LV-426 Expanded Details

Created by: Canon Macross

Maintained by: Mr. Sketchley / http://www.macrossrpg.com/~archers/Images/StudioOtaking.gif

Note: further edits coming later.

History

The UN Government explored the planet in late 2035, as the system was prominently mentioned in the Zentraedi star charts that the UNG use to explore space. In fact, the Zentraedi star charts expressly forbid Zentraedi from entering the system. The UNG explorers interpreted that as meaning that it contained a Protoculture civilization.

The explorers found a dry planet with a breathable atmosphere. After brief to moderately intense scans of the planet were completed, the UNG decided to build an outpost on the planet with the short term goals of more details exploration of the planet and mining valuable mineral resources that are plentiful near the surface of the planet in quite a few areas. The long term plan was to terraform the planet via raising the temperature of the atmosphere enough to melt the polar icecaps in addition to finding the source of the solitary water aquifer on the planet’s surface. To those ends, a giant terraforming tower with a single farming and mining community was established.

Soon after the terraforming tower was completed in 2039, something happened and the colonists and UNG personnel assigned to the colony were all mysteriously killed. The evidence that they were killed and not kidnapped, was red, bloody goo that was all that remained of their bodies. The bones and everything else were liquefied by something that even after 10 years, UNS scientists are still uncertain to. The UNG know that it was not an extraterrestrial visitor, as the orbital satellites didn’t detect any traffic in the system – merely that signals from the planet’s surface stopped.

The UNG scrubbed the site down, removed all of the equipment that they could, retrieved the satellites from orbit and closed the site down. The UNG didn’t visit LV-426 for 10 years after the incident. Solving the mystery behind the death of the residents of the colony was soon put on the back burner and soon after forgotten, as the UNG focused its efforts on goals and objectives that gave larger results in smaller time frames then continued investment of resources in LV-426 would.

Sometime in the 10 years after, the Sector 7 Space Pirates violated the UNG’s no entry restrictions into the Char System and established a base in the terraforming tower. They undertook extensive modifications to the tower, inclusive of carving a giant hole in one side to accommodate an internal space-dock and a targeting or focusing array for a weapon of considerable power.

Sometime later, the captured UNI Officer, Leiagh Klein Moss was brought or transferred and imprisoned as a slave (and eventual) worker for the Sector 7 Space Pirates. She was the person directly involved in decoding transmissions from the pirate’s mole in the UNS Argo.

During the UNSM Death Angel’s mission against the Sector 7 Space Pirates, members of the squad were capture and brought to the pirates base in the terraforming tower for questioning. The squad had also captured members of the space pirates who eventually revealed the Sector 7 Space Pirate’s base on LV-426. A mission was enacted to recover the kidnapped members of the squad and gather intelligence for a later operation to bring the pirates to justice. The rescue and recon mission went astray, members of the squad where killed as the kidnapped squad members were rescued, in addition to UNI Officer Moss. The support ship Rainbow Warrior II was destroyed in orbit by the Sector 7 Space Pirate’s weapon at the top of the terraforming tower. Shortly afterwards, the battle for control of LV-426 an the terraforming tower reached its peak. The end result of the battle had the Sector 7 Space Pirates and their Anti-UN allies retreating from the terraforming tower and LV-426.

Soon after, the UNG refocused their efforts on the planet and initiated a revamped terraforming project and development of a joint UNSM and UNI training facility in and around the terraforming tower.

Since there is no accurate or updated information on the site for the past 10 years, the UNG has initiated an intense exploration of the surface of LV-426. One notable discovery was the remains of a crashed spaceship in the silicate desert to the West of the terraforming tower.

The Terraforming Tower on Planet LV-426

Based on the following images: Skycity 1 Skycity 2

The tower is built in a circular valley with sheer cliff walls reaching almost 200 m in height. The landscape around the tower is broken and there are numerous clefts in the cliff that can be used to approach the tower with stealth.

Each level is roughly bowl shaped, with a radius of 175 (lowest level) ~ 125 (topmost level) m and each floor has a height of 60 m with an additional 20 m height (for a total of 80 m) of open space with only support columns. There are 10 floors in total, above ground. A track was designed run around the circumference of each level as a means to quickly and easily move people around. The main vertical elevators are in the support columns. In the center of each level is an area for a park. Each level is it’s own separate city-block type area, with shops, offices and plenty of apartments in multi-level arrangements. The average building is three to five floors high, with the taller ones reaching 7/8 floors in height. This is the arrangement that the UNS engineers who built the tower envisioned for it. The surface of the ceiling contained most of the atmospheric processors; all of which were removed when the UNS pulled out. The layout of the tower is known to be the following:

Terraforming Tower

based on Skycity building

’’Terraforming Tower’’

Floor	Pirates Era	UNG Era
10	Completely destroyed	In the process of being rebuilt to serve as central support for the dome above.
9	Virtually destroyed	Rebuilt with offices and construction facilities for level 10.
8	Mecha hangar, weapons storage and repair level	TBA
7	Pirating spoils storage level	TBA
6	Pirating spoils spill-over storage level	TBA
5	abandoned	TBA
4	abandoned	TBA
3	Starship hangar level, repair facilities, meeting rooms, offices and ‘guest’ rooms. Storage depot and repair facility for the Anti-UN that occasionally stopover and trade with the Pirates; big door on one side: 80 x 80 m.	Starship hangar level, repair facilities, meeting rooms, offices and guest rooms. Storage depot and repair facility for Bolognese Frigate (or smaller) sized ships; big door on one side: 80 x 80 m.
2	Level of the prisoners and secondary guest level	TBA
1	abandoned	TBA
Ground	destroyed by fire	TBA
Sub 1	abandoned	TBA
Sub 2	minimal size, abandoned	TBA
Sub 3	minimal size, abandoned	TBA
Sub 4	minimal size, abandoned save for: Neo-Zeon, home of some rogues that the Pirates either didn’t know or care about. Have access caves dug out from their sub-level	minimal size, abandoned save for: Neo-Zeon, home of some rogues that the Pirates either didn’t know or care about. Have access caves dug out from their sub-level
Sub 5	minimal size, abandoned	TBA
Sub 6	minimal size, abandoned	TBA
Sub 7	minimal size, abandoned	TBA
Sub 8	Engineering level for monitoring geo-energy extraction machinery	TBA

Note: each level is roughly bowl shaped, with a radius of 175 (base) ~ 125 (top) m and a height of 60 m (10 floors). There is an additional 20 m height (for a total of 80 m) of open space with only support columns. A track (unused except for on the palace level) runs around the circumference of each level. In the center of each level is a park. Every level, save for the palace, is dry with no plant life whatsoever to speak of.

Proposed Final view of the Einstien Colony Ship docked to the top of the Terraforming Tower

Current Plans

Current plans for the Terraforming Tower and LV-426 are to turn it into a UN Marines and UN Intelligence base of considerable size. Plans include the establishment of mining facilities, advanced weapons and vehicles testing ranges and a supply depot. To assist in the role of supply and support, an orbiting space station is under construction.

• Map of LV-426
• Transit Map of LV-426

work still underway.