Droplet

An inhabited planet in the Beta Quadrant, charted and named in July 2381 by the crew of the starship Titan. At first glance a classic Leger-type ocean planet, Droplet is unique in that it supports a complex eco-system of higher-order life-forms, and even a thriving civilization, despite having no land masses providing mineral runoff. The planetary feature making this aberration possible is a unique variety of barophile plankton whose life-style involves transport of heavier elements from the hypersaline depths back to the surface waters.

Designation: UFC 86783 IV.

Class: O, subclass L1.

Star System: UFC 86783, the star having received the unofficial designation “New Kaferia”, so named for its similarity in size, age and magnitude to Kaferia’s sun Tau Ceti. UFC 86783 has an unusually dense disk of asteroidal debris for a system its age, one rich in exotic minerals and radioisotopes. It is located beyond the Kavrot sector in the general vicinity of the Canis Major region.

Position: Fourth planet of its system. Droplet is in an unusually wide orbit for an inhabited planet around a star as cool as New Kaferia. With its endless supply of water to vaporize, it has a considerable greenhouse effect, plus the convection in its oceans brings some heat from the planet’s interior, so the surface is balmy and tropical.

Day: 18 Hours, 47 Minutes at the equator.

Average density: c. 3000 kg/m3 (0.55 Earth density)

Surface gravity: 9.2 m/s2 (0.94 g) (slightly lower than terrestrial gravity due to the low density).

Radius: 10780 km (1.69 Earth radii).

Mass: 1.6 x 1025 kg (2.69 Earth masses).

Mean orbital radius: 222 million km (1.484 AU)

Native species: “Squales”, named by Federation observers for their appearance as “squid-whales”. Their native name is unknown.

Major imports: None.

Major exports: None.

Languages: “Squale”.

Terrain: Ocean.

Points of Interest: Hurricane Spot, a giant storm of unknown duration.

Droplet posseses a metallic core thirty-seven hundred kilometres deep surrounded by nearly three thousand kilometres of silicate rock. Above that is a mantle of high-pressure allotropic ice over four thousand kilometres deep; water crushed into solidity forming exotic crystalline phases even at boiling temperatures. The outermost ninety kilometres is liquid water, an ocean a hundred times greater in volume than Earth’s. Droplet’s core is unusually hot, probably due to the presence of many of the same radioactive elements found in its star system’s debris disk, like plutonium and pergium. The result is a strong magnetic field with some unusual energy patterns. In fact, the field has two sources. In addition to the core dynamo that creates the field, the hypersaline layer at the base of the ocean generates a saltwater dynamo effect that enhances and modulates the field. The interaction of these two dynamos creates an oscillation of sorts, a regular fluctuation that drives the behaviour of the planet’s native life-forms.