Merén

The inhabited planet of Merén is the only inhabited moon left to the human race.

Merén orbits the gas giant Series a bit like our Io orbits Jupiter but it is a non-planar orbit. Merén is a beautiful world that has some of the most unusual geology in the universe, but it is also lethal. It is 1.12 mass of the earth even though is 1.8 the size because it is not made up of a solid iron core but rather a magnetic form of berylium silicate / americum alloy.

Merén is one of many other moons that orbit the gas giant, but the little world is the innermost moon of 5 conspicuously large moons. The gravity of the giant series, and the large gang of 4 moons outside of it causes the crust to swell and buckle every orbit. (once every 24 hours Merén orbits geosynchronously locked to series) this means the interior is highly volcanic and the volcanic activity centers around the face that faces the gas giant (rivenface). The side of the planet that perpetually faces the gas giant is so volcanic it is uninhabitable and the boundary to the polar death zone is known to the inhabitants as the rivenwall.

Merén is extremely Volcanic: The rivenface is locked to the gas giant and because the whole moon is flexed once every orbit Merén spews out enormous amounts of volcanic debris into the atmosphere every day. Normally the world of Merén would be far too caustic, poisonous and sulphurous to sustain any life. In fact not only is it highly volcanically active but the interior is liquid throughout with the crust being so thin as to be argueable in the pole facing the gas giant. The volcanos are so enormous they poison the atmosphere for a large portion of the hemisphere and create incredible tensions ecologically. Carbon Dioxide continually spews out.

Merén is able to sustain life because of its thick wet atmosphere, and the huge ridge of mountains that ring the rivenface, cutting off a circular ocean on a plateux. This ocean/mountain complex - together with the fact that Merén has a highly wet atmosphere means it is able to be suprisingly stable. In short Merén is a very watery world with incredibly consistant weather systems. Wet warm weather runs continually at surface level towards the riven face - where it never stops raining, and has not stopped for millions of years.

The rain itself is what the locals call “the rivenwall”. It rains so hard and thickly it is basicaly inpenetrable. This waterfall from the sky dissolves the posion and caustic misery of the rivenface which flows into a landlocked ocean of poisonous filth. This ocean boils into the cautic melting pot of the volcanos where the water is pumped back into the air to super saturate it and the poisons are recalled into the moons core.