Luna Rose

(yeah lol it does kinda look like it says Loser)

For this system layout, I have taken the Solar System planet's orbital distance in astronomical units, and taken the reciprocal. So instead of Neptune at 30 au, we have Enutpen at 1/30 au

The major planets, in order of increasing distance from Los, are Enutpen, Sunaru, Nrutas, Retipuj, Sram, Thrae, Sunev, and Yrucrem.

The Losar system formed through a very different mechanism to our solar system. I'm not sure entirely about the specifics, but the arrangement is not dissimilar to the Kepler-90 system, in which 6 super-earth-mass planets are extremely compact and close to their parent star, with a low-mass and a high-mass gas giant at the outer part of the solar system. Perhaps as Retipuj formed, it migrated inward, carrying with it the ice and gas necessary to form the super-earth-mass planetary cores which accreted into Enutpen and Sunaru, or perhaps there was some kind of switcharoo where the Hot Ice Giants started out on more distant orbits, before crossing orbits with Retipuj and then being coralled into lower orbits.

Either way, some kind of migration is necessary, since Enutpen and Sunaru are volatile-rich, and the outer planets are comparatively volatile-poor.

I've excluded Pluto (or "Otulp") and the other dwarf planets, not because I don't like them or think they count as planets, but because I think by the time you're accounting for every large object in the Solar system in the Losar system, it just gets really implausible. also I bet some objects end up inside of the Sun. Plus, this kind of thought experiment is playing the same kind of planetary dynamics game that splitters are playing when they say Pluto's not a planet. Suffice to say, there are definitely lots of interesting small worlds in the Losar system, but they don't have 1:1 analogues with Solar system planets.

There are only five large moons in the entire system. Aside from Retipuj, satellites and rings are not stable around any of the Hot Giants. If satellites were initially formed around the Hot Giants, they would have either crashed into the planets or were ejected into one of the asteroid belts.

The first civilization to arise in the Losar system are the Sunevians, suspiciously great-ape-like feathered aliens who walk on their upper limbs and use their lower limbs as graspers. Sunev is an oceanic world with one large australia-sized landmass and a great number of volcanic islands. The ocean is relatively shallow, with a lot of coral reefs across the planet. The world is kept warm due to an atmosphere with an Earthlike composition but over twice the atmospheric pressure. Its slow retrograde rotation period results in day/night cycles which are more like seasons, and there is plenty of time during the warm nights to peek through the relatively dense cloud cover into the nearly empty sky. Early or late in the night, one might be able to see Thrae and Noom, or Sram, or if they catch it at just the right time, they might see the incredibly bright spectacle of Retipuj or even Nrutas peek out of the treeline, brighter than any planet or star. On a really good sunset across the ocean with clear skies, some observers report seeing additional super-bright red stars next to the red Sun, but these are thought to be some kind of weather phenomenon reflecting sunlight.

In rare moments of clear skies at night, away from light pollution, one might see many faint hazy spectacles. The zodiacal light (meteoroids orbiting beyond Yrucrem) shines as a faint haze across the ecliptic. The milky way too, shines as a glittery patchy cloud across the sky. But sometimes, every few hours, early in the night, there is a bright patch near the sun, brighter than the zodiacal light. A mystery for ages, but this is now known to be the cometary tail of Enutpen. Sunaru's tail is also detectable, but substantially fainter.

Sunaru and Enutpen were the first planets to be discovered, and were detected within a week of one another by early Losar observers. After the invention of the astronomical telescope, a reflector, observers got very bored during the daytime months. That is, until someone figured out a safe way of pointing towards the Sun. At a cadence of 52 and 103 hours, little black dots would march across the Losar disk. 52 hours was also the cadence of the brightening and dimming of the twilight zodiacal light. And suddenly, two brand new planets were discovered!

Millions of years later on the cold ice-age planet Thrae, astronomers would have an easier time with Enutpen and Sunaru, having known them to be planets since antiquity, due to their apparitions during total solar eclipses. Thrae's comparative cloudlessness also helps.

Sunev has three tiny asteroid moons, which was a helpful jumpstart to Sunevian space exploration, providing early wins for all four space programs. But these little asteroids were not truly other worlds, merely refueling outposts on the way to the rest of the Losar system.

Every few years, there would be a perfect alignment between Sunev and the Hot Giants to allow for a grand tour to be completed using only flybys of the gas giants, with minimal propellant expenditure. The first grand tour attempt got no further than Retipuj--contact was lost due to overheating before the probe made its Nrutas flyby. Specially developed solar flyby probes had to be developed that could survive hotter temperatures before the Hot Giants could be properly explored. These probes would resemble the Parker Solar Probe in some ways, albeit with very different scientific instruments designed for planetary science as opposed to Oilehphysics. Nrutas, Sunaru, and Enutpen turned out all to be much less massive than originally thought, having been puffed up to a larger diameter by being cooked by solar radiation. Nrutas, thought to be the king of the planets, turned out to be merely puffing up its crest to appear regal, so to speak.

Retipuj's moons were incredibly interesting. Retipuj turned out to have 8 satellites--four tiny inner asteroid moons, and four large satellite planets. Otsillac, the innermost turned out to be a volcanic world, yellow-brown in color and pitted with dull-red volcanoes, and a thin atmosphere constantly replenished by volcanic plumes. The next three are in a Ecalpal Resonance of 1:2:4. Being both larger than Otsillac (and, in fact, Yrucrem) and in a more eccentric orbit, Edymenag was even more volcanically active, with a molten surface and exposed mantle. The smaller and more distant Aporue and Oi turned out to be less active, with only a few active volcanoes and many extinct ones. Oi was the least active--although the most recent eruptions were only half a million years old, it was practically dead. It was also the only one with a substantial amount of impact craters, and like Thrae's satellite, Noom, there is likely some volatile ices stuck in the permanent darkness of polar craters.

Hot Giant exploration was best appreciated by specialists, but the other outer planets were much more appreciated. Sram was thought to be warm enough to potentially support liquid water, but its atmosphere ended up being 1/20th of the pressure initially expected, the majority of it having been blown away into space by the Losar winds and the Enutpen tail. But Thrae was a sweet spot--it may have had a thinner atmosphere, but that was compensated by being nearer to Los. In addition, a giant impact it sustained billions of years ago lead to it having a powerful magnetic dynamo to survive the onslaught of the Losar and Enutpen winds. Thrae was a habitable biosphere of similar complexity to Sunev's, albeit with deeper oceans and all the alien horrors that comes with the territory.

Even Yrucrem turned out to be a surprise--despite a dull appearance in telescopes, it was found to have cryovolcanoes and pockets of subsurface oceans, which could potentially support a biosphere. It's a dark brown color due to ice having been aged by solar radiation, with white spots and rays spraying out from recent asteroid impacts and cryovolcanic plumes. The small planets of the trans-Yrucrem asteroid belt were a similar treasure trove, although the nearest large trans-Yrucrem planets were a dozen au away, and requiring RTG power sources. Initial flyby probes to the Trans-Yrucrem-Objects required both being capable of surviving the oppressive heat of Los-shine near Retipuj, and the cold of deep deep space, in order to take advantage of Sunev-Thrae-Sunev-Retipuj gravity assists.

The Sunevians never had a chance to discover the deepest secrets of the Losar system. Their planet froze over due to anthropogenic aerosol production intended to reverse anthropogenic carbon emission, civilization fell, and it never recovered.

But millions of years later, perhaps the Thraelings have a chance to discover, whether through direct imaging or through analyzing the weirdly arrayed orbits of certain trans-yrucrem objects, the four Cold Giant planets, and the distant brown dwarf companion of the Losar system...

Mellanoid Slimes (such as the canon character Murf Prodigy and my original character Eaurp Guz) live in an interesting solar system--and it's no wonder that they want their space program to be in charge of exploring it rather than letting some starfleet science ship have all the fun.

The Mellanoid-Sun is a G8V Main Sequence Star a little cooler, less luminous, and more metallic than The Sun (Sol).

Orbiting close to the sun is Class-T hot Neptunian world, Cool Ember, which is so close to the Sun it is rarely seen except during afternoon, morning, and twilight. When seen through a telescope, it is sometimes blue and sometimes red, depending the orientation of its bright face. The sun-facing side is blue due to rayleigh scattering in its cloudless atmosphere and the night side is glowing a dull red due to heat from within the planet.

Very analogous to Mercury and the Inner Bajoran Planets is the Class-D planet Rabbit, a tidally locked cratered world. The far side is covered in ice. Its fast orbit has given it the name that could be vaguely translated as “Rabbit” (a sort of quick herbivorous vertebrate).

Rabbit is the largest member of an asteroid belt that extends out from Cool Ember to just under Omen’s orbit.

Beyond the inner planets is Omen. It is a “Class-J” gas giant of 2 Jupiter Masses which formed in the outer solar system and migrated inwards, disrupting the existing planet-forming disk. It has four substantial moons and about 15 minor satellites. It exists within the habitable zone, and its satellite planets are quite diverse. Rival is the innermost satellite planet, Class H and volcanic, followed by Lake, a Class O pelagic world, Spark, an airless Class D moonlike world, and Oldsky, a Class M habitable satellite planet.

Omen and Oldsky are also known in the Federation by their Zaldan names, Rarchilk and Ragdus, as prior to joining the Federation, the Zaldan Military operated an outpost and research station on Ragdus. Mellanoids sometimes refer to Oldsky as Ragdus, but they ALWAYS refer to Omen by that word.

Omen has a few asteroidal coorbital companions, but not very many, as the trojan population has been destabilized by a very large coorbital...

Omen’s largest coorbital companion is Mellanus, the M-class homeworld of Mellanoid Slimes (Notable individuals include Eaurp Guz, Nexus, Slamtha Uzgoel, and the infant Slime Worm, Murf Prodigy). Mellanus is very similar in radius to Earth, but it’s slightly less massive and lacks any major satellites. It does have two small asteroid satellites.

Mellanus’s shallowest oceans are covered in a thin layer of slime--but it’s enough that it actually makes up the majority of the planet’s biomass. Its forests and deserts are a little more conventional, with slime life uncommon in the deserts except for Mellanoid Slime People and reasonably common but not dominating in the forests.

Mellanus had its first contact with aliens in the 2320s or 2330s, via the Zaldans. Mellanus’ Fed-standard name comes from the Zaldans. When they Zaldans joined the Federation, they cut contact with Mellanus as they were pre-warp, and abandoned their outpost on Ragdus.

Mellanus invented their own warp drive in the 2360s, and were fast-tracked into the Federation for political reasons during the Dominion War, as it was feared they might otherwise be manipulated by the changelings.

Mellanus has successfully lobbied to resist Starfleet interference in their space affairs, and, with nuclear fission, chemical propulsion, and rudimentary impulse and warp drives, are focusing on exploring their own solar system before they “let starfleet have their fun.”

Mellanus is in a Horseshoe Orbit of Omen. Roughly every 18 Mellanus years, it makes a close approach to Omen in its orbit. Omen’s gravity pulls it into a higher orbit, then 18 years later they meet on the other side, and Omen’s gravity pulls it into a lower orbit. Omen got its name as, when it begins to get very large in the sky, it its a portent of a changing seasonal arrangement. In the low orbit, summers may be harsh and winters mild, and in the high orbit, summers mild and winters bitter.

Omen creates another season cycle as well, that of interest in astronomy and space exploration. For the whole time the Space Program has existed, every 18 years at each close approach of Omen, people are more and more willing to support the Space Program as it is a quite striking and visible reminder of how much space affects life on Mellanus. But with the excitement of the warp drive and Federation library computers, interest in space exploration seems to be continuing on, even as Omen recedes and dims.

Beyond Omen is a substantial gap where a few unstable asteroids orbit, analogous to the centaurs of our solar system. Beyond that is Glerbuh, a proper name for an ancient deity of Time.

Glerbuh is a Class-J super-jupiter of about 4 Mj, with 13 small icy worlds (most either P-class or D-class), and over a hundred irregular captured satellites! With a telescope, if you carefully blot out the light of the planet itself, you will see a faint nebulousity surrounding the planet. This was first identified by an astronomer who was so skilled at shapeshifting they could manipulate their eyes into achromatic telescopes, and thus easily work with internal obstructions near the focal plane. (Mellanoid Slime Astronomers on a budget may dissolve their eye lenses or figure their eye lenses manually rather than use real eyepieces, but this approach has limitations). The cause of the nebulosity was suspected in the photographic era but it wasn't until early space probe missions that the cause was definitely determined: Almost all of Glerbuh's innermost rounded moons are cryovolcanically active, including a pair of horseshoe coorbitals, and they are spewing water ice from their internal oceans into space. This is potentially one of the most interesting and unique astrobiological environments--a system of moons swapping ice, water, and maybe even microbes, and would be worthy of exploration by Starfleet, except that Mellanus demands to continue its own space program and make that exploration by itself.

Beyond Glerbuh are five ice giants. Four of them were known to Mellanoids prior to Federation membership, the other one was discovered using subspace sensors and orbits extremely far out, but is the most massive of them. They are 7, 11, 14, 5, and 18 Earth Masses respectively, and each have moon systems worthy of study. Only Two of the ice giants have yet been visited by robotic spacecraft, the first and third one. (The first was explored by a dedicated mission, the third one was a third flyby in an Omen-Glerbuh-Eauauh flyby chain) minor planets, comets, and full size planets are by convention named for their discoverer*, so the ice giants are named:

• Glarpi
• Shpler
• Eauauh
• Flibul
• Schmitt (named for Captain Schmitt of the U.S.S. Courage, who first reported the planet--though it's probable the Zaldans knew of it first and never mentioned it in their pre-federation dealings with the Mellanoids.)

*When Glarpi was discovered, it was originally named Slarmock's Star, after an emperor. Needless to say, astronomers from other mellanoid nations of the time didn't take well to this name, and called it such things as the Demon Star, the Fool Star, or just, The Sixth Planet. Eventually it was referred to as Glarpi's Planet, or just Glarpi, and that was how it was. When someone discovers more than one object, it can either be given a name followed by a number, or the second object can be named after a friend of the discoverer, with certain rules established by the Mellanoid Astronomical Nomenclature Office regarding not naming it after politicians or especially controversial figures.

(Deep out in the far reaches of the Mellanus star system, where no spacecraft or starship have ever been, lies Schmitt, the last and heaviest ice giant. It was picked up on subspace sensors and later recovered by Mellanoid Astronomers using an orbiting space telescope. Nothing is known about it aside from its pinkish color and the fact that it has a very substantial moon for its size.)