The Oursal

From Carpe Chaos

Contents 1 The Planet and Sun 1.1 The Planet Bairyth 1.2 Bairyth's Ring 1.3 The Oursal and Oursals 1.3.1 Quick Guide 1.3.2 Types of Oursals 1.4 Bairyth's Star 1.5 Time of Day on the Oursal 2 Geography 2.1 Political Borders On The Oursal 2.2 Attached Oursals 2.3 Mapping 2.3.1 xxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx 3 Climate 4 Visual Style 5 Moons 6 Neighboring Planets 6.1 Verchath 7 Tubehammers 8 Life on Bairyth's Belt 8.1 Plants and Fungus 8.2 Planimals 8.2.1 Midbar Gavharel 8.3 Animals 8.3.1 Kaean 8.3.2 Rambar 8.3.3 Hopperfly 8.3.4 Aspor 8.3.5 Cephar 8.3.6 Torse 8.3.7 Elgiv 8.3.8 Katuree 9 References

The Planet and Sun

The Kaean homeworld, technically speaking, is not really a "world" at all: the Kaeans live on the rock and ice that makes up the ring that encircles a gas giant. The planet, Bairyth, is a massive red-orange gas giant similar to Jupiter and is incapable of supporting life. However, there is enough of an atmosphere within the rings to support a wide variety of plant and animal species, including the Kaeans.

The system as a whole is usually referred to as "the Bairyth system," or "the Kaean system" by non-Kaeans.

The Planet Bairyth

Bairyth is a largely unremarkable red-orange gas giant. Its surface is striped with a series of prominent bands of color, mostly shades of red, brown, and yellow, with one band of shockingly bright blue near its equator.

Since the beginning of the Kaean Interstellar Age, there have been several attempts at extracting various useful gases from Bairyth. None of the methods tried proved cost-effective enough to be worthwhile.

Bairyth's Ring

The main ring around Bairyth is composed of chunks of rock and ice ranging in size from pebbles to small moons (called "oursals"), and it has a thin but breathable atmosphere. Further from and closer to Bairyth are other, separate rings, but they have different compositions and do not support life (as the main ring does).

The main ring has low atmospheric pressure and a low average temperature—the planet radiates heat, though very little. Many species of fungi and plants that cover rocks within Bairyth's belt can chemically alter the surrounding ice and absorb it as they would a liquid, even in this low-pressure environment. Many species of herbivores and carnivores live among the rocks, the largest of which are Kaeans; virtually all of these organisms have tough exoskeletons in order to maintain their internal pressure.

Many oursals maintain relatively stable orbital paths, and their movements can be predicted and mapped. Conversely, some oursals move through the rings in ways that make them difficult to map and have highly unpredictable paths. If these "rogue oursals" are small or slow-moving, they are mostly harmless, but larger and faster oursals can pose serious threats to day-to-day activities within the Oursal (see below).

The Oursal and Oursals

Kaeans live in an ecosystem that is unique among the known species in the universe; as such, they have developed specialized language and terminology to talk about their home that is often difficult to translate.

The ring around Bairyth on which Kaeans make their home is called "Oursal," or "the Oursal." It may also be referred to in the plural—Oursals or the Oursals—but regardless, when referring to the ring as a whole, the O is always capitalized. (The ring may also be called Bairyth's Belt, but this term is less common among Kaeans.)

The individual rocks that make up the Oursal are referred to as oursals, with a lowercase o. In Sinjal, an oursal is generally any piece of rock large enough for a Kaean to stand on, which translates to a minimum size of approximately four feet in diameter; anything smaller is merely space debris and is thus referred to by a different term. There is no upper limit on how big an oursal may be: objects large enough to be considered small moons in other planetary systems are still called "oursals" so long as they are within Bairyth's ring.

The difference between referring to the ring as "the Oursal" or "the Oursals" is subtle. Both terms refer to the ring as a whole, but "the Oursals" emphasizes the granular nature of the ring, the billions of individual rocks that make up the ring. In general, "the Oursal" implies the sum, while "the Oursals" implies all of the parts.

Bairyth is the name of the gas giant that the Oursal surrounds, but it is commonly used as a synecdoche for the ring. "Planet Bairyth" or "the planet Bairyth" are common ways of referring to the gas giant specifically.

Less common terms to refer to the Oursal include "the ring," "the belt," "the Kaean belt," and "the Kaean ring".

Quick Guide

• The Oursal, the Oursals — The ring where Kaeans live. Capital O.
  
• An oursal — A single rock in a planetary ring. Lowercase o.
  
• Some oursals — Several rocks in a ring. Lowercase o.
  
• The oursals of Saturn — The rocks around Saturn. Lowercase o.
  
• The oursal of/from Saturn — Among a number of oursals from several different planetary rings, this is an oursal from Saturn. It is ambiguous if multiple samples from Saturn are in the set. This phrase does not refer to "Saturn's Rings." Lowercase o.

Types of Oursals

"Co-moving oursals"^[1] are groups of oursals that maintain very stable orbits relative to each other and are unlikely to drift away from each other for a long time; these groups can be treated as a single entity for mapping purposes. Conversely, there are also "rogue oursals," which move at high speeds in erratic, unpredictable paths. These oursals are difficult to account for, and a single rogue oursal can throw an otherwise simple and highly-predictable area into chaos with its wild motion.

Bairyth's Star

The star that Bairyth orbits around is a reddish-orange class K star.

Because of its proximity to Bairyth, the star emits a large amount of gases that contribute to the atmosphere of the Oursal. Escaping gases both from Bairyth and the star increase the pressure of the ring's atmosphere by a measurable amount, and non-particle emissions—heat and radiation—contribute to the atmosphere indirectly through processes such as evaporation and accelerated sublimation.

The star appears larger in the sky than the Sun does from Earth.

Time of Day on the Oursal

The passage of time on the Oursal is extremely difficult to measure. As Bairyth orbits around its sun,

• Bairyth itself revolves,
• the Oursal orbits around Bairyth, and
• different parts of the Oursal orbit at different speeds.

Depending on how far one is from Bairyth, oursals may move significantly slower or faster and the day/night transitions may take more or less time; because Bairyth casts an oval-shaped shadow on the Oursal, the proportion of night to day may be different as well. Although the majority of livable space on the Oursal orbits at a relatively constant speed and thus has a day/night cycle that is mostly stable, there is still a considerable difference between the innermost and outermost habitable portions of the Oursal. Various devices and measuring methods have been used throughout Kaean history to keep track of time.

A particular oursal might have an 80-hour period of light and a 6-hour period of darkness. However, the length of these periods varies dramatically from oursal to oursal, as the ring's orientation relative to Bairyth's star changes, and as the distance to Bairyth's star changes. The 80/6 ratio should not be taken as an average or even a statistical median; it is provided simply to give a relative idea of the length of the day-night cycle.

Geography

The total surface area of the Oursal—that is to say, the surface area of every individual oursal added together—is enormous, more than forty billion square kilometers. (For comparison, the total surface area of Earth is one hundred and fifty million kilometers.) However, not all of this surface area is actually livable or usable; some areas are perfectly suited to support life, while other areas are the equivalent of lifeless tundra. There is life on the ring beyond where Kaeans can survive, but the furthermost sections of the ring (where the air is thinnest) are completely devoid of life.

Political Borders On The Oursal

Large governments were a relatively late development in Kaean civilization. It is possible for a Kaean to own a single oursal, but there is no "territory" as a planet-based civilization would understand it. Instead, as their oursals drift throughout the ring, individual families of Kaeans move in and out of loose groupings that could be considered "cities"; although they would be considered citizens of a particular place, this allegiance could shift at any time. The borders of cities are constantly intermingling and shifting. Kaeans membership and allegiance to one of the eight tribal governments on The Oursal is determined by lineage and family, not geography (for more on this, see the Kaean Government article).

The eight tribal governments of Kaeans do have "capitals" of a sort, where the majority of governing institutions and political leaders work from, but these capitals have no "borders." Likewise, beyond the capital cities, the number of oursals governed by any given tribe is constantly changing, and no "country" has any boundaries that endure for any significant length of time.

Attached Oursals

Kaeans have long attempted to artificially attach two or more oursals together using various technologies; only since the late Renaissance Age have they been able to do so with any degree of permanency. By the modern era, some of these attached oursals have become highly developed and colonized, to the extent that virtually all of their surface area is covered with some form of artificial construction.

Mapping

Because all oursals are constantly in motion, the ring has no stable geography. Similarly, because Bairyth is a gas giant without any solid terrain, it has no lasting geography to use as landmarks. However, although the ring has no set configuration, it can be "mapped" in that the movements of oursals can be tracked and predicted. Kaeans have naturally developed a keen awareness of three-dimensional space and an ability to track and predict the motions of multiple objects in space, even when those motions would be imperceptibly small to the human eye. As far back as their prehistory, Kaeans could produce maps of a sort: by arranging pebbles in three-dimensional space in a representation of the oursals in an area, they could produce a rough prediction of how those oursals would move and interact. In the modern era, Kaeans use sophisticated computer models to map the Oursals.

There are multiple sources of gravitational pull that must be accounted for when attempting to map the Oursals. Bairyth obviously produces an enormous gravity well. Certain large oursals, some of them the size of small moons, can carve "grooves" in the billions of particles that make up the ring, and produce "waves" that ripple out to both edges of the Oursal. (For an example of this effect, see this image.) Furthermore, although individual oursals may each produce a negligible gravity well, groups of oursals sum to much larger gravitational forces that must be considered when building predictive models of oursal movement.

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Climate

The Oursal of Bairyth possesses a thin atmosphere. The most prevalent gases, from most to least, are oxygen, CO2, nitrogen, hydrogen, and helium, with trace amounts of ammonia and other heavy gases.

The atmosphere comes from three sources. First, gases can become temporarily "trapped" within the Oursal as they escape from Bairyth; the hydrogen and helium gases eventually escape again and continue to space from the Oursal. Second, a wider spectrum of elements is captured directly from streams of solar wind due to Bairyth's proximity to its star. Third, many elements, such as water, are continually evaporating from the oursals themselves.

The Oursal's atmosphere is incredibly thin; Kaeans can breath it but all other races that can breathe the gases present require breathing equipment to survive (and many require full environment suits to prevent fatal decompression). Because this thin atmosphere lacks the insulative qualities of a thick planetary atmosphere, temperatures can vary widely on the Oursal. The average atmospheric temperature ranges from -40° to +30° Fahrenheit, although when in Bairyth's shadow it can reach as low as -200°; a typical day on the Oursal might see lows of -20° and highs of 32° Fahrenheit. Under certain conditions the temperature on the surface of an oursal can reach 240 degrees, although the atmosphere itself never gets that high. (For comparison, on hot days a rock on the surface of Earth can reach 140 degrees Farenheit.)

The atmosphere is also too thin to have true "weather"—rain, wind, and so forth—but different sections of the Oursal are under different sets of conditions at any given time. Temperature, static electricity^[2], sun exposure, and atmospheric density, as examples, fluctuate depending on a number of variables. All of these factors (save temperature and sun exposure) vary little, though relatively minute differences can have dramatic effects on the behavior of matter and life on the Oursal. Thus, Kaeans can speak of the "weather" in an area even though these conditions—again, excepting temperature and sun—may be nearly the same.

A "weather" condition worth noting is the rate of atmospheric evaporation in a given region. The Oursal's atmosphere comes from the escaping atmosphere from Bairyth, solar emissions from Bairyth's star, and ring particles evaporating as described above. Many factors, including stellar weather, Bairyth's weather, stellar radiation, and ambient infrared radiation, contribute to these three sources and can significantly change the atmosphere of the Oursal in ways that are not often considered when assessing denser, planetary atmospheres.

Visual Style

Bairyth and its ring are the most foreign and alien-seeming homeworld of any species xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx. The "sky" is a mess of craggy, broken rocks, a scattering of stars, and the enormous glowing ball that is Bairyth itself. Even when the sun is visible, the sky remains black and filled with stars.

There is no fixed orientation: a traveling Kaean may jump from one oursal to another directly above him, turning his "floor" into a "ceiling". Even in an enclosed space there is little gravity, although spinning oursals (or space stations) may have centrifugal and centripetal forces that simulate gravity.

Other races consider the Oursal to be a confusing and hostile place where danger is omnipresent, and only feel comfortable within an enclosed space.

Due to the dimness of the system's central star the colors are often slightly darker than other locales, with many blues and greens from the plants, atmosphere, and ice.

Moons

Bairyth has two moons which are large enough to be visible on a planetary scale, both of which are far outside the planet's ring. In addition Bairyth has several smaller moons, also outside the ring, and many oursals within the ring that are large enough to be considered moons. Many plant and animal species have found the intra-ring moons to be a comfortable home, free of competition from species which are poorly adapted to their gravity.

Moons contained within the ring can be visited with relative ease; a Kaean can easily reach the edges of their orbits on foot. However, because their gravity makes it difficult for unaided Kaeans to visit and leave the moons, none of them are significantly colonized. Moreover, because most of Bairyth's moons are composed of the same materials as the smaller oursals within the ring, they do not provide unique resources, so there is little financial reason to visit them. One of Bairyth's two large external moons does have a unique composition, but it has no valuable resources and so it too remains unexploited.

Like all natural features, these moons have been given mythological significance by various groups of Kaeans throughout history. However, because the moons themselves are so easily viewed "up-close," as it were, these legends did not spread very widely. On planets, where these celestial bodies are far away and impossible to examine, mythology dominates; in the microgravity environment of the Oursal, moons are simply out-of-the-way rocks with no particularly impressive qualities beyond their size.

Neighboring Planets

Including Bairyth, there are six planets in the Kaean home system. There is an asteroid ring between the fourth and fifth planets of the system.

• The planet closest to the star is small and rocky, with near-1g gravity. Its temperatures are too high to sustain any kind of atmosphere, so the daily variation in its temperature is even more extreme than on the Oursal.

• Bairyth is the second-closest to the star.

• The third planet in the system is an extremely warm planet with a thick layer of greenhouse gases—similar to Venus—that has been deemed unworthy of colonization.

• The fourth planet in the system is Verchath.

• The fifth planet in the system is a large, blue gas giant with no ring. Its many moons have been minimally developed by Kaean colonists.

• The sixth planet in the system is a large, pale gas giant. It is significantly colder than Bairyth.

Verchath

Verchath is the only other planet in the Bairyth system that is capable of supporting life. It is the site of the first Kaean colony outside the Oursal.

Verchath is a rocky planet, with gravity close to 1g. Although it is further out from the sun than Bairyth, and thus receives less light, it has a thick atmosphere that produces a greenhouse effect, keeping it warm. It is still somewhat cold for most species, but Kaean inhabitants don't mind the low temperatures.

When they first arrived on Verchath, Kaeans were greatly surprised to discover planetary lifeforms that were quite similar to life on the Oursal. Most scientists now believe that high-speed collisions in the ring knocked life-bearing oursals from the ring and towards Verchath; those organisms that "fell" to Verchath and survived their descent and after landing were able to adapt and prosper on the planet's surface. Only plants and planimals are native to Verchath; all animals were introduced by Kaeans.

Tubehammers

The Kaean system has only one known tubehammer. The only known route to this tubehammer goes through the Suma Argka system; thus, all traffic into Kaean territory must pass through Suma Argka. This natural "bottleneck" allows Kaeans to tax all ships that wish to pass into Kaean territory.

Life on Bairyth's Belt

Most plants native to the Oursal have ways to reproduce across many oursals, and all animals are able to travel from oursal to oursal at some or all of the stages of their lives. Most animals are either herbivorous or omnivorous, although a few are strictly carnivorous. Most herbivores also have the faculties to ingest insect-size animals for nutrition in times of scarcity.

There are no naturally-occurring bacteria on the Oursal. Bairyth's close proximity to its sun and the extremely thin atmosphere of the Oursal exposes the ring to enough radiation to rapidly sterilize all surfaces and prevent bacterial growth. This has proved enormously useful in the production of sheet meat.

The outer rings of Bairyth (those furthest from the planet) cannot support life for even short periods of time. Closer in, the hardiest forms of life—plants or very small insects—may be able to survive, but growth in these areas is always a struggle. An unprepared Kaean in this zone is lucky to survive a single day. Continuing inward, life on the rings becomes much more abundant. While most forms of life still struggle to eke out an existence in this barren zone, many specialized plants and small creatures can thrive. Kaeans in these areas may die of exposure, and continued survival is always doubtful without specialized equipment. The very innermost rings have their own unique challenges which make them inhospitable to all but the toughest and most specialized organisms. The "comfort zone" is the middle area where most life flourishes: this is the natural habitat of Kaeans and most of the life on the Oursal. This "habitation landscape" is outlined in the diagram to the right.

Plants and Fungus

Almost all plants and fungi on the Oursal reproduce using clouds of spores. These spores are generally much larger than those produced by similar species on other planets, as they must be protected enough to survive long periods in a near-vacuum. Most have a thick outer membrane (like a shell) to protect the genetic material inside from the hazards of the vacuum of space.

Planimals

"Planimals" are a type of organism—specifically, a distinct taxonomic kingdom—on the Oursal that have qualities of both plants and animals. Some of these lifeforms are mobile in one stage of their development and "plant" themselves at other times. Others are rooted for their entire lifecycle but have ways of actively hunting small creatures. Some even have simple nervous systems.

The largest living species of planimal is the midbar gavharel.

Midbar Gavharel

The midbar gavharel is the largest type of planimal on the Oursal, growing more than 12 feet long in maturity. They are the only living variety of gavharel, an order of planimal. Two other varities of gavharel have been encountered and cataloged by Kaeans, but both became extinct before the Kaean Information Age. Several other extinct species of gavharel are also known to have existed.

In its early stages of development, the midbar gavharel is mobile and moves from oursal to oursal. Once the midbar gavharel finds a suitable spot, it roots itself into the rock and sprouts leaf-like protrusions that cover its mouth: when these close, the midbar gavharel resembles nothing more than a large, ovular gourd, similar to many other varieties of plants on the Oursal. Creatures that stray too close, either trying to eat its leaves or attracted by its glowing lure, are dragged into the midbar's mouth by its sticky tentacle/tongue.

Midbar gavharels are especially dangerous when rooted on smaller rocks, where there are few open areas for creatures to evade it. The midbar gavharel is dangerous even to Kaeans; despite their immobility, they are quite strong and difficult to escape once their tentacles have latched onto their prey.

Animals

Kaean

The only intelligent life native to the Oursal, the Kaeans are detailed in the Kaean Design article. They are between 4 and 5 feet tall when standing on all four feet.

Rambar

Rambars are two-and-a-half feet tall on average; for comparison, the average adult Kaean is four feet tall when on all four legs. Rambars are quite strong, among the most dangerous predators on the Oursal, and present a real danger to wandering Kaeans. They are solitary creatures, and each tends to stick to a single large oursal. They attack by charging at their target and butting with their long, downward-pointing horns; this attack usually knocks the other creature off the oursal and into space. They only attack other predators this way; attacking their prey in this manner is a poor method of hunting as their meal would float away. Even experienced Kaeans are careful around rambars, though a prepared Kaean can usually kill or at least evade an aggressive rambar.

Hopperfly

An adult hopperfly is about one foot tall at the shoulders. They fly from rock to rock, and are omnivorous: they will eat anything smaller than themselves^[3], whether plant or animal.

Aspor

Aspors are only about three inches tall and are often prey for hopperflies and snacks for torses. They use their four multi-jointed legs to slowly move around in a manner similar to a tarantula: they curl them up, move their body slightly, and then extend them again. Aspors eat plant leaves and any animals they can strangle with their legs. They are a common snack for Kaeans.

Cephar

Cephars are about nine inches tall, not counting their floating light. They use their bioluminescence to see in darkness and to lure potential prey—usually smaller flying creatures, like flies and small beetles. Kaeans hunt them for food.

Torse

Torses are pack hunters and scavengers that stand about two feet tall. They hurl themselves from rock to rock with their powerful front arms. They are carnivorous and will not eat plants unless starving. As pack animals, torses will work together in small groups to bring down other creatures—generally any animal the same size as or larger than a single torse, though they will not hunt another of their own species. Torses have a pointed front beak and two pointed lower jaws that they use to stab and rip apart their prey.

Domesticated versions of torses make useful pets and hunting companions for Kaeans; they are reasonably intelligent and receptive to training. Kaean owners often equip their torse with a tracking device in case the creature misses an oursal-to-oursal jump and drifts into space. Torses are also one of the few species from Bairyth that can quickly adapt to environments with significant gravity, and can thus be taken on ships and to other planets with little difficulty.

Elgiv

The herbivorous elgiv is about a foot long. Its outer shell is both armor and camouflage: when a elgiv flattens itself to a rock, its soft underbelly is protected and its top is almost indistinguishable from the surrounding rock. Predators, including Kaeans, pry elgiv away from their hiding spots to make a meal of them. Elgiv are nearly unique among Bairyth's animals in that they have no mechanism for traveling from one oursal to another once they are fully grown.

Katuree

A katuree is a relatively small spider-like creature, about one foot wide. These light and quick creatures can often be seen scurrying around the oursals of Bairyth's Belt. The katuree's eyes, on the top of its body, help it aim as it jumps from rock to rock; its sharp, pointed legs help it cut into rocks to ensure a safe landing. It eats plants, fungus, and any smaller animals it can catch with its downward-facing mouth.

References

1. ↑ Example Citation: Carpe Chaos Wiki contributors, "Citation:The Oursal," Carpe Chaos Wiki, http://carpechaos.com/wiki/index.php/Citation:The_Oursal#Types_of_Oursals (accessed May 1, 2011).
2. ↑ Example Citation: Carpe Chaos Wiki contributors, "Citation:The Oursal," Carpe Chaos Wiki, http://carpechaos.com/wiki/index.php/Citation:The_Oursal#Climate (accessed May 1, 2011).
3. ↑ Example Citation: Carpe Chaos Wiki contributors, "Citation:The Oursal," Carpe Chaos Wiki, http://carpechaos.com/wiki/index.php/Citation:The_Oursal#Hopperfly (accessed May 1, 2011).