Venus
Venus is the second planet in the Sol system, a rocky world with a dense, hot atmosphere and aggressively volcanic surface. It is almost identical to Earth in terms of size, density, and surface gravity, but its orbital, rotational, atmospheric, and surface-compositional characteristics differ radically from its comparatively idyllic neighbor world. The planet rotates ever so slightly retrograde, leading to the dormancy of its core dynamo, and its atmosphere is crushingly dense with abundant carbon dioxide. The only habitable zone of Venus is a relatively thin layer of atmosphere some fifty kilometers above the surface, where the temperature and pressure closely resemble conditions at sea level on Earth.
Because of this air layer, the skies of Venus are swarming with aerostat habitats to support its 25.4 million inhabitants. The largest aerostat is the capital city of Najam Alsabah, nestled in the lower stratosphere. One of the key drivers of Venus’ growing population is its wealth: the territory has become quite prosperous over the last several centuries due to the harvest and export of valuable, rare chemicals such as nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorous. Its primary trade partner is the People's Republic of Mars, whose terraforming project requires exorbitant amounts of molecular nitrogen to replenish the long-lost Martian atmosphere. While Mercury still has considerable reliance on UNAC support, Venus is quite self-sufficient already and is likely to file for nation status in the near future.
Geography
Venus is a tectonically dead world, with very little of its original crust structure intact due to the volcanic instability that tectonic deadlock generates. Almost all of the planet's surface is less than 300 million years old, and abundant research into the ongoing volcanism of Venus aims to better understand how often these resurfacing events occur. The current surface of Venus is marred by deep basins, winding canyons, expansive lava fields, and towering mountain ranges. The basins are spread mostly across the northern hemisphere, though the highest mountain on the planet is also found near the north pole: Maat Mons, a vast shield volcano caldera. The equator hosts a vast, jagged plateau over about a third of its circumference, with uneven lava plains making up most of the rest. The atmosphere of Venus is dense and caustic, with pressure at the surface exceeding 93 Earth-atmospheres and pushing the air into supercritical phase. This renders the surface utterly uninhabitable, and even scientific excursions in specially-built pressure vessels do not stay long. The winds frequently reach upwards of 300 kilometers per hour in certain latitudinal zones, and these combine with the slow rotation of the planet to produce massive gravity waves in the atmosphere. The 50-km habitable altitude, while having the right temperature and pressure for comfortable human life, is still laden with carbon dioxide and sulfur compounds. Most aerocities have few exterior recreation areas for these reasons, and all components have to be treated against corrosion from the acid rains.Natural Resources
The Venusian economy is based primarily on the collection and export of volatile chemicals, particularly three cosmically rare elements required for organic life: nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus. Because of its unusually low cosmic abundance, widely varied usefulness, and biological necessity, phosphorus is among the most precious substances in the known universe; and while Earth cannot afford to spare much of it to protect the viability of its biosphere, Venus has vast quantities of it in various compound forms. The planet also has an abundance of gaseous diatomic nitrogen, used in atmosphere mixes, and sulfur compounds, used in fertilizer. Secondary exports include light noble gases like helium, neon, and argon, as well as deuterium -because of atmospheric ionization, Venus has over 100 times the natural concentration of deuterium expected in a planetary atmosphere.
Venus from orbit, with aerocity lights visible.
Archive Data
- Eosphorous Station (low orbit)
- 96.5% carbon dioxide
- 3.5% nitrogen
- >0.1% other gases
You weren't kidding about this article having all the stats. It seems like a pretty realistic take on a inhabited Venus. Is there any native life on Diaspora's Venus?
Thank you!! Unfortunately, there is no known native life on Venus, though the surface is still poorly explored due to the sheer hostility of the environment down there. However, there is an ongoing debate about whether or not to introduce terragenid organisms to the planet as an early phase of terraforming... humans tend to be very cautious about unleashing terrestrial life on alien worlds.