Geography

~84% of Earth’s surface is covered in water. Though the vast cyclonic storms of darker days have lifted and the uninhabitable zones continue to shrink, life remains clustered at the poles – though even these ice cap-studded regions suffer from tidal surges and near-constant rain and sleet.

Both salinity and acidity are constant hindrances to regrowth efforts, and pollutants continue to seep from abyssal wreckage – or crash down from above, as ancient satellites decay and fall. But the world still stubbornly blooms: tracts of forest and carefully farmed greenery now grow on what once was frozen tundra, while encased settlements and floating habitats shelter the sentient inhabitants from the worst of the climate.

Attempts to keep the atmosphere stable and restore the Earth’s biosphere to a healthy ancestral form are ongoing. Holdout forms of life are infrequently but joyously rediscovered in the planet’s scars: algal blooms, stubborn bacteria, and even larger fauna such as arthropods and cephalopods have kept a hold on their niches, or found new ones, in the abandoned cities and flooded ruins of old Earth. Biologists and conservationists from all over the Alliance come to Earth to share knowledge on how to strike a balance between what once was, what remains, and what might come after.

Key locations on and around the planet Earth are

• The “breadbasket” of Earth, home to most of the planet’s arable land and genetics labs, is the Confederation of Arctic Circle Communities – a key series of states based in the lands thawed out around the North Pole.
• Earth’s largest city and capital is Amundsen, which is located on its southernmost continent. Amundsen’s urban sprawl hosts embassies from each of the Alliance’s member states. The city is slowly moving northward as the southern hemisphere re-freezes, with buildings or entire neighbourhoods coming apart and being reassembled ahead of the glacial vanguard.
• Located in what was once Earth’s tallest mountain range, the Mount Tenzing complex has been adapted from a survivalist redoubt into the headquarters of the Ardent Initiative. Protected from the elements and conventional weaponry while set to support a mission of peace and understanding, the complex was both a practical and symbolic choice of nerve centre for the Ardent mission.
• Anthroids trace their creation to a city-sized assembler facility known only as Home, which remains the largest factory of its kind. The entire facility is powered by geothermal energy, which wells up in abundance beneath its seat in the territory formerly known as Greater Iceland.
• Earth has one moon, called Luna – which means “moon” in an ancient human language. Luna is covered in large craters, themselves home to arcology parks – spaces where Earthlings can enjoy, perhaps to a fault, those activities that Earth itself cannot sustain at scale; heavy industry, concerts and other forms of mass live entertainment, and luxury retail.