[X] Water appears to cover the entire surface of the planet.
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[X] The atmosphere is thin, pooling in crevices, with high peaks and plateaus that extend into the outer reaches of the atmosphere.
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[X] Observation from Sol suggested photosynthesis is a very recent development in your destination world. The air will be breathable, but the land will be rock, no soil past what you bring with you.
The planet was no Garden world, but it would be habitable. Seas of warm liquid water, with a thin but sufficiently pressured oxygen atmosphere. The only issue was that the water covered almost the entirety of the habitable surface, and sheer cliffs jutting from the worldwide ocean extended near space. The tallest peak recorded even surpassed Olympus Mons, the volcano holding the capital city of Mars, the tallest peak in the Sol system, and simply left the atmosphere completely. The Orbital Infrastructure Committee of the planet's planning initiative immediately proposed a mass driver built upon the slope of the rather uncreative named
Himinbjörg to accelerate expansion of the solar system beyond just the target world.
Printers and assembly bots in vacuum amassed the gargantuan cylindrical generation ship, wider than it was long, with a fuel tank full of uranium salt water bigger than the actual living space, a cargo bay filled with everything four-hundred-thousand people would need to jump-start an industrial civilization, fusion reactor and fuel reaction chamber at nearly the limits physically possible, and a set of engines that would make a new star in the night sky for nearly a year onto the voyage. Even in the present day, the early diaries of the Pioneers, those that actually got onto the
Shahrat, are taught in schools. The near-religious optimism that their progeny would make it to the promised land in a short jaunt of hundreds of years of travel. What hardships plagued the ship on its way to the target planet?
[ ] A messy revolution attempted to turn the ship around at nearly the halfway mark. There had been reports of others doing the same, and ending stranded in interstellar space until supplies ran out. It was squashed, but not before taking many lives and many vital supplies.
[ ] A a critical malfunction in the NSW containment tanks during the decade-long deceleration burn forced three out of eighteen to be jettisoned or risk a Chernobyl-like event in the engineering deck. The lost fuel meant in order to reach the destination world, the crew and cargo hold would need to be released with explosive decoupling. The engineering section of the ship would be lost in deep space, caught in the outer orbit of the target star. The waystation planned to be built would lack a fusion reactor, and would be derelict until you can get one again that could support such a project.
[ ] A nearly ten second reactor leak led the deaths of close to a tenth of the population, and would lead to health problems and infertility of many more. The population to start with will be much smaller than anticipated.
[ ] A blight in the soil-based produce production sector forced nearly half of the soil you brought with you to be jettisoned. You'll be able to grow significantly less food than anticipated until you build up excess soil.
[ ] A radical took it upon themselves to destroy much of the history of Earth from the data-crystal storage sector, as well as information on manufacturing and many complex computer code files required to run some automated drones for construction, agriculture, and navigation. Using automated system will require significant effort and redevelopment of software design.
[ ] Write in (make it bad)