Colony Ship Longo Drum (spaceship):

When the seed component of Longo Drum was launched from the Conakry, Guinea in 2130AD, making it one of the last of the such ships to be launched, its plan of action was clear:
a) the best real estate would have been claimed by earlier ships before; and
b) before the ship arrived at its destination, technology would have advanced so far as to make the inhabitants of Longo Drum seem primitives or even savages in comparison by those who would have arrived through some kind of faster than light travel, so the committee behind the launch proposed a strategy with three strands:

1) the arts and humanities rather than sciences should be developed as far as they could be developed providing the ship with objects of immense aesthetic value to trade with systems they might meet on the way;
2) scientific work taking place on the ship should concentrate on technologies arising from fringe scientific theories or from unexpected phenomena; and
3) attempts should be made to uplift six intelligent non-human lifeforms, namely, the Eurasian magpie, the bottle-nosed dolphin, the common octopus, the chimpanzee, the Humboldt squid and the rat and to produce a society where all seven organisms (including humans) can thrive equally.

The Longo Drum was built in space and in 2147 launched in an orbit that would bring it into contact with as many other colonies as possible before reaching a point on the edge of the galaxy in around 230 million years.  Its beginning complement was 51,000 people in roughly equal parts Romany, Guineans, and artists and weird scientists of all ethnic origins plus a thousand each of the animals being uplifted.



Harvest (planet):

Harvest! Breadbasket of the Spiral Arm! Harvest has no moon, so there are no tides, but the rain is fine. Harvest doesn't have a lot of vulcanism, so there are few mountains-- mostly just lots of plains for crops. And crops it has! Harvest is 90 percent crops (and harvesting facilities), and 10 percent security facilities to guard those crops and their harvests. Harvest is responsible for feeding an even larger percentage of the civilized galaxy than one might think.

Rumors of sentient native life in the oceans or (especially) burrowing under the plains are dismissed by the security forces. "The scavs? The scavs are clever-- cunning, even, sure, but they're not intelligent! They're just, like, smart gophers!" The harvesting crews aren't so sure...




Lilith (planet):

A planet that's at the same size as Earth, with a greenish sky in its hemisphere, with several giant fungi inhabiting the entire landmass. Other than that, the planet looks habitable. Though, when the first settlers decided to move in, they found very quickly that the air in this planet was toxic. The fungal growth has a hallucinogenic spore that has spread upon the air. Most of the settlers have started hallucinating their worst fears and gone mad, killing each other. Even those wearing hazmat suits were completely affected by the spores effect. The planet was deemed uninhabitable for the near future, although several mega-corporation have sent in drones to harvest the fungal growth for a special product line.



Mahalzhan System (solar system):
     Its primary sun is a yellow star, but the system is a binary star system, and Mahalzhan orbits around a center of mass along with a smaller red sun, Oozhan. This causes both the radiation and gravity of the system to be higher than normal. Now, alongside the sun, two planetoid masses orbit the same center of mass. The first is a barren, rocky thing blasted by radiation and extreme gravity. It orbit close enough to the center of mass that it passes close to the yellow star at one point of it orbit and then close-ish to the red star on the opposite end of its orbit. This causes its weather to alternate between extreme heat and extreme cold. The planet, Mahalzhan 1, is not naturally inhabitable. Further out, a second planetoid orbit in what would be considered the goldilocks zone of a normal star system. Here, though, this planet is also blasted by radiations and suffers from extreme weather conditions. Finally, outside these two is a large asteroid belt that orbits the system. Vast and made of a combined rock and ice mixture, this asteroid belt is the most easily habitable place in the system with the right equipment. It is also mineral rich and contains vast deposits of iron, aluminum, and gold.



Mersta (space station/power plant):

Originally "Mercury Station," soon shortened to MerSta and finally just Mersta. Just a little closer to the sun than Mercury, Mersta is two shapes-- a flat disc 200 miles wide with solar panels on the sun-facing side, and a cylinder coming off the center of the back of the disc that provides 10 miles of area for living and working space. The whole thing revolves, to give those on the inside of the cylinder 3/4ths Earth gravity. The main function of the inhabitants of the cylinder is to serve as constant repair crews for anything that hits the back of the disc as needed. However, its ability to not only beam nigh-unlimited power to all structures on Mercury, as well as to recharge any number of forms of huge batteries, means that Mersta is actually more important-- and more visited by ships-- than all of Mercury itself put together.



S.S. Belong (spaceship):
Deep in the far reaches of space there was once a ship that had a thriving colony: the S.S. Belong. They would travel upon worlds, trade their goods to other cultures, and then finally find a planet to settle, though they much preferred their life in the ship. Then one day a prophet came, no one knows where he came into the room, he just appeared one day as if by thin air. And he foretold that this ship would face its end, that no help will come for them for they have been abandoned. The colonists simply laugh it off as the delusions of an old man. But the prophet said one final thing, that the only way to survive is to give up all ideals and personalities and be of one mind, of one collective.

Several weeks go by after the prophet mysteriously vanishes, an incident occurred, a calamitous one. Over half of the millions of colonists perished, the ships engines all but ceased, communications were cut and a disease ravaged upon the survivors. They have tried signaling for help, but they received no response. They've tried using their escape pods to set up a rescue mission but all they met was a grisly end. They were trapped in their own vessel. As food and water started running dry, as the plague got worse and worse. They all remembered the prophet's words, and with no other option and clinging to a last sliver of hope.

Months went by and the S.S. Belong made a sudden appearance near a colony ship that focused on trade. This sudden appearance was not the strangest thing, it was the fact that the ship appeared out of nowhere and its model looked unrecognizable, almost like it was upgraded. The colonists in that ship were also different, they started referring to themselves as One, referring as we and speaking in unison. Though they still do what they've always done-- trade-- they've also started preaching about being One and have actively wanted others to enlist in their colony. They acted like a cult but they weren't hostile unless in self-defense. Those few who did attempt to join them backed off again very soon, saying that the inhabitants of the the S.S. Belong just aren't right in the head-- but were at least nice enough to let them go. Eventually the ship departed and disappeared, along with its colonists. It's been appearing in and out across the Galaxy, trading, and also looking for others to join them.

The Beryl Poppy (plant):

     When and where this plant was found and/or created is unknown, but its impact of the universe is profound. The plant itself grows a meter tall in maturity and produces two vividly purple flowers. But though pretty that is not what makes the poppies a cash crop. Instead, the thumb thick stalks which support each flower contain a sap. This sap, in its natural state, is a potent biodiesel. However, if it is put through a special process which purifies it, reduces it, and crystallizes it; the resulting Oponite can be used to provide vast amounts of energy. Thus, as it can be grown nearly anywhere, Beryl Poppies are one of the most important plants as then can provide continuous sources of energy and fuel for colonies and other populations. THe only draw back is that it takes nearly an entire field of poppies to produce a single Oponite crystal, so it's a good thing that crystal can power a colony ship for a month.


Lilimp (plant-creature):

One type of fungus on Lilith is not toxic to humans-- but it's a lot of trouble. One type of mushroom is light orange in color, and there's great interest in harvesting it with drones for medicinal purposes.

There's another type of fungus that looks almost exactly the same, though. It's usually a slightly darker shade of orange-- barely noticeable to the human eye, and 1 out of 100 times it can fool even sophisticated drone cameras-- more often in the dry season.

When the desired orange fungus, or "creamsicle shrooms" (as they are known colloquially by scientists and technicians for a handful of megacorps) are harvested, the dangerous spores of Lilith must be carefully filtered out through a complex process.

When the UNDESIRABLE orange fungus, or "cheater shrooms" (as they are known colloquially by scientists and technicians for a handful of megacorps) are harvested... they tend to grow everywhere.

If not found and destroyed, they will grow (in air such as humans are comfortable breathing, anyway), in about a week, into a Lilimp: a little mushroom creature with four legs and a neck and head with a mouth in front, about the size of a cat or small dog.

Lilimps are like pack rats, in that they like to make a little nest and start a horde-- except what they like to steal differs from creature to creature. One liked shiny things, it's true, but one wanted to steal batteries, one was reported to steal only things that were orange, one stole only food wrappers, one stole only things with strong smells, and so on.

Lilimps are not very aggressive-- they prefer to avoid humans. The problem is that one Lilimp will split into two after another week-- and then the two become four, and the four become 8, 8 become 16, and so on (each stealing different things).

Crushing a lilimp just causes them to regenerate. Cutting one makes each severed part start a new lilimp faster. They are completely resistant to poison.

One megacorp science ship that became overrun was flown into the nearest sun after all humans were evacuated (and completely and thoroughly sanitized afterward).



OORT SPIDERS (creature):

These creatures were first discovered in the Oort cloud of Sol's system but they have since been found on twenty nine other systems within five Parsecs of Tau Ceti, believed to be the star system where it evolved.

They are not spiders although they do have eight legs and the ability to spin webs so it is possible that they may be related to the spiders of Earth and other nearby worlds. They move slowly throughout the edges of star systems, building huge webs throughout the Oort clouds of their systems before catching lifts on comets or spacecraft.

Once in the centre of a system they grow from their usual tiny size to the size of small dogs and feed voraciously on local fauna before migrating towards the edges of atmospheres, gaining speed until they can catch a lift on outbound comets. There is evidence of problem solving abilities at least equal to rats and perhaps to more intelligent breeds of dogs.


Veins (plant):

Somewhere in the nightmare fueled planet of Lilith, there exists a strange fungal growth hidden within the planet's soil. If you have the machinery and Androids to do it, you could successfully dig to the planet's crust and find its veins. The roots that attaches itself to seemingly all the fungus across the entire planet. And they are all connected to one another, like some sort of Nexus.

Warning, subjects immune to the fear mongering gas of Lilith should not cut through the veins. If done so, know that inside those veins are unknown pathogens not unrelated to the fungal growths to the landmass above. Subjects affected by such pathogens will feel their entire body be ripped to shreds, then put back together and squeezed as if they were spaghetti. Then all of a sudden, subjects will find themselves in a whole different planet or even space at seemingly random points and at light years away from their original point. Every vein varies. Anomaly needs further testing due to these strange developments. Researchers are baffled by these strange wormholes this planet seemingly contains.