Ceti Alpha V
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| [Source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Once a lush, vibrant world of life and potential, Ceti Alpha V was both home and prison to Khan Noonien Singh and his followers, late of the S.S. Botany Bay. After a disaster rendered Ceti Alpha V into an almost uninhabitable world of eternal dust storms and darkness, Khan and his followers survived despite the harshest of climates and insidious native fauna, never losing their hope of escape... or their dreams of revenge. Ceti Alpha V was first noted in the 23rd century; Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise determined that it was a Class M world suitable for life. Within a decade it was a nearly lifeless, almost uninhabitable desert due to climate shifts. It remained uninhabited and uninhabitable long before the 24th century, thought the Ceti eel could have some relationship to the mind controlling aliens that threatened the Federation in the mid-24th century but were stopped by the intervention of the Enterprise-D.
Ceti Alpha V is in Sector 004, deep in Federation territory. It is not far from where the S.S. Botany Bay, traveling at sublight speeds, was able travel in the more than two hundred years before the U.S.S. Enterprise discovered it. Aside from Ceti Alpha V - which the Federation declared off limits after Khan and his followers were settled there — there was little of interest in the Ceti Alpha System, and therefore little reason for Starfleet or Federation exploration or exploitation of the system. Indeed, its very lack of interesting features or useful resources led the U.S.S. Reliant to select Ceti Alpha VI as a candidate for the Genesis Project’s experiments in high-speed terraforming.
Climate
Prior to the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI in 2268, Ceti Alpha V was a reasonably lush world. It boasted a surface hydrology of 65% as well as a varied ecostructure that didn’t include any large predatorial animals — by all accounts, a virgin paradise, if lacking in useful mineral and metal deposits.
Ceti Alpha V gained considerable axial tilt, and lost much of its atmosphere, in the catastrophe that destroyed its biosphere and changed its orbit. Further, pieces of Ceti Alpha VI rained down on Ceti Alpha V for months after the accident. These impacts raised millions of tons of dust and dirt, destroying whole mountain ranges and unleashing tectonic instabilities throughout the planet. The planet became completely uninhabitable, with eternal storms of dirt, dust, and pounding wind tearing across the landscape. Ceti Alpha VI’s explosion also released a compound called kraylon, contaminating what was left of the atmosphere. By the late 23rd century, Ceti Alpha V was a desolate, cold land of thin atmosphere and constant dust storm activity. Ceti Alpha V’s irregular orbit leads to many months of harsh winter conditions even in the “garden spot” of the planet, and even the short periods of summer do not allow for Ceti Alpha’s sunlight to penetrate to the surface of the planet.
Geography
Before the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI, Ceti Alpha V was a rich, diverse world. Its orbit carried it close to its neighbor world several times a decade, as they revolved around Ceti Alpha, and this proximity had considerable tidal effects on the planet. Mountain ranges erupted along Ceti Alpha V’s equator, with peaks as high as ten kilometers above sea level in some places. This had the effect of separating the northern and southern hemispheres of the planet. The northern hemisphere received more direct sunlight for longer periods of the year, and the two continents that rose out of the mountain rings teemed with life from tropical to temperate. There was no polar ice cap and temperatures rarely dropped below 5 degrees Celsius even in the polar region. Three small island continents circled the pole. The great majority of the northern continents were forested, ranging from tropical to temperate rainforests the further north one went. There was one long prairie on the larger of the two northern continents, where huge herbivorous beasts roamed and ate. The Botany Bay colony settled near these herds, using the natural prairie to start their agricultural base, with an eye to using the meat of the “Ceti bison” to supplement their food and for industrial purposes, later on. The southern hemisphere was mostly ocean and much cooler than the northern hemisphere.
After the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI, all of this changed. The shockwave hammered at the equatorial mountains, and cathedral-sized hunks of rock rained down upon the five continents, the oceans and the prairie. The rich, lush atmosphere of Ceti Alpha V was largely torn away by the initial explosion, and the remaining thin air couldn’t hold as much moisture. Millions of tons of dirt and sand had been blasted into the atmosphere by the impact, and the increasing axial tilt led to the perpetual storms that wore away and smoothed what remained. Modern Ceti Alpha V has only a few remnants of its equatorial mountains — the highest mountain the U.S.S. Reliant detected in its planetary survey was 6,400 meters — and no detectable surface water. Tectonic plates, disrupted and shattered by the devastation, have become unstable, and quakes and volcanic activity threaten much of the planet’s surface. There is no detectable life on the planet. Environmental suits are required for anyone to survive on the surface of Ceti Alpha V (unless of course that person is a genetically engineered superman).
History
Ceti Alpha V was charted relatively early in Starfleet’s exploration of the Galaxy. While robust and full of life, the world was a daunting place of powerful rainstorms and extreme conditions, and not considered ideal for colonization. The lack of useful metals and minerals also meant that any colony effort would have dubious long-term benefits. Certainly, had things been different, advancing technology would have made the planet ideal for a Federation colony.
The very qualities that made Ceti Alpha V too challenging a world for the Federation made it a perfect world for Khan. Khan had been one of the most powerful of the warlords in the Eugenics Wars of the late 20th century, and had escaped from Earth along with 104 of his followers in the DY-100 class S.S. Botany Bay, a prewarp interplanetary sleeper ship. The U.S.S. Enterprise discovered the Botany Bay on Stardate 3141.9, and Khan was awakened. Using his genetically engineered intelligence and cunning, Khan quickly adapted to his new century and, with the help of Lieutenant Marla McGivers — the ship’s historian — awakened his crew and attempted to steal the Enterprise.
After their defeat, Khan and his followers — including Marla McGivers, who left Starfleet and became Khan’s wife — were settled on Ceti Alpha V. Captain Kirk believed that the challenge of colonizing the robust world would suit Khan’s ambitions, and the society that the so-called supermen would forge could later enrich the Galaxy. The colony was founded at the northern edge of the only great prairie on Ceti Alpha V, where herds of “Ceti bison” roamed. The new colonists noticed that the great docile beasts seemed to go through phases of near-inactivity, followed by an almost drunken staggering for some days, but paid little heed to the creatures’ oddities.
However, Ceti Alpha V’s neighboring world, Ceti Alpha VI, made one of its periodic close passes to Ceti Alpha V six months after Khan’s exile began. The tidal forces that had created the impressive equatorial mountains on Ceti Alpha V also made Ceti Alpha VI increasingly unstable. The sister world’s instability came to a head on this pass, and Ceti Alpha VI exploded when the two planets were at their closest conjunction. Over a period of weeks, Ceti Alpha V was laid waste. Most of the colonists survived by converting the Botany Bay’s cargo container modules into pressurized shelters. Khan found ways to mine for deep water and set up hydroponics gardens. It seemed like a mean existence, but a stable one.
This changed when the remaining crew of the Botany Bay were attacked by the horrifying Ceti eels. These creatures gestated by wrapping around the cerebral cortex of other creatures. Before the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI, the Ceti eels had used the huge Ceti bison as their hosts, leading to the periods of docility and irrationality. With the destruction of the herd, they turned to the only source of breeding environments left: Khan’s followers. The infant Ceti eels left their victims highly suggestible, then ultimately drove them insane and killed them as they grew. Unlike the Ceti bison, the colonists could not survive the process. Before the dangers were fully identified and compensated for, twenty of the Botany Bay’s complement died. Among the dead was Marla McGivers. Khan blamed the man responsible for his exile — Captain Kirk of the Enterprise — and nursed his hatred for fifteen years.
All this changed when the U.S.S. Reliant entered the Ceti Alpha system on Stardate 8130.4. It was charting Ceti Alpha VI as a potential site for the Genesis Project. Ceti Alpha V’s shifted orbit had the world close to where Ceti Alpha VI should have been, and as the Reliant wasn’t performing a system survey, they didn’t take notice of the missing planet. Discovering anomalous energy readings, Captain Terrell and Commander Chekov beamed to the planet. Khan and his followers captured Terrel and Chekov, and (after subjecting them to the Ceti eels) used the pair to capture the Reliant and escape exile. Khan beamed the Reliant crew to their former shelters, where the U.S.S. Enterprise later picked them up.
Since then, aside from planetary and historical surveys of the former site of the Botany Bay colony, Ceti Alpha V has been abandoned.
Reference(s)
- Burns, Eric, Kenneth A. Hite & Doug Sun. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 7: Worlds, Decipher, 2005. ISBN: 1582369097.