=Sol= 
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The solar system was formed billions of years ago through the accretion of material remaining from the formation of its star, Sol, the sun. Locked ever since in its orbit, the history and present disposition of virtually every object within two light years is shaped by its relationship to this body. The sun is a bright G2 main sequence star, theoretically on the hot end of the continuum of stars able to give rise to life. For most of its history, transhumanity fueled its rises and falls with the sun’s energy, first as stored in materials like hydrocarbons, later directly with solar converters.
Today the sun remains a crucial source of energy, but its outer reaches have also become home to some. The adaptations required to dwell here make these [[morphs#surya%20%28Biomorph%29|suryas]] one of transhumanity’s most unusual offshoots.
==<span style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">**Suryas and Salamanders**</span>== 
Perhaps an example of transhumanity’s most extreme neogenetic creations are the morphs adapted to live in the sun’s corona. Suryas, named after a Hindu sun deity, are large, whale-like, and uniquely adapted to dwell in the brilliant, superheated plasma cloud of the sun’s outermost layer. Each surya is like a miniature version of a circumsolar habitat. Their metabolisms generate powerful magnetic fields that shield them from the sun’s heat and radiation, while acting as magnetic sails and scoops by which they sail on the currents of the solar wind and extract elements carried on it. Suryas are protected by layers of liquid water “blubber” that capture harmful ions, which internal medichines extract and eject, while maintaining useful elements such as oxygen and hydrogen, from which more water can be synthesized. They communicate using patterns of dark and light coloration on their exterior skins and are extremely sensitive to the helioseismic soundwaves that are the sun’s pulse, using these vibrations to predict and avoid heavy weather in the coronal atmosphere.
A second type of coronal morph is the [[morphs#salamander%20%28biomorph%29|salamander]], a tiny humanoid morph with gas jets on the back and chest for maneuvering in vacuum. Salamanders have very similar metabolisms to suryas, but are unable to survive unprotected in the corona. They subsist on the chemicals and energy extracted from the corona by [[Ukko Jylina]], the only habitat where they are found. Both suryas and salamanders communicate either via transmissions from their implants or by “sunspotting”—shifting dark and light patterns on their skins to form language.
==<span style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">**Habitats**</span>== 
Habitats in Sol’s corona face challenges more extreme than those faced by habs anywhere else in the system. Transhumanity’s only means of shielding a habitat from the heat and radiation emitted by a G2 star is to generate strong electromagnetic fields. Even then, the dangers posed by solar flares and coronal mass ejections—massive explosions that jettison coronal material tens of thousands of kilometers out into circumsolar space—mean that the Sun’s polar regions are the only safe space in which to position habitats. As such, circumsolar habs require extraordinary expense to build and maintain, and two of the three major circumsolar habitats are heavily backed by distant organizations.
The outer layers of circumsolar habitats are covered with thousands of electromagnetic dynamos drawing power from the sun itself. These dynamos generate the powerful fields necessary for shielding. Within are intermediate layers filled with liquid water that captures ionized particles, teeming with nanites that collect the ions and vent them into space. The water must be regularly replaced from captured iceteroids that are imported using heavy electromagnetic shielding of their own. Within the water shield is a [[clusters|cluster habitat]], an array of modules on a framework following a roughly spherical plan. Coronal habitats are easily detectable at a great distance because of the bow shock preceding them and the plasma tail left behind in the solar wind.
===<span style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">**[[Aten]]**</span>=== 
Operated by a consortium including hypercorp interests and the University of New Shanghai, Aten supports a population of about 12,000 transhumans. Rumors abound that military research is a major component of this habitat’s mission. Aten is heavily policed and difficult to visit. The most publicized discoveries from this habitat involve propulsion systems and new solar energy collection technologies.
===<span style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">**[[Hooverman-Geischecker]]**</span>=== 
The [[argonauts]] and Titan Autonomous University are the major supporters of this habitat, which supports a population of about 4,000. In contrast to Aten, access to this habitat is relatively open. Major avenues of research include pure science and research into corona adapted morphs.
===<span style="font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;">**[[Ukko Jylina|Ukko Jylinä]]**</span>=== 
Ukko Jylinä is the name used by outsiders for the suryas’ safe harbor. In the surya tongue, the name for the place is a common sequence of helioseismic vibrations. When transposed fifteen octaves upward into the usual range of transhuman hearing, this sound is a chaotic rumble to most ears, but the suryas consider it one of the most beautiful sounds the sun makes.
Ukko Jylinä is more of a camp than a hab, an area of refuge for suryas during severe solar weather. It also serves as a place for suryas to socialize and mate, replenish water from imported iceteroids, and egocast or resleeve. The population therefore fluctuates a great deal, usually hovering around 300, but swelling to 3,000 (nearly the entire surya population) during heavy weather. Ukko Jylina also has a few modules in which non-surya morphs can survive.
Very little of Ukko Jylinä consists of enclosed hab modules. Instead there are many utility modules with their access ports open to space. Bereft of the solar wind, suryas within the camp generally wear gas-expelling maneuvering harnesses or resleeve in salamanders if they need to do work requiring fine manipulation.

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=The Solar Corona= 
We use all kinds of words to make the sun seem harmless and safe: Average. Middle-aged. Dwarf. Main sequence.
Don’t believe any of it, my little sentinels. Sol is a monster, a behemoth. It measures 1.4 million kilometers in diameter and masses more than everything else in our system combined. Our primary’s gravitational influence is felt light years away. Nothing is immune to its touch.
Deep in the nuclear furnace that is Sol’s frantic heart, hellish temperatures and pressures tear matter apart, stripping electrons from their nuclei, creating monstrous magnetic fields, and birthing terrible storms that rage across our sun’s face. Lines of magnetic force shape coronal loops big enough to swallow a planet or birth coronal mass ejections that fling billions of tons of superheated plasma tens of thousands of kilometers into space. The accompanying radiation reaches much further. If the range of Sol’s touch is measured in light years, the reach of Sol’s rage is measured in astronomical units.
And here we sit on Sol’s very doorstep.
Still think this is a boring assignment?
==Solar X-Risks== 
The frst thing to keep in mind is that the sun itself presents several existential risks. Yeah, it seems safe and stable enough, but it is essentially a ticking time bomb. Sol is the most powerful force in the system and with a little shove in the wrong direction it could cause the death of millions—or everyone. These are just a few of the possibilities:
===Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and Flares=== 
CMEs and fares happen when solar magnetic fields are stretched to the point of breaking. By using a powerful magnetic source, these dangerous events could be targeted at one’s enemies. The bursts of radiation thrown out by these events is damaging to spacecraft, satellites, and biological life, can haze out important communications and sensor wavelengths, and can cause dangerous geomagnetic storms on planetary bodies. Planets with powerful magnetic fields ([[Earth]], [[Jupiter]], [[Saturn]], etc.) would be protected from the worst of the ionic particles emitted by a CME.
Everyone else would be fried.
===Iron Bombardment=== 
The sun produces energy by fusing lighter elements in to heavier elements. The fusion of iron is an endothermic process, though. In other words, it doesn’t produce energy. Instead, it sucks the life out of you like a needy lover. There isn't enough iron in the solar system to disrupt the fusion process of a whole star, but there is enough to throw Sol out of balance, causing a localized collapse of the solar surface. This would lead to violent magnetic storms and plasma ejections.
On a more speculative scale, if some advanced intelligence were able to figure out a method to cause the star’s interior to burn down to a core of iron and nickel, the sun would explode in a supernova, wiping out the entire solar system. While such methods are far beyond transhumanity’s knowledge, we cannot rule out the capabilities of other species or minds like the TITANs. Of course, an entity or civilization capable of iron bombing a star can probably do much, much worse things to us.
===Mini Black Hole Kill Shot=== 
If a [[Ceres]]-sized singularity were somehow introduced to the sun’s heart, this mini black hole would act as a vacuum cleaner, eating mass and growing as it feeds. Since every star is a delicate balance between the compressive force of mass and the expansionist force of fusion, this would destabilize the star. The eventual result: a supernova—and the end to all your woes.
==Coronal Habitats== 
Owing to the fact that the solar corona is such a difficult environment for man and machine, there are only three coronal habitats. All three are stationed in highly elliptical heliocentric orbits that bring them to the sun’s north pole at perihelion, where stations are relatively safe from fares and coronal mass ejections. These coronal habitats are easily identified by the bow shocks preceding them and the plasma tails that stretch behind them, giving them a characteristic tear-drop shape as the solar wind bends around their powerful magnetic fields.
The hulls of circumsolar habitats are covered with thousands of electromagnetic dynamos that draw power from the sun itself and generate the powerful EM fields that shield the habitats from solar radiation. Beneath the habitats’ hulls are layers of circulating water for shielding. This energy-blocking shell protects a spherical array of habitat modules.
Solar habitats do a thriving business with iceteroid miners in the [[Jovian Trojans|Trojans]] who deliver deep-space icebergs to replenish the habitats’ water supply. The iceteroids are heavily insulated and are themselves equipped with powerful EM shields. Moving these huge bodies of ice into the inner system is a dangerous process—if any element of the iceteroid’s shielding were to fail, intense solar radiation would immediately vaporize the ice in the affected area, generating a gas jet, and creating a runaway comet. Due to the resources necessary to import iceteroids from the outer system and the risk of an accident, supplying these habitats with water is a fabulously expensive process.
==Solarians and Coronal Morphs== 
The “native” Solarian culture is dismissive of habitats, preferring a nomadic lifestyle of drifting and swimming in the sun’s magnetic field in corona-adapted [[Morphs#Surya|surya]] morphs. With the exception of a number of scientists engaged in solar research, this population is largely mercurial, with a high percentage of uplifted dolphin and whale egos, as the corona is one of the few environments within the solar system that offers cetacea an approximate alternative to their native physical forms and lifestyles. As a result, Solarian culture is heavily influenced by dolphin and whale norms. Suryas often congregate in pods defined by powerful and complex familial relationships. Their culture is more free-wheeling than typical human behavior and there is little goal-direction. Solarian culture is also unusually intimate and sex is shared freely. The sonar of baseline dolphins allows them to “see” everything that is happening in their companions’ bodies, in terms of health, mood, and so on. It is often said that dolphins have no secrets, and so it has come to be with suryas.
As a result of this intimacy and their general seclusion from transhuman culture, the Solarians are sometimes seen as stand-offish and unwelcoming. This is in large part due to several unfortunate incidents that occurred between Solarians and socialites vacationing in surya morphs and a simple failure to comprehend each others’ cultural norms. While the cetacean Solarians are generally inquisitive and sociable, there are some Solarians who have definitely adopted an isolationist mindset, looking at their lifestyle as turning their back on the stresses and concerns of transhuman society. Because of the radical nature of the environment in which the Solarians live, the cultural equivalent of radiative speciation can be expected to some degree. Though they remain an offshoot of transhumanity, the Solarians are definitely their own clade with their own goals and outlook.
Some other elements of transhuman society find this concerning, viewing the divergent path of the Solarians as the growth of an alien culture in the heart of the solar system.

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