Names, outcomes, and discoveries from later histories are concealed in spoiler-light mode.
Venus is the terraformed homeworld of the Flaxens. Earth and Mars transform it from an extreme environment into a habitable planet before the Titan.
Also recorded as: Flaxen homeworld
Terraforming
Machines drawing energy from higher dimensions alter the planet's rotation; nano mirrors reduce sunlight; mass accelerators remove excess atmosphere and gather nitrogen from the Sun. Redirected comets provide water. After approximately eight hundred years, the project yields a twenty-four-hour day, an average temperature near twenty degrees Celsius, Earthlike pressure, and two small oceans.[1]
Flaxen homeworld
Colonists from Earth and Mars settle Venus, which becomes the system's second most prosperous world. After the Titan and a long religious period, its inhabitants call themselves Flaxens. Their later claim that failing solar protection requires refuge on Earth is exposed as a deliberate deception; Forrender reports that Venus remains safe.[1][2]
Industry and war
Venus possessed minerals unavailable to the Flaxens within their Earth territory and a more advanced industrial infrastructure. Components for their infrasound weapon were shipped to Earth until Echo's scorpions destroyed the convoy. Brookes later worked in a Flaxen-provided facility on Venus, and Eastcott attacked a mineral processing installation near the Hawk's Retreat.[3][5][6]
Environment
Plants and animals from Earth populated Venus after terraforming. Thin topsoil left small burrowing mammals exposed and helped birds of prey flourish. The Flaxens admired these predators. From orbit, the planet showed extensive green wilderness, mountain ranges, cloud cover, and two small oceans, one northern and one southern.[4][6]
Resources and rule
The mineral processing installation destroyed by Eastcott had been important to the Flaxen war effort because equivalent minerals on Earth were largely depleted outside Russian mines. Claudius ruled from the Hawk's Retreat and relied on fear to command his officers.[7][8]
Eclipse and occupation
Cylli took control of the nano mirrors and limited Venus to two hours of sunlight a day. After ten days, even the equator was near freezing and Claudius faced a mob and desertion by his guard. Following his death, United Earth troops occupied the planet and war-crimes trials took place in Wellington.[8][9]
Related records
Sources
Simon Evans, The Flaxen Tyranny, first edition (2023). Page numbers refer to the printed pagination of the source edition.
- Chapter 7 · pp. 51–55
- Chapter 13 · pp. 94–100
- Chapter 17 · pp. 136,143–144
- Chapter 19 · pp. 157–160
- Chapter 24 · pp. 194–195
- Chapter 25 · pp. 206–208
- Chapter 27 · pp. 220–223
- Chapter 38 · pp. 318–323
- Chapter 39 · pp. 327–331