Centauri

    Most of the geographic features are low hills and shallow basins; on the whole, the planet is remarkably smooth. Thin clouds and feeble weather systems cause a gleaming ammonia snow to fall in places. A few mountain ranges are high enough to receive a light dusting of carbon dioxide frost. What might have been sites of volcanic or geothermal activity seem to be entirely subdued by massive artificial constructs underground.

    Dotting the planet here and there, often encompassing the area around higher mountain peaks, are several hundred patches of dense, colorful, and low-lying vegetation filled with a profusion of life forms. Each is ringed by a light mesh fence that stretches hundreds of feet into the air. Other concentrations of life seem to have the orderly arrangement of small farms and extend several levels underground. These areas comprise a tiny proportion of the planet's surface, however. The vast majority of life is a thin distribution of organisms suited to urban living... and hundreds of billions of Centaurans.

    Excepting what appear to be large wildlife refuges and urban parks, Centauri is entirely covered by signs of habitation. The outer few hundred feet of the crust might be described as a foam, so thickly is it laced with residences, industries, and observatories. The lines and arcs of mass-transit systems and shipping lanes streak the surface in an orderly fashion. From orbit, the pattern appears like slowly-formed crystals that expanded until they grew into each other. Vertically, population is concentrated at the surface; horizontally, the population density is nearly the same in all locations.

    Sensors indicate that deposits of heavy and industrial metals are nearly untouched. Light metals and crystalline supplies are abundant, but much is arranged in a fashion that indicates they are currently in use. Though none is within less than a thousand feet of the surface, traces of invasion are still detectable- numerous circular and elliptical craters filled with high-density silicate and metal.

    Most of the geographic features are low hills and shallow basins; on the whole, the planet is remarkably smooth. Thin clouds and feeble weather systems cause a gleaming ammonia snow to fall in places. A few mountain ranges are high enough to receive a light dusting of carbon dioxide frost. What might have been sites of volcanic or geothermal activity seem to be entirely subdued by massive artificial constructs underground.