A Different Take on a Terraformed Venus

Alright, so this is the thing I'm ultimately going for for a proposed light-novel-esque book series I'm going to write.

The setting of my light novels takes place on Venus after hundreds of thousands of years since terraforming of the planet on an unspecified future date. After a brutal war against Earth for independence and seclusion from the rest of the Solar System colonies, the humans on Venus now live peaceful lives in harmony with the new life of the transformed planet, and lifestyles are similar to modern day 20th to 21st Centuries. Although there have been peace for well over 100 Cytherean years, there are still fears of Earth humans wanting to reclaim their former colony, and so the Cytherean humans are ever so watchful of a possible Earth invasion.

My take on a terraformed Venus is different from other space works as it won't be a focus of a space opera. Rather, I'm using the planet itself as a primary setting for some good world building potential. Venus by this point in my story is very identical to Earth, with a 24 hour retrograde rotation, atmosphere pressure of 1.2 atm (to compensate for higher elevation of highland regions), and average temperatures ranging from 20 to 25° C. The axial tilt is still 2.64° because progress to change the planet's tilt to match Earth's was halted as a result of the Venus-Earth War, so seasons on Venus are minimal and are more based on latitude rather than time of year. Very tall towers called magnetic obelisks are constructed to provide an artificial magnetic field around the planet, and there are five of them total (two at the poles and three around the equator), reaching up 50 km into the atmosphere. Several ruins of old Earth colonies are found across Venus ranging from former cloud cities of pre-terraforming past to space elevators, and the old Venera probes are seen as "sacred relics" by the local populace. Much of society has abandoned their space-fairing and colonial ideals to live new lives on a new home, and this is reflected in the many towns and cities found across the planet, with buildings having an old 19th to 20th Century style as opposed to the dreary futuristic style. In addition, Venus has one artificial moon named Alstroemeria (after the Peruvian lily) which was originally designed by Earth colonists to be a tidal anchor to change Venus' rotation, but has since been upgraded to be an observation hub, off-world civilization, and a defense mechanism against possible Earth invasions. Travel in between Venus and Alstroemeria is done via teleportation.

Overall, the story and world building will be similar to that of JRPGs, and was mainly inspired by The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. I don't intend to turn this into a grand space opera, just a JRPG-like story set on Venus that's all.

What are your thoughts?

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Sep 10th 2019 at 3:23:13 AM

You're clearly going for the softer end of the sci-fi spectrum here, so I have little to offer in that regard. The setup is creative and interesting. I do wonder what happened on Earth to cause them to "give up interest" in their Venusian colony, given that it is literally the closest planet in the Solar System, or how the people of that planet could possibly have won a war, but I would expect you to establish those elements in your world-building.

I have a basic gist to how the war plays out. Once terraforming was complete and the planet began to sustain its ecosystems, Earth colonists began to permanently settle on Venus. However, the governments of Earth were more interested in prospecting the planet for its resources rather than use it as a second home (or third, depending on Mars colonization efforts), and so they began to take Venusian resources for themselves without the say of natural-born Cytherean humans, since they're still considered under the guise of "working for Earth". As years pass by, more Cythereans became disgruntled that the Earth humans are taking all of their valuable resources, so tensions increased until they finally had enough. Tired of Earth's exploitation of their new home, the Cytherians began an uprising against Earth colonists and gradually hijacked their armaments, beginning a civil war on the planet. Since it can take months for Earth to send reinforcements to Venus (yes, space travel is still trajectory-based in my story), the Cythereans took the opportunity to strike while they're still isolated, and claimed each landmass from the colonists in a span of one Venusian year. This culminated in the complete takeover of Alstroemeria, which was seen as the biggest victory in the Cytherean independence effort. However, the opportunity for Earth to send reinforcements came, and within a few months, they would arrive on Venus and render their efforts moot. The Cythereans began modifying Alstroemeria into a weapon as their last stand, and once reinforcements arrived, they fired Alstroemeria's new fusion weapon at the fleet, destroying them in one go. The blow hit Earth hard, and realizing they have virtually no chance of going up against a weapon like that, they decided to call a cease fire and ordered all remaining Earth troops to return home. The victory of the war then marked a new chapter for the Cytherean humans, ditching cyberpunk-esque tech for more conventional lifestyles of the 21st and 20th Centuries, even going back as far as the 19th Century in some cases.

A little longer than I intended to but, yeah. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Ye olde Superweapon Surprise trope? Sounds fun.

That's one hell of a powerful fusion weapon, though.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 10th 2019 at 9:59:09 AM

K, here are a few notable locations I have planned based on the actual Venusian map and some terraformed ones. All terraformed maps are consistent with the topographical data of the planet.

Here's this stock map for reference: https://www.flickr.com/photos/120556231@N02/13200324733/lightbox/

Artemis Meadow: Situated over the Artemis region which contains Artemis Corona; the largest pancake dome on Venus, the area now hosts a vast meadow of hills, grasslands, and forests. Essentially the Ghibli Hills / Green Hill Zone of my story, though it's not the only one. Due to minimal seasonal changes, the area is in constant spring.

Aurelia: The largest city on Venus and located right at the center of Artemis Corona. Formerly New Washington D.C., after the Earth-Venus War, the city has transformed significantly from its futuristic colony roots to an artistic marvel reminiscent of Victorian Era London, mixing in modern conventional technology for some Anachronism Stew affect. It's a hub for artistic expression, containing a vast number of artisan shops and ateliers in many streets, and it also contains a prestigious military academy. A castle is located in the heart of the city where the higher-ups govern the region, and the city itself is connected by a long railway line called the Trans-Aphrodite Railway which crosses the entire Aphrodite continent (formerly Aphrodite Terra). Essentially the protagonist's home city.

Maxwell Mountains: Formerly Maxwell Montes, this mountainous region is similar to the Himalayas on Earth, with Mt. Skadi (Skadi Mons) being the highest mountain on Venus at 11 km. It's a frigid cold and treacherous region where very few tread, and only a few mountainous villages are located there.

Fortuna Tundra: Located on the Fortuna Tessera region on the Ishtar continent close to the north pole, the tundra experiences snowfall all year round due to minimal seasonal changes. It's essentially the Slippy-Slidey Ice World of my story.

Lakshmi Highlands: Formerly Lakshmi Planum, it's a near-desolate region west of the Maxwell Mountains. Home to the Ishtar Highlanders.

Phoebe: Also known as "the Land of the Relics" due to the fact that it's home to four Venera probe landing sites, it's a humid subcontinent filled with lush jungles and swamps. The Venera probes themselves, after enduring hundreds of years in heat and crushing pressure of pre-terraforming past, are situated in shrines dedicated to worshiping them as the original pioneers of the world.

Atla Desert: Formerly Atla Regio, the area east of the Aphrodite continent around Mt. Maat is a very hot and desolate region. Although it's not a traditional desert of sand like Earth deserts, but rather a desert of volcanic basalt. It's untamed Venusian territory where the life failed to take hold there. Only the hardiest of people live there.

Mt. Maat: Formerly Maat Mons, it's the highest volcano on Venus which may or may not be active. It's the Death Mountain in my story and hosts a couple of abandoned colony mines.

Guinevere Ocean: A vast expanse of water covering the Guinevere Planitia in-between the Aphrodite continent and the Beta and Phoebe subcontinents. Similar to the Atlantic Ocean on Earth, it's the central hub of nautical travel and often wracked with fierce storms. The water that comprises Venus' oceans were originally imported from Europa, Ganymede, Enceladus, and several comets.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Sep 11th 2019 at 1:14:31 AM

You have obviously invested a lot of time and energy into this, and you have the basis for some very interesting story settings.

Since you have decided against using this as a backdrop to operatic/epic stories, your main alternative is to use it as a thematic backdrop to the stories you do want to tell. Can you say something about that? Have you designed your main plot arcs/primary characters yet?

To an extent, yes. Three of my main characters for this story are pulled from my last novel project that I unfortunately had to scrap due to circumstances beyond my control. The characters are Alice (the main protagonist), Naomi, and Aaron.

Now mind you, this is still in planning phase so the summary may be a bit janky at the moment. Alice is an artisan at Aurelia who lives a normal life until one day, when cleaning up her house, she finds an advanced sword left behind by Earth humans during the Earth-Venus Civil War and wonders what it could be. She gets visited by a shady person who pressures her into giving the sword to him until the other character, Naomi; a student at the military academy, knocks him out and saves her from a threatening situation. Through a series of events, they would work alongside the third character Aaron to travel across Venus in search of advanced Earth technology left behind, as a shady organization is planning on reverse-engineering that technology to cause turmoil across the Venusian nations. With the ever-looming conspiracy of an Earth invasion on the horizon, the clock is ticking.

The three characters are just the tip of the iceberg though. I plan for four more characters to join them like a true JRPG party.

Edited by DivineFlame100 on Sep 11th 2019 at 12:43:18 PM

Are the Venusian plants and animals just transplanted earth ones or are they the product of genetic engineering/accelerated evolution?

Ah, an Amazing Journey story; very good. Are you intending this as an action-driven plot-centered adventure, or as a more character-driven opportunity for the three main characters to discover themselves? Is this more The Quest, The Hero's Journey, It's the Journey That Counts, a Road Trip Plot, or even Walking the Earth?

A combination of both. They're transplanted Earth life but given some genetic modifications to cope with the low axial tilt of Venus. This does open the possibility of some creatures going rogue and becoming monsters. It's also possible for me to add a Forest of Perpetual Autumn somewhere.

More of a character-driven quest with some action and conflict in-between. Hard to say which of the five tropes this quest is since they overlap with one common theme, but I would say a bit of the all of the above.

I like the idea of a terraformed Venus. I am toying with a futuristic Western that is confined to one planet like Trigun, but have be on a terraformed Mars, but it doesn't seem like Mars could retain a thick enough atmosphere due to its size, even if it had a stronger magnetosphere, so I'm turning to Venus.

Venus has most of the benefits for humans. It's nearly the same size and mass as Earth, so its gravity is only 0.90 g, which is not enough to cause detrimental health issues associated with low-g environments. It also continues to retain its atmosphere despite lacking a magnetic field, whereas Mars, with its lower gravity, lost most of its atmosphere. Venus just needs some TLC to make it habitable. In my case, the TLC comes from imported water and elements, altering the atmosphere, magnetic obelisks, and an artificial moon I named "Alstroemeria" to control its rotation.

Good luck on your space western. I look forward to seeing it.

"More of a character-driven quest with some action and conflict in-between."

All righty then. Traditionally, the setting in such stories acts as a metaphore for the internal conflicts that the characters are working out between them. American Western's are set in rugged terrain because that symbolically represents the toughness of the protagonists in such stories. The Heart of Darkness is set in a jungle because that represents the savagery that the antagonist acts out, forcing the protagonist to deal with it. The Mississippi River is the setting of Huckleberry Finn because it represents the way that time and life pass for the main character, eventually forcing him to a place where he has to grow up. You see how it works? The setting is designed by you, the writer, in such a way as to force the main characters to deal with whatever element of personal development you want to drive the story.

So what character conflicts drive your story?

A very good question. I suppose I don't have a common theme yet since my story is so early in development, but I guess taking place on Venus would open my main character to the conflict of self-discovery and what it means to her.

Would a moon be necessary to support life?

That's still a hotly-debated topic in the scientific community, so there really isn't a definitive answer to that yet. The Moon has done a lot for us be creating tides and maintaining the Earth's axial tilt, but it's hard to say if life can thrive on planets without a moon since we have yet to observe any cases of that in other solar systems. In my story, the artificial moon Asltroemeria was created to speed up and maintain Venus' rotation since I'm not really fond of the "hit Venus with asteroids and nukes until it spins" approach because it's too destructive, and could otherwise make the planet even more uninhabitable. It's largely an artistic decision though since I don't plan to dump science expositions in my story every second. The focus of my story is rather the character's journey rather than science for the sake of science. Any science I'll provide will be relegated to trivia for those who are interested.

"Artificial moon... was created..." Oh, right, this is way way in the future. Sorry, I had a little suspension of disbelief failure. You have planetary fusion weapons, so carry on.

Yeah, apologies for my use of past tense in my posts. I'm referring to the universe in my story rather than real life.

Anyway, about my artificial moon. The original inspiration for it came from Clockwork Planet where the Earth got rebuilt into an artificial megastructure. I'm borrowing the concept of this planetary megastructure and applying it into moon form.

In my story, Alstoremeria is about the same size as Pluto and was constructed from minerals from Mercury and the Asteroid Belt. It serves three main purposes:

• To speed up and maintain Venus' rotation.
• To stabilize its axial tilt.
• To create ocean tides needed to disperse nutrients around the planet.

It isn't one interconnected structure and is instead divided into multiple layers, with the surface layer being the civilization layer with its own artificial biosphere. Because of this, it doesn't have enough mass to influence Venus directly, but it is outfitted with prototype gravity fields based on the principles of the Alcubierre Drive (mainly gravity manipulation technology). These allow Alstroemeria to tug on Venus through artificially-generated tidal forces. Over hundreds of years, Venus' rotation changed from 243 days to 24 hours.

The "fusion weapon" is a later modification by Cytherean humans as a last resort against incoming Earth reinforcements. It isn't so much a weapon but more like Weaponized Exhaust from the structure's pole stabilizers. Alstroemeria contains a nuclear fusion reactor at its core, and the fusion weapon works by directing all of that energy into a focused beam of ionized plasma large enough to cover hundreds of thousands of kilometers. It ain't no Death Star though, as the weapon does not contain enough power to destroy a planet (at worst, it can only sterilize a continent), but it is enough to destroy any large fleet clusters coming Venus' way. The weapon also has limits as it can take up to a Venusian year to fully recharge, so timing is important.

I named it Alstroemeria in order to keep with the Venusian-theme naming convention of femininity. Since flowers are often associated with femininity and the Peruvian lily has a very unique name, I decided to go with it.

Needless to say, Alstroemeria will be a key location in my story.

With the technology of your story, would it be possible to ignite the planet's core?

The described society is almost at Type 2 on the Kardashev scale. I'd expect Dyson Swarms or something equivalent like mass fusion for power, and given that you can literally assemble moon-sized bodies from raw materials, this is an enormously advanced civilization.

Writing believably is more difficult because you have to project and assume what people would be like in the setting. With a thousand years of technological development comes a thousand years of social and cultural development. Do people still get sick? Are we genetically engineering the perfect human? Are cloning and cybernetics things that happen? Do people get their full education implanted in their Neuralink (shameless plug) chips at 2 years old? Are there ideological conflicts? Is the society fully post-scarcity or are there resource constraints? Do we have full general AI, and if not, why?

You could go all sorts of directions, but it takes a lot of thought to maintain verisimilitude.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 13th 2019 at 11:16:31 AM

Well keep in mind that the Venusian society, like I described earlier, regressed from the much more advanced Earth society in the wake of the Earth-Venus Civil War. Much of the technology left behind from the conflict is considered Lost Technology by the populace, and the technology the Cytherean humans do use is closer to 21st Century tech. In a sense, they have become a Space Amish of sorts.

Earth, on the other hand, is much more advanced to being fully Type 1 on the Kardashev scale. However, they're not perfect. Alstroemeria is their only megastructure because it drains a lot of their resources to build in the first place, so they can't just simply recreate it whenever they want. They also haven't fully mastered Alcubierre Drive technology yet, and as such, are still reliant on using gravity assists from other planets to travel the Solar System. All of these factors combined limits them to what they can do. I ain't setting up a grand space opera here, just enough backstory to tie into my setting and story overall.

I should also note that my writing inspiration comes mainly from Japanese storytelling rather than western storytelling. When it comes to Japanese sci-fi, they go off the wall with a lot of ideas that westerners would find absurd.

" but I guess taking place on Venus would open my main character to the conflict of self-discovery and what it means to her."

Right. So an unexplored, semi-alien landscape which is both familiar and strange seems like it would fit best. The problem here is that the Venisian ecosystem is almost entirely artificial, that is to say someone has designed it, so it isn't truly unknown. For thematic purposes, what you need is someway for unexpected fauna and flora to appear, so that the protag can discover something about herself by encountering them. Maybe there are some private sector experiments going on? Another possibility are bioweapons left over from the war.

I have a suggestion for your planetary fusion weapon— its called a Casaba Howitzer, aka a "nuclear shaped charge."

Right. Since the Earth flora and fauna in my story are genetically modified to some extent to cope with Venus' low axial tilt, this gave rise to an idea I call "Berserkers". Berserkers are animals (and in rare cases, plants) that undergo a mutation as a result of a defect within the modified DNA, making them hyper-aggressive and essentially transforming them into monsters. They pose a threat to humans if left unattended, so specialized hunters go out of towns and cities to take them out, often with rewards for doing so. Some of these Berserkers were weaponized by Earth troops during the civil war.

The Berserkers also serve as a deconstruction to the one thing that most fantasy a sci-fi works often do; the "every wild-life creature are monsters" thing. In my story, not all the creatures are monstrous by default, but only a small few of them become monsters as a result of the defect. Plus, hunting every single creature would do more harm to the ecosystem, which isn't really good and practical.

In addition, these will allow me to add some very unique biomes to the story. I already mentioned earlier about a possible Forest of Perpetual Autumn, but I could do so much more if I put my mind into it.

Interesting. I could use the Casaba Howitzer as a potential leftover weapon that the shady organization seeks to reverse-engineer. It could be one of the important plot devices.

Anyway, here's a bit a trivia before I start writing my drafts.

• Since Venus' year is only 224 days, characters will undoubtedly be Older Than They Look since humans have remained biologically unchanged for the most part. Alice's age is 18-years old by Earth standards, but on Venus, she's 29-years old. This age gap between Earth and Venus means that what is considered young adult years on Earth is actually teenage years on Venus. It's a bit confusing, but justified since a shorter year would increase the age range of the planet's inhabitants. The average human lifespan on Venus is 128 Venusian years, while the maximum expected lifespan is 162+ Venusian years (special thanks to Septimus Heap for helping me figure out the formula).
• In my story, Venus has eight months as opposed to Earth's twelve. Each month lasts 30 days, with about five weeks each and the weeks lasting six days instead of seven. The only exception is the eighth and final month which only lasts 14 days to cap off the planet's 224 day orbital period. The inhabitants call this the closing month.^note I'll have to do more math to figure out the leap year day. This is to drive home the fact that using the same time-keeping methods from Earth on other planets will never work, even if it's set to "Universal Time".
• Venus' lower gravity of 0.90 g means humans are a bit taller than the humans on Earth, and this allows the ecosystem in general to reach larger heights and sizes.
• Lastly, the 24-hour clocks used on Venus are reversed. Instead of running clockwise, Venus clocks run anticlockwise. It's a symbolic decision to represent the planet's retrograde rotation.

Seems a little odd that you'd treat a person legally as 29 by Earth standards when they have only lived 18 Earth years biologically. They wouldn't be physically or mentally mature at that point, and assuming so just because the planet has shorter years could lead to all sorts of problems.

Do you want 13-year olds drinking alcohol? Well, they'd be 21 on Venus. To the party van! Are you 11? You can legally have sex with an adult. I don't think so.

Edited by Fighteer on Sep 16th 2019 at 11:49:15 AM