The Phyllodoce System: In the House of Oceanids

Overview

The Phyllodoce System consists of a lone star and its accompaniment of planets. The extent of the system is similar to our Solar System and it is similarly alone in space, all of its birth cluster having long since drifted away. Phyllodoce is an intermediate-age thin disk system, forming in a high-mass star-forming region similar to the our Orion OB or the Gordian Reach’s Singularity Core. Its loose, relatively undisturbed planetary system includes only six widely spaced worlds, with little else.

Four objects in the Phyllodoce System host life; the Jupiter-like gas giant Cephea, its Earth-like moons Ceratonova and Polypodium, and its terrestrial co-orbital companion Haliclystus. All of this biota seems to have originated on the moon Polypodium, but the bulk of panspermia events happened early in the system’s life and all four worlds’ evolutionary paths have since diverged greatly.

Ceratonova’s swamps are home to a sapient species of zooxanthellate, cephalopod-like flora-fauna. Their civilization abruptly appears around 1,500 years before present and they do not have any close near-sapient relatives, suggesting they are artificial creations. In this time, they have given rise to a group of hyper-capitalist, quasi-corporate societies distributed across the core of the Gordian Reach, even while their homeworld remains in a technological stage equivalent to the Bronze Age. They must have been assisted, possibly by their creators, but any records of this assistance or really any records of their spacefaring civilization before 300 years ago are nonexistent, despite their present distribution indicating that they must have been around before then.

The First and Only Sun: Phyllodoce, the Worm-World

The star Phyllodoce itself is a G1 yellow dwarf about 5% more massive and 40% brighter than our Sun. Because of this increased brightness, its lifespan is around 8 billion years to the Sun’s 10 billion, but at just 3.3 billion years old both stars have a roughly equal length of lifetime remaining. Phyllodoce is otherwise broadly similar to the Sun with the exception that its luminosity cycle is both stronger and longer than the Sun’s, with variations of up to 2% over a period of about 80 years. This variability is still minimal compared to many other stars, but is enough to drive weak climate cycling on the orbiting planets.

Phyllodoce’s planetary system is not altogether foreign to the Solar System’s layout, but it has contracted significantly. All the terrestrial planets that may ever have existed (save Haliclystus) have been consolidated in the extreme inner system, while four gas giants between 60 and 550 Earth masses are widely scattered across the outer regions of the system, from Venus to Uranus-like levels of insolation. All four boast large collections of moons, mostly scattered asteroids captured as they migrated to their present locations.

The Medusozoan Series

The Flayed Titan

The pink-and-yellow orb of Lucernaria looms large over the limb of its asteroid moon Unicauda. At over twice the size of Earth, this is an unprecedented rarity in the Universe.

Sun-Drinkers

Cotylorhiza’s moons Ortholinea and Parvicapsula produce a stunning double eclipse on this troubled, dwarfed giant. In the glare of a star, all worlds are rendered indistinguishable.

An Alien Crown for Distant Worlds

A far-off shot shows the true immensity of giant Cephea as its banded, violet face dwarfs its moons Ceratonova and Octospina, each over half the size of Earth themselves.

Island Retreat

The rhodopsin-tinted flesh of Haliclystus’s flora shades this arid coastal scrubland a deep crimson. At the midlatitudes, there can be drought even with endless water in every direction.

The Medusozoan Series consists of four heavily evolved planets sometimes referred to as ‘Cephea’s Vanguard’. Though not resonant, all four are dynamically related. They formed between 1 and 5 AU out in Phyllodoce’s protoplanetary disk and subsequently migrated inwards of the habitable zone, destroying or capturing the original rocky protoplanets that once inhabited the region and now constitute parts of Lucernaria, Haliclystus, and some of the giants’ moons. None of the members resemble each other very much despite their shared origins, as their divergent evolution has introduced deep differences into the series’ members.

Members of the Medusozoan Series

Investigate a puzzling giant; a terrestrial world more massive than Neptune. This ‘mega-Earth’ has somehow failed to accumulate the deep gaseous envelope of its peers and join them as a fifth gas giant, remaining instead as a relatively naked orb of rock and metal crushed under over 4 times Earth’s gravity.
Lucernaria cares not for the sensibilities of mortal scientists.
Visit the first of a grand display; a small insight into what is yet to come. With a bit over half the mass of Saturn, this low-mass gas giant shrouds itself in decks of organosilicon clouds and bedazzling rings of stark-white stone in an attractive if rather pedestrian display.
Cotylorhiza sees not the value of mindless exuberance.
Observe a constellation on the shoulders of giants. From tiny aeroplankton circling in the furious storms of its upper atmosphere to the baking deserts and cloud-shrouded forests of its many moons, this massive jovian world forms a microcosm of the wider universe in its grasp.
Cephea swirls with unknowable sound.
Pass by a remnant of a past time. This terrestrial planet is the last of its kind, trapped in the gravitational influence of its host Cephea after its erstwhile siblings were devoured or exiled in this great cosmic hunting ground. Though it will one day fall to the whims of the giants that surround this, this violet world persists - for now.
Haliclystus seems unbothered by its predestined, tragic fate.

The Rhabditophoran Series

Olympia, Secundus

Russet Netrostoma guides its flock of moons through the depths of space. From the icy fissures of Waminoa and Haplodiscus to the tarry stains of Antigonaria to the full-fledged hydrocarbon oceans of Kuma and Proporus, it is a microcosm of Solar System wonders.

The Rule of Five, Reduced

Asteroid Ieredactylus traipses into a council of giants among the moons of Phyllorhiza. Bloodstained Yungia and cloud-crushed Acanthozoon join deviant Maiazoon, tholinaceous Thysanozoon, and titanic Pseudobiceros in their eons-long struggle for dominance.

The Rhabditophoran Series is the poorly differentiated exterior of the Polynoe System, with two sub-Jovian worlds which did not fully develop before the system’s embryonic gas envelope cleared. The two planets in the series more or less cover the range of diversity in cold giants from the ammonium-dominated regime of comparatively warm gas giants to the methane-heavy atmospheres of frozen worlds akin to Uranus and Neptune. Their moons reflect a similar range of diversity, from carbonaceous aquaria akin to our Titan to liquid-nitrogen worlds like ancient Pluto. Only outer Phyllorhiza achieves Authorship with a mix of familiar and alien worlds including small supercritical ice moons not altogether unlike Neptune.

Members of the Rhabditophoran Series

Swing by a questionable shadow of familiarity. This low-mass jovian world seems almost like a cross between our Jupiter and Saturn, with candy-striped bands of ammonium hydrosulfide combined with gleaming rings of icy shards. With nine round moons ranging from asteroid-battered selenae to shrouded, carbonaceous Titans, this giant is a true vision of planetary diversity.
Netrostoma rests on a wreath of shattered moonlight.
Witness the grandeur of a young Author. Though not the most prolific of its kind, this milky blue giant earns its title with a respectable array of exotic wonders, from color-struck spreads of unstable organics to crushing soups of hazed-over nitrogen. Sometimes, quality truly prevails over quantity.
Phyllorhiza wanders, lost in a forest of self-made wonders.