Shattered World
Shattered World
The next day, the Temerity arrives at lonely planet Hypnos, adrift in the galaxy without a star to orbit. Francisco reports that the trajectory of the small world takes it up out of the galactic plane, and it loops back down somewhere up the spiral arm. This planet has travelled a long way in the intergalactic void before its return near Zoz!
Defender Zik Lore Break
Zoz is quite far away from Earth! And the Zozian colony ship went in a completely different direction than most of the other refugees that left Earth all those centuries ago. Back then, the people who left a couple of decades after the Zozians realized that if they travelled within our spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, and towards the galactic core, the stars would be more numerous and closer together on average. This meant that as they established their new empires among the stars, they could get from system to system more quickly, which means resupply and defense is quicker and easier. The competition for habitable core-ward worlds was fierce, but the competition other directions was basically non-existent.
But the priority for the Zozians was finding the exoplanet that was most like Earth in order to terraform it and establish an oasis of Earth-life in a place where it wouldn't need to re-adapt to totally new conditions. The world they found happened to be towards the top of the galactic plane, and further down the spiral, which is why no one else found the Zozians in all that time. Zoz is in a backwater area of the galaxy from the point of view of the other human civilizations!
Zik remarks that planet Hypnos has some incredibly huge canyons scarring its surface, but he gets distracted by the debris field they're entering. It's quite thick, and he needs all hands in the cockpit to help identify and eliminate the asteroid threats. As they plow through the debris field, whatever the flotsam repulsors can't push out of the way, Trent blasts with the point defense cannons!
They finally make it through thanks to great teamwork and Zik's piloting skills. It's time for a closer look at the remote and desolate planet Hypnos, and what they discover is a shattered world of craggy canyons and deep craters! What happened to this place?!