Titan
Titan is the desolated former home planet of the Titans.
It was devasted by resource wars, which eventually resulted in the use of chemical and nuclear weapons, destroying all native species. Only one survivor was recorded, who has in turn since died, marking the final annihilation of all Titanian life.
Geography
The surface of Titan is made up by a shell of rock continental plates, which, prior to the desolation, was held together at the poles by dense ice sheets to create a single largely unbroken surface. Below this surface was a planet-wide ocean of liquid methane. This unusual structure made the core of the planet very deformable, and the surface of the planet rise and fall with the seasons of the planetary orbit.
The poles of the planet were uninhabited even at the height of the planet's population due to the extreme cold. On the edges of the poles, where ice gave way to the rock of the planet's continents, cryovalcanos errupted with liquid water which fed into fjords and then into the river networks that crosscrossed the inhabitted regions of the planet. These rivers were high in amonia, giving them a yellow or green colour, and extremely salty.
The equators of the planet were largely uninhabitted, consisting of massive deserts of black carbon sand.
Between the equitorial desert and the polar ice-fields were two bands of tundra where the majority of the population lived, broken up by the three primary mountain ranges.
The Titans built several large cities, although initially these were inhabitted only during the winter months, to better enable the rationing of food stores. They were not inhabitted year round until after the Titans had mastered faster than light travel, allowing them to trade with other planets for food.
Following the evaporation of the sub-continental oceans, the surface of the planet is now an impassable mass of cliffs, mountains, and deep chasms, created by the surface of the planet contracting by almost 100km in a matter of years.
Ecosystem
The majority of life on the planet inhabited the tundra regions, or the small forested arears on the edges of the central deserts.
Due to the long year and highly variable climate, animals were either long-lived, or capable of hybernating for extended periods. The planet's insects, in particular, were capable of hiberating for long periods, resulting in completely different insect life being awake during summer and winter.
Due to the high-salt content of most surface water, larger animals were required to have extremely efficient blood filtering systems, and Titans were renouned for their immunity to most poisons.
Ecosystem Cycles
Titan has a reliatively long orbit, a single year lasting 34 standard galactic cycles. The planet has four seasons, though the planet's irregular obit mean that spring and fall last almost twice the time of summer and winter.
As well as changes in temperature and weather patterns, prior to the evaporation of the underground oceans the most notable effect of the seasons was the raising and lowering of the planet's surface, as the oceanic layer was distrorted by the gravitational effect of the system's sun. During the summer, this meant that the oases in the equatorial desert regions frequently lost access to the underground aquifers which supplied them as the ground warped. This, combined with the famous lightning storms, rendered the region temporarily uninhabitable for around a quarter of the year.
For the inhabitted tundra regions, this raising of the surface coincided with the primary growing season. Due to the planet's dense atmosphere, the upper atmosphere was actually significantly warmer than the surface, and so the raising of the surface, as well as the increased sunlight, resulted in a significant increase in the temperature.
Localized Phenomena
Prior to the desolation, the planet was most famous for the summer lightning storms. From late spring until midsummer, atmospheric disturbances increase the static electricity which holds together the black carbon dunes of the equitorial desert into magnificent lightning storms. Images of the blue lightning lancing through inky black sand-storms were at one time popular throughout the Milky Way, appearing on everything from home decorations to holo-films.
Following the destruction of life on the planet, there is an orange haze to the air, caused by atmospheric methane being broken down by exposure to ultraviolent light.
Tourism
Due to the dangerous residuals left behind by chemical and nuclear weapons, all major Galactic governments strongly discourage or even ban travel to the ruins of Titan.
Following the publishing of Kree historian Sin-Tar's book "Titan: Lessons from the Ruins", a brief tourist industry sprang up on nearby inhabitted planets, conducting tours of the ruins. This was extremely dangerous, due to the radiation and chemical residue left by the wars, as well as the threat posed by the then still living last inhabitant, the Warlord Thanos. A motion was tabled at the next Intergalactic Summit to unilateraly ban all travel to the planet, which was passed unanimously. It is now an intergalactic crime to set foot on the planet without permission from at least three Summit member governments, permission which has been granted only once, to a research team from the University of Xandar.
Galaxy
Milky Way
Star System
Kronia
Former Residents
Thanos
Milky Way
Star System
Kronia
Type
Planet
Contested By
Inhabiting Species
Related Plots
Thanos