Decay

amart29 (68)in #esteem • 5 years ago

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Decay

-It is clear that this satellite will not be habitable for much longer, -said Paula, looking at the list of parameters that showed the projection in front of her -. It is likely that in a few hundred more years the continental plates will begin to fracture, as a result of tidal forces.

-You think it would be convenient to start the extraction of the species that were implanted in the ecosystem - asked one of the terraformation coordinators of the division.

-I don't think it's necessary just a few single-celled life forms and a few algae, mosses, plankton and phytoplankton have been incorporated. I do not consider it convenient to remove these life forms, they had not yet been extended to a great extent and the effort and investment in resources is not justified - replied Paula.

-Did we start the sterilization protocol then? -asked the same coordinator.

-I think it's the most prudent thing to do, - replied Paula.

On rare occasions, the environmental engineering division encountered worlds that, after starting their terraformation, had to be abandoned due to environmental problems that could not be predicted during the selection period.

This situation manifested itself mainly in those worlds selected at the beginning of the division, when some key parameters had not yet been defined, for the selection of a planet that could maintain enduring life.

Thus, for example, the transformation of planets with excessive volcanic activity or those susceptible to occasional flashes of their star, or some that were in the possible path of gamma ray explosions that were later considered inevitable, was initiated and had to be abandoned.

The factor that most frequently caused the abandonment of transforming worlds was orbital decay. In relatively young planetary systems for a variety of reasons, the orbits of some planets or satellites tend to decay, bringing them closer to the star or planet they orbit, even colliding in some cases.

In the case of the C3459b satellite, about which its future was discussed, it was a small sanctuary world in transformation that presented great potential to be habitable, however, almost a thousand years after the beginning of the terraformation process and already with habitability conditions for microorganisms and a few simple multicellular life forms. The process had to be abandoned due to the decay of its orbit.

Although this could take hundreds and even thousands of years to have appreciable real consequences on life, as soon as the problem was detected, one of two courses of action was initiated, or the migration of life forms found on the planet, to another that would house the conditions to maintain it. Or the sterilization protocol, which consisted in the sterilization via irradiation or nanomachines of all present life forms, thus eliminating their reproduction, condemning all the species that inhabited the planet to disappear.

Text of @amart29 Barcelona, Venezuela, June 2019

Decay

Decay

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