though this means their biomes have a larger degree of unpredictable mutations.
