Erlang
(planet HAT-P-11b)
Erlang is the first of two planets orbiting around the star HAT-P-11, located roughly 123 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It was assessed for signs of life in 91 GE, during the first wave of interstellar exploration; however, the assessment only ranked it with a 0.46 probability of harboring life, putting it below the threshold for targeted exploration. In 212 GE it was re-assessed by a Zhongguo research team based in Shenzhen using the Keji Scoring Protocol, which yielded a surprisingly high 0.78 probability for having technological civilization. The public response to this news was intense, fueled in part by the frustration of the Keji Protocol yielding no real success in the three decades since its invention. In response to public excitement and pressure, and with the financial backing of seven of the world’s wealthiest lineages, the research team dubbed the planet Erlang, gathered people and equipment as quickly as possible. In early 213 GE a research team headed by senior investigator Lu Zǐmò Vasco set out to visit planet in the exploration vessel Wúlùn Zǒu Dào Nǎlǐ, Zūncóng Nǐ De Nèixīn. They arrived to a violent and inhospitable environment, and the events that unfolded have become known as the "Erlang Tragedy" and effectively ended space exploration for a quarter century.
Ecosystem
Erlang is large enough to be on the cusp between being a super-earth and a mini-Neptune, so that its surface is barely distinguishable from the high-pressure soupy atmosphere directly above it. The only "life" on the planet consists of enormous branching carbon-based filaments growing up from the surface and often reaching an altitude of 100 kilometers or more. Based on what little is known about these structures they are not composed by cells nor do they grow through any metabolic process that we associate with living organisms on earth. Instead, the vast electrical storms that continually surge through the atmosphere around the planet provide energy that precipitates atmospheric carbon onto the filament tips where it bonds to add to the overall mass of the structure. Because the filaments attract and conduct electricity from the lightning storms, this process creates a generative feedback loop: longer branches attract more lightning, causing the branches to grow longer and therefore attract even more lightning. While the violence of the lightning and winds causes regular breakage of the structures, this generative cycle creates a growth rate that is fast enough to produce a self-sustaining "sponge" of branching electroconductive filaments that circles the entire equator of the planet and reaches approximately 30% of the distance from the equator to each of the poles.Notability
When the Wúlùn Zǒu first arrived, the crew was not sure what they were looking at. The complex branching of the filaments in the clouds, regularly illuminated by electrical arcs from lightning, certainly would have looked like it might be a form of technology. Exhibiting what in retrospect was clearly less caution than necessary for the circumstances, the ship moved in to inspect the structures more closely and was caught by massive electrical arcs that jumped from the clouds to the filaments. Buffetted by wind turbulance and electrical storms, the ship rapidly spun out of control, fragmented, and the pieces lost into the murky depths of the lower atmosphere. The ship's black box, equipped with a miniture auxiliary rotation drive, returned to earth with recordings of the event. Analysis confirmed the worst fears that had already been whispered around the mediasphere: the loss was for nothing. There was no technology on the planet, and the "life" was nothing more than naturally occurring carbon-based branching structures that just happened to grow into complex fractal patterns and just happened to attract electricity from atmospheric lightning storms. The perfect setup, in other words, to "fool" the Keji Protocol into ranking the planet as likely to have a technological civilization.Planetary Data
Planet Type
Mini-Neptune
Mass (vs Earth)
21.9x
Radius (vs Earth)
4.3x
Orbital Period (Earth days)
4.89
Assessed P(life)
0.46
Assessed P(tech)
0.78
First Contact Data
Contact Year
213 GE
Contact Vehicle
Wúlùn Zǒu Dào Nǎlǐ, Zūncóng Nǐ De Nèixīn
Contact P.I.
Lu Zǐmò Vasco
Contact Sponsor