ALIEN - CONTRACTED: Terraforming - Building Better Worlds

Ever since ALIENS in 1986, terraforming has been a front and center feature of the ALIEN/S universe. The athmosphere processor looming over Hadley's Hope was indeed a very impressive piece of equipment. How it was supposed to work, what the logistics behind creating livable worlds were, and ultimately, why people were bothering with the process in the first place was all left relatively in the dark. Subsequent entries into the franchise did not do much to change that.Terraforming just happened, Weyland-Yutani just built better worlds. I have given some thought to the how to make terraforming a more interesting feature, especially in regards to Earth. The Weyland-Yutani Report made it official that the Peter Weyland created terraforming technology successfully fixed Earth's climate. I reject both of these ideas. The person of Peter Weyland should not be the fulcrum of the ALIEN/S universe. And Earth should not have been fixed by corporate hubris. 

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Terraforming as a technology has made incredible advances throughout the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. However, terraforming researchers found it not the panacea solution to all of humanity's problems. Creating a viable atmosphere on the Moon failed. Terraforming away the damages of global warming and nuclear war on Earth failed even worse. Making worlds suitable for human habitation, the scientists on both sides of the Curtain found, is a quite difficult endeavor.

 

Earth and the Moon represent two significant lesson in terraforming. The Moon could not be sufficiently terraformed, since it lacked too many elements necessary to produce a viable world. Earth's satellite has too little gravity. It also lacks a protective magnetic field. Without these elements, no amount of atmosphere will allow humans to inhabit a cosmic body without much further protection against cosmic - and Lunar - radiation. Worse, the lack of both gravity and magnetosphere resulted in what atmosphere the lunar engineers created being washed away into the void quicker than the terraforming machines could replenish it.

 

Fixing Earth's climate presented the opposite problem. Earth has a very complex climatic system. Where Luna had too few ingredients present for successful terraforming, Earth simply had too many. Tinkering with Earth's climate without the ability to truly understand the many factors that impact the system resulted in catastrophic failure. Instead of ameliorating the worst effects of climate change, the attempts to terraform Earth and keep the planet inhabitable on all latitudes failed spectacularly. Only that none of the nation-states impacted by this catastrophe survived long enough to make even the attempt at a case to ask the corporate masters who initiated this scheme for an apology, much less reparations. The Oligarchs who championed terraforming as a way out of global climate collapse quickly washed their hands of the attempts and took their technology to celestial bodies, while Earth's equatorial zone became forever uninhabitable.

 

Corporate terraforming seeks out worlds that present a better balance between the extremes of Luna and Earth. Acheron represented a good target, since the planetoid already had a developing atmosphere, had a potent magnetosphere, as well as gravity that was close to that of Earth. This made turning it into a habitable world relatively easy. Corporate scouts comb the galaxy for worlds such as this.

 

But corporate terraforming is by design not a one-and-done deal. Corporate worlds reach a point at which they are habitable by humans without further protections. However, corporate terraforming is by design not built to last. The atmosphere processors need to keep running, need maintenance, need further investment. Terraformed worlds will never be quite able to shake their corporate masters, since terraforming is still a very complex, complicated endeavor, and most of the technologies and methods required to maintain a world's atmosphere are patented and closely guarded corporate secrets.

 

This is one of the many reasons the UPP does not terraform worlds. The socialists lack access to the patented technologies, but they also do not see the benefits of making a world more hospitable to humans, when a good, shielded colony, slight genetic alterations, and a warm spacesuit do the job at a very small fraction of the money needed to build - and maintain - an atmosphere processor.

 

The UPP takes a wholly different approach to space colonization. The socialists barely bother with terraforming at all. Instead, they build sealed colonies. Since Soviet scientists invented gravity manipulation, the UPP has the most advanced artificial gravity systems of all spacefaring factions. UPP genetic engineers have also developed genetic cures for many ailments of life in space.

 

Of course UPP colonies can fail much more spectacularly this way in comparison. If an ICC affiliated colony fails, that usually means a failure of atmosphere processing, which is a process that allows for an orderly evacuation, usually. ICC colonies are not prone to suffer from explosive decompression events, at least not after a few years of operation.

 

Even so, both ICC affiliated factions and the UPP both prefer planets that are as close to Earth's general makeup as possible. Especially with looming conflict and the development of ever more deadly weapons of mass destruction, all factions are feverishly looking for places that could serve as backup options, should war happen. 

 

Both the UPP and ICC affiliates create new habitable worlds and large-scale habitats in part to eventually allow the overcrowding of Earth to ease. Also, new worlds offer more opportunities for exploitative industries. Terraformed worlds offer job opportunities for those who can leave Earth. At least, if these jobs don't all go to manufactured workers like replicants and androids.